of the Wehrmacht in the Czech Sudetenland appeared imminent in 1938, he advised the textile wholesaler: ‘Go away! Don’t stay here!’ But Emil Holzner, his wife Růžena, and his daughters Věra, aged 16, and Lydia, aged 9, stayed.
Lydia started school in 1936. As there were only sixty-five Jews in Hronov, there was no Jewish school.32 ‘I went to the primary school like all the children in the town.’ She was the only Jewish girl in her class, but it made no difference. ‘The relationship between Christians and Jews was unproblematic.’
Lydia encountered Nazis for the first time in 1937. Her family was vacationing in a spa resort, and one day young Nazi Party supporters marched through the towns with pipes and drums. ‘We can do without that! We’re going home’, said her father. ‘Why?’ asked the 7-year-old. ‘It was then that my parents explained to me that there could be some changes in our lives.’ Emil and Růžena talked more and more about emigrating. ‘I was spared these discussions. I was always sent out of the room.’ Lydia recalls that her parents wanted to send Věra away. But her sister didn’t want to go away. She said: ‘This is my home. This is my country and this is where I’ll stay.’
As the occupation of Czech Sudetenland by German troops became imminent in autumn 1938, 200,000 people left between then and summer 1939, including around 25,000 Jewish inhabitants, many of whom sought shelter and a life in the still independent Czechoslovakian provinces of Bohemia and Moravia.33 Flight was the only way of avoiding being deported to a camp. The Holzners remained in Hronov, although the town was close to the German border.
Channa Markowicz Channa’s father always showed a marked interest in politics. The developments in Europe in the 1930s, particularly in Germany, worried him. ‘It must have been 1938; he wanted us to emigrate to Russia or America.’ He saw no future for himself or his family in Irshava, but his wife didn’t want to leave. ‘I’m not going anywhere as long as my mother lives here’, she said.
Dáša Friedová Although the Fried family were the only Jews in the Czech village of Odolice, where there were also a lot of Germans as well as Czechs, Dáša Friedová and her sister Sylva had no idea of the impending dangers to their lives. ‘My parents never spoke about Hitler or Nazi Germany in our presence. Perhaps they wanted to protect us.’ Besides, in their children’s presence, Otto and Kát’a Fried spoke French or German when they wanted to talk about serious matters. ‘We didn’t understand, because we children spoke only Czech.’
When, in autumn 1938, the occupation by German troops of the northern, western and southern regions of Czechoslovakia (Sudetenland),34 including Odolice, was imminent, the Fried family fled to Prague. They had to leave almost all of their things behind. It was only then that Dáša began to sense that ‘something bad is happening’.
Relatives of the Frieds wanted to leave Europe altogether. An aunt and five cousins fled to Canada. They begged the Frieds to follow them. Dáša’s mother obtained a passport. ‘But my father didn’t want to go anywhere.’ He said: ‘We’re Czech, we were born here and this is our land. The Germans won’t be here for long. We’re staying here.’ In Prague, the family moved into a nice large apartment and new furniture was acquired. Dáša and Sylva went to school again. The girls played with the children of other relatives, most of whom still lived in Prague. Life returned to normal.
‘My sister and I began to feel at home in our new surroundings. We no longer felt any antisemitism. And life began to be pleasant again.’ Until 13 March 1939, when German troops invaded Prague. Dáša was 9 years old; her sister Sylva, 12.
Sudetenland was annexed by Nazi Germany in autumn 1938.35 And on 15 March the following year, just one day after Slovakia declared its independence, the Wehrmacht occupied the rest of the country. The German terror began right after the arrival of the Wehrmacht, SS units and police. Jews, Roma and political opponents were persecuted, interned and murdered.36 Dáša’s father was also arrested immediately and imprisoned in Pankraz. While the family still lived in Odolice, at the time of the Czechoslovakian elections on 19 May 1935,37 Otto Fried had offered to drive inhabitants to the polling station with the farm’s vehicles. Among them were many Germans. Because Fried feared that they would vote for the pro-Nazi Sudeten German Party, which later merged with the Nazi Party, the vehicles never reached their destination: ‘My father told the drivers to go somewhere else. That’s why he was arrested immediately after the Germans entered Prague.’ Suddenly, Dáša and Sylva became worried again. Fortunately, their father was released after a few months. ‘I have never discovered what happened to him in prison.’
The girls became hopeful again. They continued to go to school and played with their relatives’ children. Friends also visited them in their nice apartment. ‘My mother loved to have people around her and to organize celebrations.’
Janek Mandelbaum In the Free City of Danzig/Gdańsk, around 35 kilometres from the Polish city of Gdynia, the Nazis won over 50 per cent of the vote in the May 1933 elections. In spite of the League of Nations mandate, Jews were increasingly discriminated against and expropriated. A modified version of the Nuremberg Race Laws entered into force there on 21 November 1938.38 This provoked great worry and concern for Janek’s parents, Majloch and Cyrla Mandelbaum. They wondered fearfully what that would mean for their future and whether they would be safe in Gdynia.
In autumn 1936, the following report on the situation of the Jews of Danzig appeared in the Jüdische Revue published in Mukachevo, Czechoslovakia:
The situation of the Jews … is determined by the fact that although a democratic constitution prevents Jews from being legally discriminated against and from becoming second-class citizens, the population is being urged through strong Nazi propaganda to boycott Jews economically.… As the dominant government party, the Nazis will do everything to pursue anti-Jewish legislation as in the German Reich.… A ban on kosher butchering was recently ordered as part of the Emergency Regulation Law. Other regulations are likely to follow.39
Majloch and Cyrla Mandelbaum often received visits from friends. ‘They talked about politics nearly all the time. They had an idea about what was going on in the Nazi Reich.’ They knew about the marginalization and repression of the Jews in Germany and wondered why Hitler and his followers hated the Jews so much. Janek’s parents didn’t talk about their concerns when the children were present. ‘They wanted to protect us.’ But Janek often listened at the living-room door – or wherever he could – and learned a lot in that way.
In the meantime, Majloch Mandelbaum made successful efforts to arrange for the family’s emigration to Australia. But there was a problem: ‘The regulations specified that the husband must live for six months in the country before he could fetch his family.’ Janek’s mother did not want to be separated for six months from her husband at times like these.
‘So we didn’t go. Everything would certainly have been different for the family if we had emigrated to Australia.’ But no one, including Janek’s mother, knew at the time what awaited the family.
The summer of 1939 had begun and Janek had just celebrated his twelfth birthday. His parents wanted him to have his barmitzvah a year later, making him a fully fledged member of the Jewish community. This celebration usually takes place on the first Shabbat after the thirteenth birthday. On this day, the barmitzvah boy has to read a portion from the Torah in Hebrew. On the following day, the barmitzvah is celebrated with family and friends.
‘My father engaged a teacher to prepare me. He was meant to teach me Hebrew to study the Torah and whatever else I needed for my barmitzvah. After one or two months of lessons, the teacher disappeared and never returned. Perhaps he had fled from the impending war. The German border was just a stone’s throw away.’
One day it was announced:
