The Girls Of Room 28_ Friendship, Hope, And Survival In Theresienstadt Part 1

The Girls of Room 28.

Friends.h.i.+p, Hope, and Survival in Theresienstadt.

by Hannelore Brenner-Wonschick & Han.

FOREWORD.

Anna Ha.n.u.sova-Flachova and Helga Pollak KinskyWith the end of the war, those of us girls of Room 28 who had survived were scattered throughout the world; only a few of us were in contact in the decades following the Holocaust. We did not know what had become of most of our friends.It took almost half a century for us to find one another again. In October 1991, after the Berlin Wall came down, a few of us met in Prague for the first time since we had lost touch. We came from everywhere-from Israel, the United States, Russia, England, Sweden, Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia.It was an unforgettable moment. Gathered together in the lobby of an international hotel, we laughed and wept and spun in circles of joy as bystanders looked on in amazement.We were all surprised to find that our feelings had stayed the same as they were back then in the Girls' Home in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. We felt like a family all over again and understood each other marvelously. Since that day we have been seeing one another regularly.Our great fortune at being together reminded us of all the girls and boys, caretakers, teachers, and doctors who did not survive, and we very much desired to rescue from oblivion those who had lost their lives in the German camps. That was the first impulse for this book.And then, in Prague, we became acquainted with Hannelore Brenner, and we were set to move ahead. We all agreed to meet at our favorite place, Spindlermuhle, in the Giant Mountains. This book is the result.

CHAPTER ONE.

Spindlermuhle, Czech Republic, Autumn 2000.

Every fall since the mid-1990s a group of extraordinary women gathers at Spindlermuhle, a little Czech resort just below the headwaters of the Elbe, in the Giant Mountains. For a few days, the atmosphere in this small town is filled with the sounds of their joyous reunion, with songs and laughter, but also with the sad memories of their childhood, more than half a century ago.

The women are in their seventies, and they come from all parts of the globe. The shared vacation, which arose spontaneously out of their pleasure at having found one another again after so many years, quickly developed a momentum of its own, attracting more partic.i.p.ants with each pa.s.sing year. Soon the reunions became a cherished tradition. And while the women enjoy their time together, their hearts are both saddened by the approaching farewells and hopeful as they contemplate future reunions.

This annual meeting has come to represent the high point of their year. With bracing breezes blowing through its forests and the sparkling Elbe River rus.h.i.+ng by, Spindlermuhle radiates enchantment. The women feel rejuvenated as they hike up the mountains or stroll along the rus.h.i.+ng stream. They bask in the happiness of being together. Their happiness is palpable to outsiders, who might well wonder what invisible tie binds them. The women themselves would offer a simple answer: "We feel like sisters, like a family. We're happy when we are together."

Indeed, the women are like sisters, bound by a special fate: Between 1942 and 1944, when they were twelve to fourteen years old, they lived in Room 28, Girls' Home, L 410, Theresienstadt, a fortress town near Prague. They were prisoners of the ghetto, a small group of the 75,666 Jews from the so-called Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia who, with the incursion of German troops into their country, lost their homes, their property, and their freedom.

In Room 28, their paths crossed with those of about fifty other girls. They spent their lives, day and night, together in the closest of quarters- thirty girls at any given time confined to approximately 325 square feet. They slept on narrow two-and three-bed wooden bunks, ate their meager rations together, and listened as their counselors read to them when evening fell. Once the lights were out, they would talk about their experiences and share their thoughts and dreams, their worries and their fears.

Time and again, some of the girls would suddenly be torn from their midst and forced to join one of the dreaded transports to the East. New girls would arrive in Room 28 and grow accustomed to this community that had been created by force. New friends.h.i.+ps formed, only to be torn asunder again by the next transports-the word itself a metaphor for the constant fear that dominated their daily lives. Under the increasing pressure of these threatening events, the girls would cling together all the more tightly. And then, in the fall of 1944, a devastating wave of transports carried off almost all the girls and boys, putting an end to the children's homes and to Room 28.

It was at that time that Eva Fischl wrote in the alb.u.m of her friend Flaka, as Anna Flach was lovingly nicknamed by her friends: "When the day comes that you are back in Brno and you are eating a fish, remember that in Theresienstadt there was also a little fish. Your Eva Fischlova. Fiku." And with a few pencil strokes she added a picture of a fish. Little Ruth Schachter, whom everyone called Zajiek ("Rabbit"), dedicated these words to her: "Don't forget the girl who wrote this, and lovingly stuck by you. Your-;" and here she drew a mother rabbit with seven bunnies, followed by: "Dear Flaka: Will you always remember who lay beside you? And was your good friend????????"

At first glance, Anna Flach's little alb.u.m isn't much different from the kind that many girls keep at that age. Here, too, one finds aphorisms like this one from Goethe: "Relish your good moods, for they are rare." And dedications from friends and relatives: "All the best for your future. Your Aunt Ella in Vienna. July 23, 1940." And a steady stream of pictures and sketches: colorful flowers, a squirrel, a girl peeking through a keyhole, a puppy, an idyllic village street. Only gradually does it dawn on us that this little book, with its crumbling yellowed pages, tells a totally different story from that of most other alb.u.ms that survive solely for nostalgia's sake, like my own. It is obvious that other powers kept this book alive. In it are the living memoirs of the murdered girls from Room 28 and the sorrow of their unfulfilled hopes and dreams. In Flaka's imagination these youngsters live on as they were then-lovable, talented, full of fantasy, some calm and thoughtful, others athletic and vivacious. Flaka and her friends keep asking themselves: What would have become of them? Of Lenka, who wrote such wonderful poems? Of Fika, who came up with witty sketches and loved the stage? Of Helena, with her talent for drawing and painting? Of Maria, with her beautiful voice? Of Muka, Olile, Zdenka, Pavla, Hana, Poppinka, and sweet little Zajiek, who was so helpless and in need of protection?

The past lives on. "You can't forget it," says Judith Schwarzbart. "You live with it every day without talking about it, or even giving it a conscious thought. But then all at once something happens. It can come unexpectedly, out of the blue. A remark, a bit of food, a day of remembrance, anything-and suddenly it's all there again. But only just parts of it, never everything at once."

The past comes especially alive when these friends gather, and even more so when they celebrate together. As their annual reunion usually takes place around Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and coincides with several of their birthdays as well, there's plenty of reason to celebrate. Flowers and candles adorn the festively set table, there are little speeches and toasts, and gifts are exchanged. Later in the evening the lively conversation is increasingly drowned out by song. And finally all of them sing the songs of their childhood in the Theresienstadt ghetto- Czech folk songs, Zionist anthems, songs from the children's opera Brundibar Brundibar.

A unique atmosphere fills the room at such moments-a blend of gaiety and gravity, of love and friends.h.i.+p, and of grat.i.tude as well. We are thankful, they seem to be saying, that we have our families, that we are mothers and grandmothers, that after all we have gone through, many of our wishes have come true. Their joy is enhanced by the fact that with the end of the Communist era, they are finally able to come together with their relatives and friends in their beloved Czech homeland.

Yet it is at just such moments that the women are aware of how many of their childhood friends cannot share their good fortune. For in their hearts and thoughts these friends are still present. They belong to them just as their own childhood belongs to them.

Anna Flach's alb.u.m is no mere memento; it is a mission. She sees it as her personal responsibility to keep alive the memory of the murdered girls of Room 28. Whenever she leafs through the pages-and apparently she does so quite often-she sees these girls in her mind's eye, hears their voices, gazes into their sad eyes. Don't forget me Don't forget me, they seem to call to her from the past. Do you remember how we swore to be faithful to one another forever? Do you remember how we swore to be faithful to one another forever?

"On one of the first Sundays after the war we shall wait for each other under the Bell Tower in the Old Town Square in Prague." This is what Flaka and her comrades had promised one another when they had to say goodbye in Theresienstadt. They reinforced their promise with words that resonated like an incantation and a secret pa.s.sword.

You believe me, I believe you.

You know what I know.Whatever may happen, you won't betray me, I won't betray you.

They were a community sworn to loyalty and friends.h.i.+p, with its own motto, emblem, hymn, and flag. The flag displays two clasped hands set in a circle. The emblem, which they called the ma'agal ma'agal (the Hebrew word for "circle"), was a symbol of perfection and of the ideals they strove to live by. But what united them above all was their desire for Germany's defeat and their hope that the war would finally end. (the Hebrew word for "circle"), was a symbol of perfection and of the ideals they strove to live by. But what united them above all was their desire for Germany's defeat and their hope that the war would finally end.

Today, more than half a century later, the girls of Room 28 are among the very few who still remember the girls who did not survive.

"We always bring them to mind," Ela Weissberger (nee Stein) says on one of our walks in Spindlermuhle. "Every time I speak to an audience in America I ask them to join me for a moment in remembering these girls, and all the children of Theresienstadt. Because no one knows these children apart from us, the few who survived. We have them in our thoughts and our hearts, and we see them before us: their faces, their eyes, their personalities, and everything that we experienced with them. That's why we are eager for this book to be published. And we hope that someday we will come together and dedicate the book to younger generations and to future generations, and send them on their way with our wishes for a better life. We hope that they may see that we did our best to pa.s.s on our memories and the love that comes with these memories: the love that the adults-our counselors and teachers, the artists, and so many others-gave us in those black days. I believe that a great many children today could use the kind of love we knew back then."

I got to know Ela Weissberger in America in 1996. She was the first eyewitness I sought out in my attempt to learn more about Brundibar Brundibar, the children's opera that was performed in Theresienstadt fifty-five times in 1943 and 1944. An old friend, Frank Harders-Wuthenow, had piqued my interest. A member of the artistic staff of the Bielefeld Opera in Germany, he had discovered Brundibar Brundibar in Prague and brought it to the stage in 1992. in Prague and brought it to the stage in 1992.1 From the moment he told me about the opera, questions about its history and the fate of the children who had performed in it never left my mind. And one day, as I held a From the moment he told me about the opera, questions about its history and the fate of the children who had performed in it never left my mind. And one day, as I held a Brundibar Brundibar program in my hand, I settled on a plan: I would produce a radio doc.u.mentary on the history of program in my hand, I settled on a plan: I would produce a radio doc.u.mentary on the history of Brundibar Brundibar. Luckily, the special features division of Radio Free Berlin accepted my proposal, and soon afterward I set out to investigate the story.2 In the Theresienstadt performances of Brundibar Brundibar, Ela had played the cat, one of the lead roles in this lovely children's opera, originally composed in Prague just before the outbreak of World War II. The creators of Brundibar Brundibar, the Czech composer Hans Krasa and his friend, the artist and writer Adolf Hoffmeister, could not possibly have imagined that their work would premiere a few years later in a concentration camp, with an ensemble of young Jewish prisoners. Nor could they have imagined what their work would come to mean to these children and to all ghetto inmates: a symbol of hope and resistance, of faith that good would triumph over evil.

No one living in Prague in 1938 could have fathomed what Hans Krasa, a prisoner in the ghetto from 1942 to 1944, was forced to witness with his own eyes: how his opera, along with other art and culture in Theresienstadt, was exploited by the n.a.z.is in their pernicious propaganda operations. Who could ever have imagined that such a thing was possible? That one day the history of a children's opera would also be the story of an infamous deception and of the cruel murder of Jewish children?

My conversation with Ela revealed something surprising. When I raised the topic of Brundibar Brundibar, her eyes sparkled. The very word seemed to prompt a veritable stream of consciousness-a phenomenon I would encounter over and over in my research. Quite evidently, Brundibar Brundibar is a magic word that enlivens heart and soul, and conjures images of bygone times. They were nightmarish, yet is a magic word that enlivens heart and soul, and conjures images of bygone times. They were nightmarish, yet Brundibar Brundibar imbued them with visions of a more humane, cultured, and hopeful world. imbued them with visions of a more humane, cultured, and hopeful world.

The hours with Ela pa.s.sed too quickly, and I left with a strong sense that I had heard only the beginning of a gripping and important story. But how was I to proceed? How could I find out more? As if she had read my mind, Ela said: "I'll be going to Prague again in September. I'll be seeing my old friends there. If you like, you can join us."

Before long, I was able to meet Ela's friends from Room 28 in Prague-an encounter that led to many others in their homes in Brno, Vienna, Israel, and England. I learned about their childhoods, their experiences in Theresienstadt, and the period after they were transported to the East, to Auschwitz, where so many vanished from their midst. The abyss of horror into which these young people gazed on their journey through h.e.l.l, the cataclysm that tore at their souls-never before had I experienced the tragedy of the Holocaust so directly and starkly as during those meetings. My sense of time seemed to have been suspended, the lines that normally separate today from yesterday suddenly appeared random and irrelevant, and I was all too painfully aware of the truth that we never leave the past behind. "If we had stayed in Room 28 until the end of the war, I think many things would have turned out differently." I clearly remember Judith Schwarzbart's words: "We would be happier people today. But most of us had to leave on the transports. And what happened then was so terrible that you just want to forget it."

It was during these interviews that I realized that I had to do everything in my power to pa.s.s on the torch of memory. This book draws primarily on the experiences of ten of the fifteen surviving girls from Room 28, who took part in our annual September meetings: Anna Flach, Helga Pollak, Ela Stein, Judith Schwarzbart, Eva Landa, Marta Frohlich, Hanka Wertheimer, Handa Pollak, Eva Winkler, and Vera Nath. Two former counselors, Eva Weiss, from England, and Eva Eckstein, from Sweden, happily joined these gatherings with "their girls" when their health permitted. Three of the girls-Eva Stern, Marianne Deutsch, and Eva Kohn-opted not to partic.i.p.ate in the annual reunion in Spindlermuhle. But Eva Stern and Marianne Deutsch welcomed me into their homes. Eva h.e.l.ler and Marianne Rosenzweig, both of whom live in America, would have liked to come to Spindlermuhle, but were unable to do so.

I consider myself extremely fortunate to have become part of this circle of friends and to have witnessed their happiness at being together. It has taught me a remarkable lesson: In recalling periods marked by the deepest of horrors, memory can be merciful, and happy recollections can be extracted and sheltered within our hearts, providing strength during times of adversity. Moreover, it is even possible to share and pa.s.s on this healing energy, provided that, like the girls of Room 28, we base our lives, against all odds, on the principle of love.

The finale of the children's opera Brundibar. Brundibar. This still is from the infamous n.a.z.i propaganda film about Theresienstadt directed by Kurt Gerron (1944), This still is from the infamous n.a.z.i propaganda film about Theresienstadt directed by Kurt Gerron (1944), unofficially dubbed The Fuhrer Gives the Jews a City. The Fuhrer Gives the Jews a City.

"When I think of those truly evil years of the war and the Holocaust, one bright, s.h.i.+ning point of light always emerges in my memory-our Children's Home in the ghetto, our Room 28," recalls Eva Landa. "I was in Theresienstadt for eighteen months. That isn't long in the life of an adult, but in the life of a twelve-year-old, it is practically an eternity.

"I came to Theresienstadt in 1942, when I was eleven. By the time I left the ghetto on a transport to Auschwitz in December 1943, I felt almost grown up. Parting from Theresienstadt was very hard for me. I left behind my friends and the community we had fas.h.i.+oned with so much care. However, I took with me the memories of our striving for a better and more just world. I did my best to be brave and not to betray our ideals.

"Our little community helped me to overcome many hards.h.i.+ps. Sadly, only fifteen girls from Room 28 were fortunate enough to survive. In the Theresienstadt Hymn,' we all sang: 'If you wish, you will succeed, hand in hand we'll be as one, on the ghetto ruins we'll all laugh one day'. These prophecies never came true. No one could laugh on those ruins. But we who survived remember our childhood in Room 28 of the children's home at Theresienstadt with a gentle smile."

"How did we handle it?" Judith Schwarzbart wonders. "How did we manage to get along and help one another-about thirty girls at that difficult age between twelve and fourteen? Why did we voluntarily attend to our studies? How did we keep our room clean and our hair washed under such trying circ.u.mstances? I now realize that our counselor Tella pulled off a miracle, as did the other counselors."

"They were like second mothers to us," Flaka says. "Room 28 was a little island that protected us and made it easier for us to bear the loss of our homes-and in many cases, the separation from one or both parents."

The adults who were responsible for caring for the children did everything they could to create a refuge for them. "We wanted to make a home for our youngsters, a place where they were taken seriously, where they were allowed to be young, where they weren't constantly confronted with the major issues of the day," Fredy Hirsch, the legendary Zionist youth leader, wrote in mid-1943, one year after the children's homes were established. "We wanted to give them a reasonably lovely place to call home in the midst of misery piled upon misery."3 No one could have predicted what lay ahead for the prisoners in Theresienstadt. They could only hope that they would survive until the war was over, and in the meantime try to prepare for that day, both physically and mentally. "Over the last year and a half we have seen traditionally inviolable notions of human society reevaluated in a way that many of us do not understand," Fredy wrote. "In this world we built Children's Homes. The attempt had to be made to rescue children from the devaluation of what is good." And he concluded with these words: "I believe that someday these children will look back fondly on the home that we tried to provide for them in Theresienstadt. How terrible it would be if Theresienstadt were to represent an irrevocable spiritual and physical defeat for our youth."4 It is horrifying to contemplate that the lives of most of the children of Theresienstadt ended in the gas chambers of Auschwitz; still, it is comforting to know that Fredy Hirsch's hopes found fulfillment in the lives of those children who survived.

"It was truly a privilege to live in the Girls' Home, L 410," Marianne Rosenzweig writes. "I consider the time I spent in Room 28 the best time in Theresienstadt. Although we were young, and although hunger, cold, and fear defined our lives, we remained honest and decent and always had high moral values. And we developed very deep friends.h.i.+ps of the sort that would have scarcely been possible under normal circ.u.mstances."

"I believe that Room 28 made me a tolerant person capable of forming friends.h.i.+ps with a wide range of people," says Handa Pollak. "We lived in a little room with about thirty children, and we all came from very different backgrounds. Some were spoiled, some were quarrelsome, some egotistic, some good, and some less so-but that's how life is. Everyone has a different character. And we learned to get along, to listen to one another. We learned to live together-because there was no other choice."

Flaka's alb.u.m contains the following words, which were written in farewell by Margit Muhlstein, a social worker in the Girls' Home. They would become Flaka's guiding principle in all her actions: "Our years in Theresienstadt will have been for nothing if we ever oppress so much as a single person in our own lives."

It seems as though there was no other place in those days where education was taken more seriously and where pedagogical ideas and goals were put into practice with more determination than in Theresienstadt. Part of the reason was, of course, the unique situation that had forcibly confined almost the entire Jewish population of a nation, including its intellectual elite (artists, teachers, scientists, Zionist activists). The key to this educational success was the combined effort of adults who valued the children's well-being over their own lives. Among them were Fredy Hirsch, Walter Eisinger, Rudi Freudenfeld, Ilse Weber, Kamilla Rosenbaum, Ella Pollak, and the Viennese artist and art instructor Friedl d.i.c.ker-Brandeis, from whose cla.s.ses at Theresienstadt more than three thousand children's drawings were saved.

"There is a certain irony of fate," writes historian Livia Rothkirchen, "in the fact that the coerced society of Theresienstadt struck the final chord in a life shared by three ethnic elements-the Czech, German, and Jewish communities-that had influenced and enriched one another on Bohemian soil for several centuries and that had played a significant role in the development of the culture of European thought. ... Wrenched from the nouris.h.i.+ng soil of their homelands and placed in the most difficult circ.u.mstances, Czech and German Jews, generally thought to be a.s.similated and incapable of defending themselves against the n.a.z.is, found their way back to their own human and spiritual values in Theresienstadt, of all places."5 What remains are the works of those who contributed to the unique cultural milieu of Theresienstadt, to striking this last chord in so resounding a fas.h.i.+on that even today, some sixty years later, its echo can still be heard in the works of musicians and composers such as Viktor Ullmann, Gideon Klein, Hans Krasa, Pavel Haas, Rafael Schachter, and Karel Anerl; in the works of artists such as Otto Ungar, Leo Haas, Bedich Fritta, Peter Kien, Karel Fleischmann, and Alfred Kantor; in the cabaret songs and poems of Karel venk, Leo Strauss, and Walter Lindenbaum. And it is captured in unforgettable performances-of Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem Requiem and of Hans Krasa's children's opera, and of Hans Krasa's children's opera, Brundibar- Brundibar-which embody the essence of the culture of Theresienstadt.

Those who were children at the time could not possibly have fathomed the almost superhuman determination needed to create this cultural environment. Still, many of them would surely have grasped the meaning of Viktor Ullmann's words: "I must emphasize that in no sense did we sit weeping by the rivers of Babylon, but, instead, our will to create culture matched our will to live." But to understand what extraordinary powers these adults had to summon to realize these outstanding achievements while gazing into the abyss-this was most certainly beyond the realm of a child's comprehension.

Only years later would they be able to make sense of an old parable that was known among some of the ghetto inmates: The inhabitants of a valley are told that within two days their hometown will be flooded by a natural catastrophe. There is no escape. No chance to be rescued. So the rabbi calls his faithful to the synagogue and tells them: 'Ladies and gentlemen, we have exactly forty-eight hours to learn how to live under water.' "

This book recounts these "forty-eight hours." While enduring unimaginable suffering, the children of Theresienstadt also studied, played, danced, sang, did gymnastics, created art, wrote poems, and appeared in theatrical productions. This is why many of those who survived, particularly those whose road to survival also took them through the death camps, remember Theresienstadt as a last instance of humanity, a place where there was still love, education, art, and culture.

The renowned musician and conductor Karel Anerl, one of the few musicians in Theresienstadt who survived the Holocaust, wrote in his memoirs: "Yes, the n.a.z.is almost succeeded in exterminating the Jews. However, they did not succeed in exterminating the idea of the human dimension of humanity."6 Abraham Weingarten, Hanka's husband, captured the spirit of this book when he said to me in Spindlermuhle: "We are witnesses to a miracle. Everyone here, apart from you and me, experienced the Holocaust firsthand and survived. Those girls are now grandmothers. Each has a unique personality, temperament, and outlook, and each has traveled a different road. But despite all these differences and despite the scars that life has left on them, just look at how cheerful they all are, how they laugh and sing, how happy they are here together. Life has proved stronger. Isn't that a miracle?"

CHAPTER TWO.

Saying Goodbye.

One day in late August 1938, a little brown-haired girl stood frozen in place on the balcony of an old apartment house in a desolate neighborhood of the Moravian capital city of Brno, her gaze fixed on a figure that was slowly walking away. Her eyes remained riveted to the spot long after the figure had vanished from sight. After what seemed an eternity, time that is etched into her memory, she went back inside, into a large dim room in a musty old building that now served as a boardinghouse. Sobbing, she buried herself in one of the empty beds in the deserted room. Her world was falling apart.

Helga Pollak was eight years old when she left Vienna and became a stranger in a strange land, when her childhood came to an end in an inhospitable boardinghouse in Brno, when she said goodbye to her mother, unaware that more than eight years would elapse before they would be reunited. Czechoslovakia (as it was called then) was still a country at peace. To Helga's mind, the ever-increasing persecution of Jews that she had experienced in Vienna was not a serious danger, or at least not a life-threatening one. She was only vaguely aware of the fact that she was Jewish.

More than sixty years later, these images live on in Helga Pollak's memory. "At the end of August, my mother, who had come from Vienna to Kyjov, where I was spending the summer, brought me to a boardinghouse in Brno. I can still see her walking away. I was standing on a balcony, watching her go. I wept.

Helga Pollak, circa 1941.

No one in that gloomy boardinghouse paid any attention to me. The young women who were living there like me, in a sublet room containing four or five beds, were, I suppose, working somewhere or attending cla.s.ses. They all spoke Czech. The only person who was around during the morning was a maid from the countryside, but she didn't speak to me, either. How could she have? I didn't speak Czech back then, and she didn't know any German. I felt totally abandoned."

The Palmhof, a concert cafe Otto Pollak operated with his brother Karl from 1919 to 1938 Up to this point, nothing in her life had ever hinted that anything like this could happen. Born in Vienna on May 28, 1930, the only child of Otto and Frieda Pollak, Helga had led a sheltered childhood. Her father was the owner of a large and well-known concert cafe on Mariahilfer Stra.s.se called the Palmhof. She had grown up in a s.p.a.cious apartment in the same building, and had been tenderly cared for by her mother and her governess, Johanna. The adults kept her out of the cafe in her early years. "Going to the cafe was something very special for me," she recalls.

Otto Pollak, who came from the southern Moravian town of Kyjov/Gaya,1 had moved to Vienna and joined the army in 1916, where he saw action in a field artillery unit and was so severely wounded that one leg had to be amputated. A disabled veteran, he was awarded a silver medal for bravery, first and second cla.s.s, at the end of World War I-a circ.u.mstance that would later save his life. had moved to Vienna and joined the army in 1916, where he saw action in a field artillery unit and was so severely wounded that one leg had to be amputated. A disabled veteran, he was awarded a silver medal for bravery, first and second cla.s.s, at the end of World War I-a circ.u.mstance that would later save his life.

In 1919 Otto and his brother Karl opened the Palmhof in Vienna and devoted great energy to running it. Otto loved the cafe atmosphere and personally waited on his guests, among them prominent artists such as the operetta composer Franz Lehar, the tenor Richard Tauber, and the actors Hans Moser and Fritz Imhof. Well-known musical groups often performed there, and the concerts were broadcast live weekly on RAVAG, the Austrian radio station. Once a year, Otto went in search of performers, both throughout Austria and abroad. Sometimes the musicians he discovered would make their Viennese debut at the Palmhof, then go on to play in major symphony orchestras.

Vienna became Otto Pollak's second home, and he felt so closely bound to it that even when dangerous times loomed, it took quite a while before he seriously considered leaving Austria-although there were ample reasons to do so. As early as 1934-in connection with an at tempted putsch by Austrian National Socialists and the a.s.sa.s.sination of Engelbert Dollfuss, the Austrian chancellor-the Palmhof became a target of vandalism by members of the then-illegal Austrian n.a.z.i Party. Two attacks were carried out against the cafe, the first a smoke bomb that went off in the checkroom during a Sunday tea dance, and the second an incendiary bomb that exploded beside a cellar window in the middle of the night. "I'll never forget the blast of that bomb," says Helga. "I was four years old at the time. The bomb could have caused devastating damage, and it was only due to good luck and the fact that it was so poorly positioned that no one was injured and no more serious damage was done to the building. But many windows were shattered."

Four years later, the situation in Austria had come to a head. In the meantime, Otto Pollak and his wife, Frieda, who was fourteen years his junior, had divorced amicably. Helga remained with her father in his apartment on Mariahilfer Stra.s.se. Her mother, who had taken an apartment of her own, visited her every day and continued to a.s.sist Otto Pollak in running the Palmhof. But it was the governess, Johanna, who looked after Helga most of the time and became a second mother to her.

That is why Helga always a.s.sociates the memory of two crucial events with the image of her governess. The first took place on the evening of March 11, 1938. "I was in the living room. Johanna had turned on the radio and was listening intently to a speech. It was the abdication speech of Kurt Schuschnigg, the Austrian chancellor. I can still remember his final words precisely-'May G.o.d protect Austria,' he implored. That was the first time I ever saw Johanna cry."

Early the next morning, Helga stood with her governess at the window overlooking Mariahilfer Stra.s.se. "I saw soldiers marching up the street. And there were lots of swastika banners hanging from the windows of other buildings. An officer came up to my father and asked whether he would serve the soldiers. And my father said, 'No. This is a Jewish business.' To which the officer replied that this was of no interest to him; he cared only about his men. Suddenly the cafe was full of soldiers. A few days later, the Palmhof was shut down."

With the appearance of German troops, greeted jubilantly by a majority of the population, a new and invigorating self-confidence blossomed in the hearts of thousands of Austrians, a feeling fueled by hatred of judische Untermenschen judische Untermenschen ("Jewish subhumans") and by pride in belonging to the ("Jewish subhumans") and by pride in belonging to the arische Herrenra.s.se arische Herrenra.s.se ("Aryan master race") that had come to power. In an instant, the anti-Semitism that had been smoldering for decades became a raging wildfire that spread across the country with pogrom-like excesses. Jews were hara.s.sed, mistreated, and beaten. Eventually, they were fired from their jobs, robbed of their possessions, and expelled. The scale of n.a.z.i terror on Austrian soil a.s.sumed even greater proportions than the attacks then rampant in Germany. Thousands fled across Austria's borders or scrambled to get visas so they could emigrate. ("Aryan master race") that had come to power. In an instant, the anti-Semitism that had been smoldering for decades became a raging wildfire that spread across the country with pogrom-like excesses. Jews were hara.s.sed, mistreated, and beaten. Eventually, they were fired from their jobs, robbed of their possessions, and expelled. The scale of n.a.z.i terror on Austrian soil a.s.sumed even greater proportions than the attacks then rampant in Germany. Thousands fled across Austria's borders or scrambled to get visas so they could emigrate.

Until then, religion had not played a significant role in the lives of the Pollaks. They were a.s.similated, liberal Jews, and they rarely celebrated Jewish holidays. Helga's first sustained encounter with Judaism was during the Jewish religious instruction cla.s.s she attended in grammar school. But now, in these changing times, her parents gave serious thought to their Jewish roots. In April 1938 Otto, Frieda, and Helga Pollak attended synagogue for the first time and partic.i.p.ated in a Pa.s.sover seder.

In order to a.s.sert control over the random acts of terror, the new rulers launched official actions of their own. A first transport of 151 Austrians, a group of so-called Schutzhaftlinge Schutzhaftlinge ("prisoners in protective custody"), among them sixty Jews, had already reached the Dachau concentration camp. In May two thousand more Jews were arrested and taken to various concentration camps. On May 20, 1938, the Nuremberg Race Laws were implemented in Austria as well. Now violence and fear began to dominate everyday life. ("prisoners in protective custody"), among them sixty Jews, had already reached the Dachau concentration camp. In May two thousand more Jews were arrested and taken to various concentration camps. On May 20, 1938, the Nuremberg Race Laws were implemented in Austria as well. Now violence and fear began to dominate everyday life.

However much Helga's parents tried to s.h.i.+eld her from the darkness of this new time, each day Helga felt it creep farther into her life. Jewish students had to sit on special "Jewish benches" in school. Children who had previously been friendly with Helga now turned their backs on her. The mob controlled the streets. "One day on the way home from school, a couple of boys I didn't know blocked my way and shouted, 'You Jewish pig!' I remember that I was crying and that a policeman-it was Herr Lahner, who lived in our building-took me by the hand and comforted me and walked me home."

Helga's teacher, Dora Neuss, still treated her with affection. At the end of the school year she wrote in Helga's poetry alb.u.m: "When fate turns against you, don't fret. The moon must wane before it can wax again. Your teacher, Dora Neuss, who will miss her little laughing dove very much."

