Tag Archives: Terezin writers

Hans Neumeyer and Irma Kuhn: Sharing Gifts of Music and Poetry in Terezin

Terezin Musicians, ,

Though there are many accounts of the incredibly gifted artists, musicians, and writers of Terezin, there are few existing accounts of individuals with disabilities in the ghetto.

The Nazis brutally persecuted people with disabilities, and having any kind of disability could be a potential death sentence. And if someone was Jewish and had a disability,
their chance of survival was extremely low. Yet, in spite of these impossible odds,
there were gifted people with disabilities who left an indelible mark on the world, even
while imprisoned in a Nazi ghetto. And two of these individuals were Hans Neumeyer,
a pianist, composer, and music teacher and his older sister Irma, who had a gift for writing poetry.

Irma and Hans Neumeyer: Life Before Terezin

Almost nothing is known of Irma, or what her relationship with her brother was like. It’s known that she was an intelligent and thoughtful person, with a gift for writing poetry, as this manuscript reveals.

A page from the manuscript of a poem Irma wrote in Terezin. Her signature appears on the top left side of the page. Used with permission of Tim Locke.

We know much more about Hans, who was born in Munich on September 13,1887 to a Jewish family. His father owned a men’s clothing store, and provided a comfortable life for his wife and children. As a child, Hans showed a strong aptitude for music. While still very young, he also developed an eye condition that caused him to slowly lose his vision. By the time Hans was 14, he was completely blind, but this didn’t hold him back from pursuing his music studies.

Hans later studied at the Academy of Music in Munich, graduating in 1909, and soon after co-authored a textbook on harmonics. He then taught at Hellerau, an
esteemed eurythmics center, where he met his future wife Vera Ephraim, one of the students.

In 1915, Hans set up his own music school with fellow musician Valeria Cratina, which they ran for the next ten years. He married Vera in 1920, and the couple settled in the artistic quarter of the city of Dachau. They had two children, Ruth and Raimund, who
they baptized as Protestants. Vera’s father was Jewish and her mother was Lutheran, and she was raised in her mother’s faith. Vera herself was very dedicated to the Lutheran faith and wanted her children baptized as well. 

The Neumeyer family on holiday in the Alps. Used with permission of Tim Locke.

But when the Nazis came to power, neither Vera nor her children were spared from Nazi persecution. Ruth and Raimund were barred from attending school, from parks, swimming pools, and movie theaters. Then, on November 8, 1938 officials from the town hall knocked on the door and ordered Vera and the children to leave before dawn or else go to prison. Faced with the choice of leaving home or going to prison, they went to stay with one of Vera’s eurythmics students in Munich, where Hans joined them. But this was only
a temporary solution and the family had to move frequently. 

At this stage, Hans’ sister Irma was living in a nursing home in Munich, since she was in frail health and had also lost her eyesight. Despite this, she would occasionally visit the family at their home. It’s unclear whether she continued to have contact with her brother and his family after they were forced to leave their home.

In May 1939, Ruth and Raimund were sent to England on a Kindertransport, where
they remained for the rest of the war. Hans and Vera intended to follow them, as Hans had secured a permit to go to a home for blind people in Leatherhead, just south of London. Tragically, Hans and Vera were never able to get out of Germany. The exact reason
is uncertain, but it seems likely that they were unable to get the permits to leave Germany.

Hans Neumeyer, circa 1937. Used with permission of Tim Locke.

Irma Kuhn and Hans Neumeyer: Deportation to Terezin

In June 1942, Hans was deported to Terezin, where he was sent to live in a special barracks for people with disabilities. Irma was also deported to Terezin from the Munich nursing home in 1942. On July 13th, 1942, Vera was deported, either to Auschwitz or to the Warsaw ghetto, where she died.

Conditions in Terezin were horrific, with many thousands of people crammed together in a confined space, meager food rations, and rampant hunger and disease. But many people who survived Terezin remembered that conditions were especially terrible for elderly men and women and those with disabilities. 

Since Hans was 55 and Irma was 68 years old and both were completely blind, their chance of long-term survival in Terezin was poor.

Yet Hans managed to survive in the camp far longer than anyone would have suspected, largely due to his musical gifts and resourcefulness. One day, Hans heard someone whistling Bach fugues and soon learned that this person was 17-year old Hans Ries, who was tasked with bringing food to sick and disabled inmates. Ries soon became a student of Hans, who gave him music lessons in exchange for soup and bread. 

Hans began to take on more music students, including a 16-year old violinist named Thomas Mandl. Hans’ students called him “The Professor”, and those who
survived remembered him as a man of sharp intelligence and quick wit, who
always listened attentively to his students. While Hans had an easy smile, he possessed mental strength and toughness as well. Thomas Mandl remembered the calm and refined way Hans would eat his soup ration, despite the intense hunger he and the other
Terezin inmates lived with every day. And Hans never turned away a student who
couldn’t provide a bread or soup ration. 

Hans taught his students a wide variety of topics, including harmony, intonation, rhythm, and counterpoint. One of his most successful students was Thomas, who
practiced diligently each night on the violin he’d brought into the ghetto. Hans
would listen to him play and offer suggestions for improvement. They often
discussed other topics as well, like politics and cultural events that were happening
in the ghetto.

The lessons continued until late 1943, when Hans contracted tuberculosis and was sent to a section of the ghetto infirmary for tuberculosis patients. Thomas and his other students continued to visit him when they could, and even from his sickbed Hans urged them to stay strong and not to lose hope. 

His sister Irma passed away in 1943, soon before Hans became ill. Little is known of Irma’s time in Terezin, but we know that she somehow managed to find her brother in the ghetto and reconnect with him. And during her time in Terezin, Irma composed a
deeply impassioned  and intricate poem, which she dictated to another inmate. 

Page from the manuscript of Irma’s poem, with a hand-drawn Star of David. Used with permission of Tim Locke.

The poem was dedicated to her brother Hans, and Irma presumably found
someone to deliver it to him. The poem’s imagery draws on Jewish symbolism
and tradition, and even expresses a hope for redemption, like in these powerful lines:

“I hear the sounds of the spheres

I hear the harp’s song

And I am adorned with the star

Within which Judea triumphs.

It leads us once from home

And will lead us back once more.

To our hearth, our table, our camp

It is our highest happiness.

 

And peace, peace, peace, will spread in the room

Peace signifies this dream

It is peace that the Lord has given us

In omnipotence, grace, goodness,

protected, shielded, guided

He who never in his life

Was deprived of freedom

Does not know the greatest evil

He does not know the power of freedom.

 

Most gracious Father of all, you have heard our plea

Those who are humiliated like us,

Only you can lift them up

Come then, sisters, brothers

In ghettos near and far

Hear the great news

The day of the Lord is near.”

Words and text copyright Tim Locke, 12.8.2022, translation by Lauren Leiderman. Used with permission of Tim Locke.

One can’t help but wonder if Irma wrote the poem for her brother intending him to set it to music. As he was teaching music in Theresienstadt, it seems likely that he would have wanted to compose as well. He could have dictated the music to one of his music students to write down.

It’s hard to imagine the depth of emotions that must have rushed through Hans when he received his sister’s poem. Sadly, his feelings about the poem remain unknown, as Hans died from tuberculosis in the spring of 1944.

The Legacy of Hans Neumeyer and Irma Kuhn

Little of Hans’s work survives, other than a string duo and string trio, a Christmas song written in December 1939 for his son Raimund, and two recorder duets written for his daughter Ruth in Easter 1940. Ruth and her brother remained in England after the war, and both eventually married and had families of their own. 

Many years later, in 2005, Ruth recounted her family’s story to the Imperial War Museum in London. Ruth’s son Tim also commemorates Hans, Irma, and the rest of their family on a blog called The Ephraims and the Neumeyers. 

Thanks to the tireless efforts of Hans’ and Irma’s surviving family, their legacy lives on, an incredible testament to their determination, resilience, and creative brilliance that the Nazis could never extinguish. 

Further Reading

Irma’s Final Word From Theresienstadt

Mandl’s Testimony of Theresienstadt

 

Vera and Pavel Stransky: Messengers of the Terezin Ghetto

Children in Terezin, Stories of Terezin, Terezin Writers,

Soon after discovering the remarkable story of Inge Katz and Schmuel Berger, who met and fell in love in Terezin, I learned about another incredible Terezin love story. It’s the story of a young couple, Pavel Stransky and Vera Stadler, who met and fell in love during one of the darkest times in human history.

Pavel Stransky and Vera Stadler’s Life Before the War

As Pavel relates in his account, As Messengers for the Victims, he met Vera during the summer of 1938, when both of their families vacationed in a small town in eastern Bohemia. 16-year-old Vera, a pretty, dark-haired girl, caught Pavel’s eye, and he invited her to go to a dance with him. As the months progressed, their relationship
blossomed, and by 1941, they were engaged
to be married. 

The young couple struggled to retain hope for the future in the face of tremendous odds, including Nazi persecution and the tragic suicide of Pavel’s father. Drawing strength from the love he and Vera shared, Pavel underwent a teacher training course and accepted a job teaching Czech at the one remaining Jewish elementary school in Prague. 

But Pavel never had the chance to start his teaching job. On December 1, 1941 he was transported to Terezin along with one thousand other young men. Not long after, Vera and her family arrived in Terezin on another transport. 

A Terezin Ghetto Love Story

Upon their arrival, Vera and Pavel were assigned to barracks and given jobs in the camp. Pavel worked in a food warehouse as a porter while Vera was responsible for distributing meager food rations to the residents of Terezin. 

After two incredibly difficult years in Terezin, Pavel was assigned to a transport in
the winter of 1943. In despair at the thought of being separated, and not knowing where the transport was heading, Pavel and Vera decided to get married. This would allow Vera to join him on the journey to the unknown. 

Vera and Pavel married the night before the transport, under a makeshift cloth chuppah held up by four men. No wine was available for the ceremony, so the couple drank from a bowl filled with a bitter coffee substitute. There were no rings to exchange and no glass to step on, and they never even received a marriage contract. 