That year, Helga could hardly wait for summer vacation to begin. She usually spent it with her father's family in Kyjov, near the Austrian border. There, in a stately house on Market Square, lived her grandmother Sophie, together with her father's sister, Aunt Marta, Marta's husband, Uncle Fritz, and their two children, Trude and Josef, whom everyone called Joi. Trude was fifteen, and Joi was twelve. Helga would play with them and the neighborhood children in the big yard behind the house, where there were chickens, a rabbit hutch, and a large shed with all sorts of tools.

More than ever, Helga found her thoughts racing ahead to the summer. Kyjov was an enticing adventure; even the little shop that Aunt Marta ran in the house was great fun. "There were all sorts of intriguing things there: sewing needles, sweaters, toys, baby carriages. At Christmas she displayed dolls in the shop window, and in the storage room in the back, the boxes of dolls were stacked to the ceiling-one doll prettier than the next. Sometimes my aunt would tell me to pick one out. That made me happy-for me, Kyjov was a magical place."

This was true in 1938 as well. Helga spent the last lovely summer of her childhood there. Then, at the end of August, her mother came to see her, bringing two momentous decisions along with her baggage. In view of the disastrous events befalling the Jews of Austria, Helga's parents had decided that she would stay for a while with their relatives in Kyjor. But because she did not speak any Czech, she would have to attend the German school in Brno and live there during the school year-on her own, in a boardinghouse if need be. Frieda tried to make her eight-year-old daughter understand that this was for her own good: to keep her safe from the persecutions in Vienna, and to ensure that she continued to receive a good education so she would have a good future.

A few days later, mother and daughter left for Brno. Once Frieda had the feeling that Helga would be well taken care of at the boardinghouse, she bid her goodbye. "You're a smart girl, you'll manage," she said, trying to instill courage in her daughter. And with that, she left. What had begun as a carefree summer vacation turned into an exile.

Helga spent the ensuing days in a state of apathy. If someone addressed her, she was unable to reply. Even if she had been able to speak Czech, she could not have explained her predicament, because she did not understand it herself. She began to sink into a deep depression.

Informed of this by the owners of the boardinghouse, Helga's father, with the help of his relatives in Kyjov, quickly found a family to take her in, but nothing really changed for Helga. "The Wittmanns were a distinguished family, living in a beautiful apartment. They were really very kind to me. But I always felt like a stranger. And I wasn't allowed to speak with their fourteen-year-old daughter. I wasn't even allowed in her room to play with her toys."

About two weeks later, someone near and dear to her finally arrived. Her cousin Joi came for a visit with one of his friends, and the two boys took Helga to the movies. As they were saying goodbye, Helga burst into tears. How she longed to go back with them to Kyjov! Luckily, when Joi returned home, he convinced his parents to send a telegram to Helga's father in Vienna, telling him about Helga's distress.

The very next day, Otto Pollak took the train to Brno. "It was a beautiful day; the sun was s.h.i.+ning. My father's visit came as a complete surprise. No one had said a word to me. I can see him before me, sitting on a park bench, trying to decide what he should do, while I did my best to persuade him to take me back to Kyjov."

That evening, Otto wrote a letter to Helga's mother.

Brno, September 11, 1938Dear Frieda,... Frau Wittmann went upstairs to announce my arrival to Helga. An indescribable cry of joy echoed through the stairwell. Helga, in a new summer dress, white shoes, and stockings, ran down the steps toward me.There are no words for our joy at seeing each other again. Frau Wittmann left us alone. Helga stood in front of me and said with a serious look on her sweet young face: "I've been thinking, Papa, that the moment you stood before me I would tell you that I don't want to stay here any longer. I just want to be in Vienna with my parents or in Kyjov with Aunt Marta." Wittmann left us alone. Helga stood in front of me and said with a serious look on her sweet young face: "I've been thinking, Papa, that the moment you stood before me I would tell you that I don't want to stay here any longer. I just want to be in Vienna with my parents or in Kyjov with Aunt Marta."There is no describing the mature and collected way the eight-year-old little imp had thought things through, and the depth of soul she revealed.Tears kept coming to her eyes, and as I sat down out in front of the house she said to me: "For all I care they can take away all the parks in Vienna. I'd rather be at home just spinning in circles in a corner of my room than running around in a park here. When Mama left, I tried hard not to cry so that she wouldn't be so sad on the train. But I cried afterwards."When I told her that Ilse Kalinhof had gone to Palestine, she declared that she'd rather be a little beggar girl traveling the world with her parents than a rich girl living with strangers. She asked about Helga Weiss, and said: "She's lucky; she can be with her parents."Then she told me that Joi had visited her and that she couldn't help crying when they said goodbye. And when I asked whether Joi had cried, too, she said that he was very sad, but that he hadn't ever had to live with strangers.It went on like that for hours. It took everything in my power to stand firm when she begged me to make a decision. I shall wait a few days so that I can figure out in peace and quiet, rather than in the heat of the moment, what measures to take regarding the future of this extraordinary child. I sat in the dark outside the house with a heavy heart and gazed for a long time up at the brightly lit window of what I a.s.sumed was the room of my girl, who means everything to me ...Warmest wishes, your Otto Two days later, the decision had been made. "We took a taxi all the way from Brno to Kyjov-I was overjoyed! I bounced up and down until my head banged against the roof of the car-that's how happy I was! I can still see the landscape as it pa.s.sed by us."