The newly married couple spent their wedding night in a vast room with Vera’s mother and 2,500 other prisoners, sitting on their suitcases and holding hands as the hours passed. The next morning, the young couple was crammed into a cattle car with other prisoners, where they were forced to remain for days without food or water.

Auschwitz and the Czech Family Camp

Days later, the transport arrived at Auschwitz, where Pavel, Vera and thousands of
other exhausted and starving prisoners staggered from the cattle cars onto a
ramp illuminated by blazing spotlights. SS guards shouted at the prisoners and beat them as they forced the men away from the women and children. They grouped the new arrivals into rows of five and marched them from the ramp. No selection took place, and
no prisoners were sent to the gas chambers that night. 

Pavel and the other men arrived at a large washroom, where they were forced to remove all their valuables and clothing. Then other prisoners shaved their bodies,
tattooed numbers on their left forearms, and then forced them to stand under freezing cold showers. Driven from the showers, Pavel and the other men had to wait outside in the icy air for hours, until other prisoners delivered threadbare uniforms and wooden shoes. 

The treatment that Pavel and the other people on his transport received was different from what most new arrivals at Auschwitz experienced. Their heads were left unshaved,
and everyone on the transport – men, women, and children – were sent to one camp and housed in separate men’s and women’s blocks. This camp was known as the “Czech Family Camp”, and it was another Nazi hoax concocted to fool the Red Cross into thinking that
the  prisoners were treated relatively well. 

To keep the hoax going, the Nazis kept this camp filled with relatively healthy prisoners, most of whom arrived on transports from Terezin. Every six months, the Nazis
sent surviving prisoners to the gas chambers and replaced them with prisoners
from another transport. 

Soon after arriving in the camp, Pavel was put to work carrying heavy rocks for use in the construction of a road, while Vera had to transport barrels of soup to the workers. In
an incredible act of love, Vera often risked her own life to smuggle extra rations of soup to Pavel so he could keep up his strength. 

After a few days of this bone-breaking work, something remarkable happened due to the efforts of Fredy Hirsch, a gifted athlete and youth leader who also arrived in Auschwitz in September 1943. Determined to help the children in any way he could, Fredy
fearlessly approached Doctor Mengele and asked for permission to create a children’s block in the camp. Mengele agreed and put Fredy in charge of the children’s block. 

Since Pavel had taken a teacher training course in Prague, he was assigned to be one of the coordinators of the children’s block. In this hell on earth, Pavel, Fredy, and several others did everything possible to improve the lives of these condemned children, to shield them from the horrors of camp life, and to provide them with fleeting moments of happiness.

They taught them songs and lessons from memory, organized art and poetry competitions, and helped them create skits and dances. Tragically, the devotion of Pavel and the other coordinators could not save these children, and almost all of them were murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. 

Years after the war ended, Pavel remained haunted by the loss of these children, and could never stop wondering who they would have grown up to be, what gifts and contributions they would have made to the world.

Liberation and Life After Terezin

By June 1944, the Nazis were on the losing side of the war, and they made a desperate push to manufacture more weapons. They sent transports of healthier prisoners, including Pavel, to work in a factory at the Schwarzheide concentration camp. Vera was also chosen to work, and placed on a different transport to another factory.

At Schwarzheide, Pavel and the other prisoners were forced to work long hours clearing away the debris of Allied air raids. The conditions were unbearable, with meager rations, no hygiene options, and nothing to wear but ragged clothing, even in the bitter winter.

Then, in April 1945, all surviving prisoners at Schwarzheide were forced on a terrifying 19 day death march through the German countryside, back towards Terezin. Finally, on May 7th, 1945, the SS abruptly stopped the march and fled. There Pavel stood with his surviving companions, starving, ragged, and weighing just 70 pounds, but a free man at last. 

Within days, Pavel returned to Prague with just one mission: to find his beloved Vera once again. As the months passed, Pavel gradually recovered his health and continued to search tirelessly for news of his wife, but learned nothing. Still, he refused to give into despair, and continued to hold out hope. 

Then, two months later, the doorbell of the apartment where he was staying rang. Pavel opened the door, and was overwhelmed with emotion as he gazed at Vera standing right in front of him, looking as beautiful as ever. 

Filled with indescribable joy at being reunited, they married a second time, this time under a real chuppah, with wine for the ceremony. They were never again separated in more than 50 years of marriage, during which time they raised four children and six grandchildren. 

Pavel later wrote a book about their experiences during the war, and traveled to schools throughout Europe and the United States sharing their story with younger generations. He considered himself and Vera to be messengers for the victims of the Holocaust and after Vera’s death, Pavel continued his mission in her memory. In 2015 Pavel himself passed away, rejoining his beloved Vera once again. 

 

Vera Schiff: Chronicler of Love, Loss, and Resistance in Terezin

Children in Terezin, Terezin Writers,

When it comes to Holocaust education, one of the tragic realities is that the millions of lives lost are so often reduced to statistics. The problem with this is it becomes so easy to overlook the fact that each of these numbers represents a human being with a story, a life extinguished by the Nazis.

This issue is one that Vera Schiff continues to grapple with to this day. And that’s one of the reasons why Vera, an author and Holocaust survivor from Prague, has a mission to share the stories of the people behind the numbers, so that future generations may know them and remember.

Here is Vera’s story.

Vera Schiff’s Early Life

Vera Schiff was born in Prague on May 17, 1926, and grew up in a loving home with her parents Elsie and Siegfried Katz, and her sister Eva, who was 18 months older. Her family was proud of their Jewish heritage and observed the traditions, but also had many Christian friends. 

Vera’s father was a lawyer who worked for the Finance Ministry. He provided well for his family, and they lived in a beautiful apartment in the upscale Letna district of Prague. Elsie and Siegfried were loving and nurturing parents who wanted the very best for their daughters. Both Vera and Eva excelled in school, and after school they studied French, piano, and art appreciation with a governess. 

Then in March 1939 Vera’s life changed forever. The Nazis had annexed the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia in 1938, and they occupied the rest of the country on March 15, 1939. The Nazis then began their systematic persecution of the country’s Jewish population. They soon fired Vera’s father from his job without any pension or severance, and froze his bank accounts. Her family hid many of their valuables, knowing that the Nazis would seize them. The Nazis ordered Jewish families to hand in their jewelry, appliances and other valuables, which were stored in synagogues the Nazis appropriated. 

Deportation to Terezin

After living under the brutal Nazi rule in Prague for three years, Vera and her family received a deportation order in May 1942. On a sunny, spring day they bundled up a few belongings and walked to the designated building in central Prague. They sat in a crammed hall with 5,000 other people for three days. During that time, the Nazis took away all their identity cards and papers, and ordered them to hand over the keys to their apartments. Then they boarded a train, which took them to a town called Bohušovice.

The Nazis forced them to exit the train with their belongings and ordered them to march two miles to the gates of Terezin. Vera remembers that the Nazis barked orders at them to move faster during the entire journey. The Nazis stole some of the prisoners’ belongings and herded them into a barrack.

Three days later, Vera and her family were scheduled to be deported again. They were spared due to the intervention of a Gentile friend, Mr. Bleha. He instructed them to talk to his friend Dr. Tarjan, who would help them. Vera slipped through the crowds, found the doctor, and gave him her family’s identity numbers. The doctor told her to go back to her family and lie low. 

On the day of the scheduled transport, Vera’s family learned that they were no longer included in it. Instead, Vera, Eva, and their mother were sent to live in the women’s barracks. There, they slept on hard, lice-infested bunks crammed with other women. Vera was assigned to work in the hospital, and Eva was sent to work in the gardens. 

In the following video below, Vera discusses her life in Terezin.

In Terezin, rations were extremely meager, and disease was rampant due to the overcrowding, lack of sanitation, and filth of the camp. Vera’s grandmother died shortly after arriving in Terezin, and then her sister Eva became ill.

Desperate to save her, the family tried to get contraband medication and gave her their rations, but Eva died from her illness. Then Vera’s father became ill and died, and her mother’s health also began to fail when she contracted tuberculosis. 

Meeting Arthur Schiff

One day when Vera was bringing soup to her mother, she met a young man named Arthur Schiff, a former Czech soldier and Nazi resistor. Despite the squalid conditions of the camp, Arthur looked neat and clean, and he greeted her with a smile.

The two struck up a conversation, and got to know one another as Arthur accompanied her back to her mother. Vera later learned that Arthur belonged to an organized resistance movement composed of former Czech army officials. He participated in many different activities to resist the Nazis, such as forging new identities for Czech Jews and smuggling medications into Terezin.

After they parted, Vera assumed she’d never see him again. After all, this was Terezin, where people died or disappeared every day. But a few days later, Arthur showed up at the hospital where Vera worked, and they soon became inseparable. 

In 1944, Arthur asked Vera to marry him. He had heard rumors that if they were married they could be deported together. Vera refused his proposal several times, feeling that her first responsibility was to care for her mother. She hoped she would be able to keep her mother alive until the end of the war and then bring her to a sanatorium. But despite her best efforts, Vera’s mother died from tuberculosis in August 1944, leaving Vera without family.

Later that year, Vera agreed to marry Arthur. They married in the camp on March 6, 1945, and the Chief Rabbi of Denmark officiated the wedding. The couple stood under a chuppah made of sticks and a torn blanket, and since there was no wine, they sipped from a cup of black coffee. Arthur even managed to arrange for a Danish violinist named Hambro to attend and serenade the newlyweds. Even though they were now married, they still had to live apart. 

Life After Terezin

The couple survived the war in Terezin, which was liberated by the Russian army on May 8, 1945. Arthur and Vera separated for a time after the war. Vera returned to Prague in the summer of 1945, and lived with her father’s former co-worker. A few weeks later, she was  able to reclaim her family’s apartment. But the memories of her lost parents and sister haunted Vera, and she moved to a small room near the university. She also tirelessly worked to find other members of her extended family. Tragically, Vera eventually learned that all her relatives had died in the Holocaust, and she was the only survivor. 