Because of the language barrier, Helga had to repeat the second grade. But she didn't care. She was glad to be with her relatives again. She learned Czech easily, made rapid progress in school, and soon felt very much at home in Kyjov.

Postcard from Frieda Pollak to her daughter Helga: "Ostende, March 25, 1939. My darling little girl! In an hour this beautiful little s.h.i.+p will take me across to England. You will soon be making the same journey, and then you will be just as happy as I am now. A thousand kisses for my darling and my warmest greetings to your dear Aunt Marta, Grandma, Uncle Fritz, Uncle Karl, Marienka, Trudel and Joi. Your Mama."

Under the care of her relatives, Helga barely noticed the menacing events that were brewing in Europe. She was too young to grasp the impact of the disastrous Munich Agreement signed by Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom in September 1938, followed by Hitler's occupation of the Sudetenland, a predominantly German-speaking area on the fringes of Czechoslovakia.2 And she could not see the imminent danger in the German army's advance into the vicinity of Kyjov. But she did notice that with each pa.s.sing day people were becoming increasingly restless and frightened. And she could not see the imminent danger in the German army's advance into the vicinity of Kyjov. But she did notice that with each pa.s.sing day people were becoming increasingly restless and frightened.

When, on March 15, 1939, the Wehrmacht formally occupied the so-called rest of Czechia and set up what they called the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, not much changed for Helga and her family right away. Far more dispiriting was a postcard she received from her mother, who was on her way to England.

On June 21, 1939, the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Race Laws, which had been enacted in Germany on September 15, 1935, were inst.i.tuted in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia as well, and Helga was becoming increasingly caught up in the fate from which her parents had tried so desperately to s.h.i.+eld her. But there were still ways to leave the country. Jewish organizations such as Hechalutz and Youth Aliyah offered agricultural training abroad and thus managed to help young people escape to Great Britain, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Children's transports were also being organized to bring thousands of young refugees to England. Helga was scheduled to leave from Prague on one of the upcoming children's transports.

In the summer of 1939 a seamstress even came to the house to take Helga's measurements and provide a wardrobe for her trip to Great Britain. Helga got new skirts and blouses, a dress, and a coat, each with her name sewn into it in case something went wrong and she landed in a children's home instead of joining her mother right away.

But in the early hours of September 1, 1939, the German battle cruiser Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Westerplatte Peninsula near Gdansk. The German army invaded Poland, and World War II began. New laws were pa.s.sed that reduced the freedom of movement for Jews, one decree at a time, to an absolute minimum. Then the borders closed, and Helga's dream of a journey to England was shattered. opened fire on the Westerplatte Peninsula near Gdansk. The German army invaded Poland, and World War II began. New laws were pa.s.sed that reduced the freedom of movement for Jews, one decree at a time, to an absolute minimum. Then the borders closed, and Helga's dream of a journey to England was shattered.

One year later-Helga had just completed the third grade-Jewish children were expelled from public schools. Once again her family found it necessary to send Helga back to Brno, this time because the Jewish school there was now the only type of school she was still allowed to attend. In order to ensure that Helga got the best possible care, her family placed her in the local Jewish orphanage, where she met a good many other children in a similar situation. Helga's uncle delivered her to the orphanage shortly before the school year started.

"It was a nightmare. No one was there to receive me, no counselor, no office or service employee, no one at all. I slept in a large, dark room surrounded by about forty empty metal beds. Many children, I learned later, were in the hospital with scarlet fever; others were still on vacation."

After a few days the children returned. But Helga's situation did not improve. "We didn't have much to eat. To get anything in the morning you had to run to the kitchen, where two serving girls doled out bread. That was all we got, dry bread, and maybe, if you were among the first, a little marmalade. Sometimes my cousin Joi, who by then was also attending school in Brno, waited for me after cla.s.ses to give me a little wedge of cheese. I couldn't stand it in that orphanage. I wanted out no matter what."

Helga got her way and eventually found shelter with a couple who lived near the Jewish school. The woman took care of her young boarder lovingly, and Helga soon felt comfortable there, especially because Ruth Steiner-a girl her age, the daughter of an ophthalmologist-lived nearby. She became Helga's first friend.

Then came the spring of 1941, and with it a decree that made it illegal for Jews in the Protectorate to travel. Without asking anyone, Helga packed her things, went to the train station, and bought a ticket to Kyjov. It was still light when she arrived at her relatives' home toward evening. Her aunt was feeding the chickens in the yard and was astonished when she suddenly saw Helga standing in front of her, clutching her suitcase. "Here I am again," she said.

In the spring of 1941 Otto Pollak was still living in Vienna. His cafe had been Aryanized and his a.s.sets confiscated. He had been forced to give up his beautiful home on Mariahilfer Stra.s.se, along with its valuable furniture, and to move to another place. He had witnessed the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 9-10, 1938, when forty-two synagogues and small houses of wors.h.i.+p in Vienna were set on fire and plundered, and countless Jewish businesses and homes were confiscated or destroyed. Of the 6,547 Viennese Jews arrested that night, approximately 3,700 ended up in the Dachau concentration camp; some were murdered on the spot.