Soon after returning to Prague, Vera enrolled in the university, hoping to resume her dream of becoming a doctor. But she struggled with poor health after being in Terezin, which made attending school difficult. Vera later reunited with Arthur, and the couple emigrated to Israel in 1949 with their young son David.

Vera took a job working with newborns in the Rambam hospital, and Arthur started a career as a pharmacist. They later lived in a kibbutz, where their second son Michael was born. Eventually, they moved to a town called Nahariya. Vera has many good memories of their time there. During the years in Nahariya, Vera worked in an outpatient clinic while earning her degree in medical technology.

In 1961, Arthur’s health began to suffer and they moved to Toronto, where his family lived. Both Arthur and Vera continued to work in the medical field until Vera retired in 1991. She then decided it was time  to document her memories and experiences in Terezin, and teach younger generations about the horrors of the Holocaust.

She began visiting schools across Canada and wrote five books documenting her experiences. Vera also had a powerful desire to share the stories of people she knew in Terezin. She wanted the world to know the stories of the people behind the numbers, the ones who lived and died in Terezin.

Vera continued this work after Arthur passed away in 2001, and earned an honorary doctorate from the University of New Brunswick, Saint John. Now, 94, Vera continues to live in Toronto and still tirelessly promotes Holocaust education. 

Above all, Vera wants people to remember that those who died in the Holocaust are more than victims, that we need to know about their acts of defiance, their courage, and their struggles to maintain their humanity in the face of the some of the most inhumane circumstances the world has ever known.

Further Reading

Bound for Theresienstadt: Love, Loss and Resistance in a Nazi Concentration Camp

Lost to the Shoah: Eight Lives

 

6 Essential Holocaust Teaching Resources for Middle School Students

Children in Terezin, Terezin Artists, Terezin Musicians, Terezin storytellers, Terezin Writers, , , , , ,

While there are plenty of Holocaust teaching resources for middle school
students, teaching the Holocaust to this age group is still very challenging.
How do you make the Holocaust relevant to them? And what are some
ways to guide them through this incredibly upsetting subject?

Here is a list of six resources that can help you teach middle schoolers about the Holocaust.

The Butterfly Project

This incredible project uses the arts to educate students about the dangers of intolerance. It makes the Holocaust accessible to children, and presents the subject matter in a way that is poignant but not overly graphic or frightening.

The way it works is as follows: schools order kits containing ceramic butterflies, painting supplies, and cards with biographies of children who died in the Holocaust. After learning more about the children, each student receives a butterfly to paint in memory of them. The school or a community center then install the butterflies as a permanent memorial to the children who died in the Holocaust. The hope is one day there will be 1.5 million butterflies on display around the world, one for each Jewish child the world lost.

Visit their website to learn more about The Butterfly Project or to order a kit.

Inge Auerbacher’s I Am a Star

I Am a Star: Child of the Holocaust tells the story of Inge Auerbacher, a young girl
who survived the war in Terezin. The book is a compelling way to bring the Holocaust to life for your middle school students. Inge is the author of several best selling
books, including I Am a Star, which details her childhood and her time in Terezin.
The book can be purchased on Amazon or through the publisher’s website.

I Am a Star is available in many languages and a 30th-anniversary edition was
recently released. The book was also adapted into an award-winning play, “The Star on
My Heart”, which premiered in Ohio in 2015. Her story has also been featured on Butterflies in the Ghetto.

Paper Clips

This documentary tells the story of a Holocaust memorial project started by teachers and middle school students in the small town of Whitwell, Tennessee.

As part of a Holocaust education project the students began collecting paper clips. Their goal was to acquire 1.5 million to represent each child lost in the Holocaust. The project took off and ultimately the entire community created a remarkable Holocaust memorial outside the school.

The Whitwell community built the memorial in an authentic cattle car from Germany. The result is a starkly beautiful memorial to the children of the Holocaust, and a
powerful message about tolerance and acceptance of others.

Brundibár

Composer Hans Krása and librettist Adolf Hoffmeister created the children’s opera in 1938. Incredibly, Krása was able to stage a production of the musical in Terezin.

The musical was later performed when the Red Cross visited Terezin and featured in a Nazi propaganda film. Tragically, Krása and most of the child performers were later sent to Auschwitz. Very few of them survived the war.

In more recent years, the children’s opera has become more popular. It is certainly a great play to bring to a middle school if possible. There are also videos of the production on YouTube that are worth viewing and discussing with your class. An audio CD of the opera called Hans Krasa: Brundibar is available as well.

Vedem

Vedem is a literary magazine produced by the teenage boys of barrack L417 in Terezin. Fourteen-year-old Petr Ginz established the magazine, and he published a new
issue almost every week. Petr created much of the content himself and the other
boys contributed to it as well.

The magazine featured pieces on daily life in Terezin, satirical essays, poems, and
short fiction, as well as artwork. Tragically, Petr and most of the other boys from barrack L417 died in Auschwitz.

Their legacy lives on in the writings and drawings they left behind. You can read more about Petr Ginz and Vedem here.

I have also created a free Vedem study guide for teachers. The guide is available to
all subscribers to Butterflies In the Ghetto.

Nesarim: Child Survivors of Terezin

This powerful book relates the experiences of 10 boys who were imprisoned in Terezin, in their own words. The book was written by Thelma Gruenbaum, whose husband Michael was in Terezin and whose story is also detailed in the memoir Somewhere There is Still a Sun. 

In Terezin, these young boys shared a room with 30 other boys and developed
an incredibly strong bond with one another. They called themselves the
Nesarim, which means “eagles” in Hebrew, and the surviving Nesarim remained
in contact with one another throughout the years. 

This book gives readers a sense of what life was like for children in Terezin and preserves the voices of these child survivors so that children of today and future generations can hear and remember their stories. 

These are just a handful of resources teachers can use to help their middle school students better understand the Holocaust. I’ve found these to be particularly powerful in bringing stories from the Holocaust to light.

Have you used any of these in your teaching, and what have you found to be helpful? Please let me know in the comments below.

Coming Soon: More Resources for Holocaust Educators

Children in Terezin, Terezin Ghetto Museum, Terezin Writers, Tour of Terezin, , , ,

After two years of sharing the stories of Terezin artists, I came to realize that I could do more to support our amazing teachers and Holocaust educators. While still continuing to document Terezin artists, I am also working on developing lesson plans and teaching tips that feature their stories.

Entrance to the Terezin Ghetto Museum.

If you are a teacher or Holocaust educator, stay tuned for blog updates and check out my Resources for Educators section, where I highlight valuable resources for teaching children and young adults about the Holocaust. I also hope you will sign up for my mailing list to receive even more resources and inspiration for educators.

Let us join together in teaching our students about the Holocaust, and promoting the message of empathy and tolerance.

Dr. Karel Fleischmann: The Story of a Terezin Doctor and Artist

Terezin Artists, Terezin doctors, Terezin poets, Terezin storytellers, , , ,

Dr. Karel Fleischmann was a man whose talents were multifaceted, and whose humanity and compassion prevailed even in Terezin. He was an accomplished medical doctor, a dermatologist, who also painted in watercolor and wrote literary fiction.

He was born in 1897 in Klatovy, Bohemia, educated in Bohemia, and established his dermatology practice in Ceske Budejovice. He had a creative drive that the practice of medicine could not satisfy, and also painted watercolors, published collections of woodcuts and wrote short stories and poetry. His father was a graphic artist and calligrapher, and was always encouraging of his son’s artistic talents.

In 1939, after the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia, Dr. Fleischmann was forced to stop practicing medicine. In April 1942, he and his wife were sent to Terezin, where he became one of the remarkable ghetto doctors who struggled to treat patients in spite of overcrowding, little hygiene, malnutrition and lack of both medicines and equipment. Despite their best efforts, it is estimated that around 130 people died each day.

Dr. Fleischmann became one of the directors of health at Terezin, doing all he could to reduce the mortality rate and care for the elderly patients. He was described as outgoing, good-natured and always ready to help others. He used his medical skills to treat patients in Terezin, and some of his patients who survived remembered him making his rounds with a scuffed black bag, and how his gentle sense of humor and compassion comforted them.

While he cared for patients and gave medical lectures at Terezin, the doctor was also secretly documenting the realities of camp life in a series of paintings, portraits, drawings and writings. He was also known for his lectures about medicine and art in the ghetto.

One of his most stark and poignant drawings is known as The First Night of New Arrivals and depicts elderly Jews arriving at Terezin and finding that they had been deceived. These new arrivals had been told that they were being taken to a retirement community in the mountains, and some were even forced to pay the Nazis for their new accommodations. These new prisoners sit on their suitcases, with looks of despair, shocked and horrified at the truth of their situation.

Images of the ever-present hearse are prevalent as well, as they were the only vehicles for transport in Terezin, and had to be used for moving essential supplies as well as sick and dying people.

Dr. Fleischmann also produced stunning, stark portraits of other people in Terezin. He painted his subjects with thick dark, brushstrokes, the lines taking on an almost caricature like quality. The faces of his subjects are especially noteworthy, as he conveys personality and emotion with seemingly simple brushstrokes.

Tragically, the doctor’s medical skills and highly developed artistic talents were not enough to save him. Dr. Fleischmann and his wife were sent to Auschwitz in October 1944 on one of the last transports from Terezin. During the selection at Auschwitz, the SS officer noticed that one of Dr. Fleischmann’s shoulders was slightly misshapen and lower than the other, and decided the doctor was unfit to work. Immediately after their arrival at Auschwitz, Dr. Fleischmann and his wife were sent to the gas chambers.

Dr. Fleischmann’s legacy lives on through his artwork and writings, which were hidden at Terezin and recovered after the war, and in the memories of the Terezin survivors who he treated and comforted against all odds.

Further Reading

The Artists of Terezin by Gerald Green

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/last_portrait/fleischmann.asp

http://art.holocaust-education.net/explore.asp?langid=1&submenu=200&id=13

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Fleischmann_Karel

Petr Ginz: A Prodigy Behind Walls

Children in Terezin, Terezin Artists, Terezin poets, Terezin Writers, , , , ,
Petr and Eva Ginz with their parents before the war.
Petr and Eva Ginz with their parents before the war.

The life of Petr Ginz, an artist, writer, Esperantist, magazine editor and scholar, dramatically
illustrates the creativity and talent of so many
children who died in the Holocaust.

Petr was born on February 1, 1928 in Prague to Otto and Miriam Ginz. His father was a manager in a
textile company, and both his parents were
passionate about Esperanto. In fact, his parents met at an Esperantist convention and taught the language to Petr and his younger sister, Eva. The children were from an interfaith background; Otto was Jewish and Miriam was Christian.

From a young age, Petr’s intelligence, curiosity and passion for knowledge was evident. He wrote his first novel at age 8 and wrote 5 novels in all before he was deported to Terezin. A skilled artist, Petr also illustrated the novels himself. He was interested in a wide variety of subjects, including literature, art, science, history and geography, was an avid reader and also recorded his experiences in a diary. Petr’s enthusiasm for the arts and learning did not diminish after he was transported to Terezin at age 14, in October 1942. He continued his studies and borrowed countless books from the makeshift Terezin library, and wrote short novels.

He also made a major contribution to the cultural life of Terezin when he
established a literary magazine called Vedem (We lead), which he published weekly.
Petr wrote many of the pieces himself, and other boys from his barrack contributed work as well. The magazine featured pieces on daily life in Terezin, satirical essays, short fiction, poetry and artwork.

A close bond developed between the boys of Petr’s barrack, L417. They called their barrack the Republic of Shkid, and created a flag and national anthem. Their creativity
and imagination in such circumstances were remarkable, as was the amount of work
they produced for Vedem, much of which survives today.

Petr often wrote very matter-of-factly about the events he experienced and life in Terezin, and even managed to insert some humor. He did write some poignant pieces as well, most notably a poem in which he described how he much he missed Prague, though he knew it did not miss him. He described how he could not return because he was living like a caged animal but would always long for Prague, his “fairy-tale in stone.”

Tragically, he would never see Prague again. Petr was assigned to one of the last transports to leave Terezin, in September 1944. His sister Eva, who adored him, wrote about the day Petr was taken away in her own diary. After Petr boarded the train, Eva spotted him at one of the windows and managed to hand some bread to him before the guards chased her away. In her diary Eva poignantly expressed her fears about what happened to her brother and how she hoped against hope that he was still alive.

It was only after the the war that Eva learned the terrible truth, that at age 16 Petr
was murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, along with thousands of others. A
prodigy was lost that day, and we will never know how many other gifted, talented
young people were killed with him that same day. All that remains today are the writings and drawings Petr left behind, which his sister Eva preserved and shared with the
world after the war. These works are the legacy of an incredibly gifted, creative, and
sensitive young man who held onto his dreams and his humanity to the very end.

Picture of the Ginz Family from Krizkova, Marie R., Kotouc, Kurt J. & Ornest, Zdenek. We Are Children Just the Same: Vedem, the Secret Magazine of the Boys of Terezin. The Jewish Publication Society, 1995. Print. Used with permission.

Further Reading

We Are Children Just the Same: Vedem, the Secret Magazine by the Boys of Terezin (by Marie Krizkova, Kurt Jiri Kotouc and Zdenek Ornest)

The Diary of Petr Ginz (edited by Chava Pressburger)

Pavel Weiner: Boy Chronicler of Terezin, Part 2

Children in Terezin, Terezin Writers, ,

In spring of 1945, as the Allies made progress on their liberation of Europe, Pavel’s mood lifted and he could again hope that freedom would come at last. Pavel wrote that freedom was such a beautiful concept for him and that he would be willing to risk his life for it. By late April, air raids occurred daily as the Allies approached the Czech border. The prisoners in Terezin were distraught by the arrival of emaciated survivors from Nazi death camps. In a deeply moving scene, Pavel took his bread ration and handed it to his mother, Valy, saying, “Give it to my father when he arrives.”

Pavel’s last entry was April 22, 1945 and in it he described a chaotic day in Terezin. Hundreds of people ran away with as many stolen goods as they could carry, a quarantine was placed on part of the camp and many inmates were fighting with each other. Then the good news arrived that the Red Cross was now taking care of them. Hope arose that freedom was drawing near. Soon after, Terezin was liberated and Pavel returned to Prague with his mother. They searched for Ludvik and Handa, and Pavel learned that his father and brother did not survive. We do not learn his thoughts from this time, as Pavel no longer kept a diary after he left Terezin.

In 1948, Pavel and his mother moved to Canada, and Pavel later moved to New York City, where he married and had a successful career as a chemical engineer. He had one child, a daughter named Karen. In 1979, Pavel discovered that his mother had kept his diary for all those years and he made the decision to edit the diary and translate it into English. It took Karen a long time before she could bring herself to read the diary, afraid of what she would find. After reading his diary and accompanying her father to Terezin, Karen believed that her father’s story should be shared. She began assisting her father with editing the translations. Sadly, Pavel did not live to see his diary published, but Karen persevered and the diary was published in 2012, ensuring that her father’s experiences would be shared with others.

Further Reading
A Boy in Terezin: The Private Diary of Pavel Weiner, April 1944-April 1945
By Pavel and Karen Weiner

Georg Kafka: Franz’s Unknown Cousin

Terezin poets, Terezin Writers, , ,
Me with statue of Franz Kafka in Prague
Me with statue of Franz Kafka in Prague

While conducting Terezin research I was surprised to discover that Czech literary icon Franz Kafka wasn’t the only talented writer in his family. Franz died in 1924 from tuberculosis and was spared the horrors of the Holocaust. Other members of his family were murdered by the Nazis, including his cousin, Georg Kafka, who was a talented poet and playwright.

Little is known of Georg, but we do know he worked as a teacher until he and his parents were sent from Prague to Terezin when he was twenty-one years old, in the summer of 1942. In the ghetto, he managed to write poetry, fairy tales and plays, as well as translating contemporary Czech books into German. One of his most highly regarded works was a play in verse called The Death of Orpheus. It was selected by the Manes group, an organization in Terezin that promoted German-language plays and lectures. Phillip Manes, the leader of the group, spoke at the premiere of the play and praised Georg as a gifted and talented poet.

After reading the one-act drama, I found myself strongly agreeing with Manes. Typically, I find it a challenge to read the script of a play and feel that references to Greek mythology have been overdone. But I was engrossed by this play, which focuses on the extraordinary singer and musician Orpheus after he has lost his beloved Eurydice forever and has gone away to live among shepherds. Here Orpheus is a man defeated, no longer caring about even his music and trapped in despair. In an especially poignant scene, Orpheus is visited by his mother, who grieves to see what has become of her son, who was once so bright and full of life.

Georg Kafka could have become a great author in his own right, if only he had the chance. His father died in Terezin in March 1944, and Georg’s mother was assigned to a transport on May 15, 1944. Not wanting her to be alone, Georg volunteered to join the transport. His mother died, most likely murdered on arrival to Auschwitz, and Georg was later transported to a camp called Schwarzheide, where he died. After he was deported his work was remembered in Terezin, and he was awarded first prize in a poetry contest. It would be the final honor bestowed on this talented, creative young poet and playwright, the unknown cousin of Franz Kafka.

Further Reading (available on Amazon)
Performing Captivity, Performing Escape: Cabarets and Plays from the Terezin/Theresienstadt Ghetto
by Lisa Peschel (contains translation of The Death of Orpheus and short biography)

Behind the Scenes with the Terezin Storytellers

Terezin storytellers, , , ,

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak more with filmmaker Rich Krevolin about Making Light in Terezin. We discussed the significance of the story of the Terezin artists, the challenges of communicating such an incredible story and how to continue to spread the word about Terezin. The story of how many Terezin prisoners managed to create works of poetry, theater, music instead of giving into despair is an incredible story of resilience and is an affirmation of humanity in the midst of a regime that was committed to the destruction of humanity. These works of art and how they came into being are the powerful legacy of the prisoners of Terezin. This legacy is not so widely known, which is why we must continue to spread the word about it.

Mural in Prague with partially obscured Star of David
Mural in Prague with partially obscured Star of David

The way we communicate this story has its challenges, and both Rich and I shared the concern that by focusing on the creative pursuits of many Terezin prisoners, the horrors of the ghetto risk being downplayed. By no means do we wish to imply that the Terezin prisoners were privileged in any way. They were not able to create because conditions were better than in other ghettos, but rather they created in spite of the rampant disease, cold and starvation. Initially, people had to create their works in secret, as any artistic expression was forbidden. Gradually, over time the Nazis permitted such pursuits to an extent, primarily so they could exploit the works and build a façade of Terezin as a model ghetto. The reason that many of these works survive today is thanks to those prisoners who remained in Terezin and carefully hid away and guarded these works. Some of these works, like the cabaret, were preserved for decades before they were rediscovered.

Those of us who have committed ourselves to telling the story of Terezin have done so through the use of film, scholarly articles, traditional book publishing and blogging. We all share the desire to make this story more widely known and appreciated. Rich has been successful in promoting Making Light in Terezin, which has aired on PBS and is still aired from time to time. The documentary has also been shown at film festivals worldwide. Rich would like to continue to spread the word by finding an international distributor, and I sincerely hope he is successful in these efforts.

Theater is another way this story is told. In addition to her scholarly work, Dr. Lisa Peschel collaborates with theater departments at various universities to produce the Terezin cabaret and other dramatic works. Seeing these productions live must be an incredible experience, and I greatly hope that I can work to arrange for a production to come to Colorado. For now, I am focused on researching, developing and growing my blog as the main way to share the stories of the artists of Terezin. I feel so strongly that these stories must be passed along, and it is truly heartening to speak with others who feel the same.