The Girls Of Room 28_ Friendship, Hope, And Survival In Theresienstadt Part 5

What could it mean? Ela wondered. Why of all people were the Frohlich children being brought to the ghetto by special transport? Years later Frta related what had happened to her siblings the previous night.

It was early in 1943. The transports had been running in high gear for over a year. My brothers and sisters and I were living at the orphanage on Belgicka at the time. One evening, word suddenly came that the Frohlich children were to report to the Gestapo the next morning. We didn't know why. The next morning we were all taken to Gestapo headquarters. Even Ruzenka, who was in the hospital on Lublanska with pneumonia, was fetched and brought to the Gestapo. Once we were there, we were locked in a cold, dark cellar. There was nothing to eat or drink. Only the several layers of clothing and the coats that we had put on just in case provided a little warmth. Late that afternoon we were taken to be interrogated. We didn't know what they wanted from us. They treated us like criminals. The first thing they did was to take my brother Jenda's lovely watch away. He had only recently been given this watch at his bar mitzvah in the synagogue on Maislova, where he had sung beautifully. He had received other gifts as well. Everything we had with us was confiscated: identification papers, rings, a little silver necklace, money. When my ring wouldn't come off, the SS man screamed at me and threatened to chop off my finger. The German was starting to come toward me when Jenda placed himself in front of me to protect me, and was given a hard kick by the SS man, while at the same time my little brother Jarda, only eleven at the time, threw himself at the SS man. Jenda had already tried to settle him down and told him to stay calm. But at that moment Jarda, who could get very angry and was a fighter by nature, could no longer control his temper and threw himself at the SS man and bit his hand, but the SS man just flung him to one side.We were terrified of what would happen next. But the German didn't do anything to him and just said, "You're the only one I like. I'd like to have a courageous son like you." Meanwhile, I had been turning so hard at the ring on my finger that it finally came off. Then we had to sign something. The boys signed their names very quickly, but I took my time and scribbled mine. The Gestapo man grabbed me by the hair, banged my head against the wall, and shouted at me that my name wasn't Frohlichova, but Frohlich. My sister Zdenka signed correctly because Jenda told her to. Our youngest, Ruzenka, couldn't write yet. Besides, she had a fever of over 104 degrees. She lay on the stone floor, and the booted SS men kicked her. When we circled around to protect her, they kicked us. Then they put us all back in the cellar.

Marta Frohlich had a special friend in Room 28: Eva Winkler. Marta liked this girl with her blue eyes and striking long dark eyelashes. Eva was a girl with a heart, considerate and loving-just like her father, Fritz Winkler, who took the Frohlich children under his wing when he saw how vulnerable their situation in the ghetto was.

The first few days after their arrival in Theresienstadt, they had to spend their nights on a plank frame in an overcrowded barracks, in the farthest corner of a long hallway. Behind their sleeping quarters, separated only by a thin wall of boards, was a toilet bucket that could be reached only by stepping over the planks on which the children were supposed to sleep-and, of course, their sleep was constantly disrupted. They were liberated from "Hotel WC," as Marta calls their first quarters in Theresienstadt, a few days later by their uncle Franta, who was already living in the ghetto, only to wind up in an old barracks where the stench was not as intense, but where they suffered from the icy cold. What good was an old stove in a corner of the room, when there was neither wood nor coal to heat it-not even a match to light it?

It was Fritz Winkler who came to the aid of the Frolich children. He worked in a carpentry workshop, and now and then he was able to slip them some wood to heat the stove. And he soon became a fatherly friend-just what they so desperately needed. Their own father, who had arrived in the ghetto shortly after they did, was the same man in Theresienstadt as he had always been-angry and short-tempered. "We once brought him something to eat," Marta recalls. "And he went wild and almost hit us-because it was so little! The other men in the room came to our aid. They were furious at him, and almost clobbered him because he didn't appreciate what we had brought him."

Things were very different with Eva Winkler. She appreciated Marta's gifts. When Marta discovered her pa.s.sion for collecting the slips of paper that Palmera razor blades came wrapped in, she asked her two brothers to "organize" as many as they could for her new friend, thus adding to Eva's already considerable collection. Eva treated this collection like a treasure trove. What a disaster it would be if even one of these prettily ill.u.s.trated papers were to disappear! Eva would have been miserable, as is evident from a little song the girls made up and merrily sang sometimes: "Herr Winkler's daughter's sobs can be heard, / a tragedy has now occurred. / It's lost, it's lost-you ask what's lost? / The Palmeras have been lost. / Yes, yes, yes / it's as clear as day / Yes, yes, yes / it's true in its way."

One day Eva showed her new friend something quite different-the pictures she had painted with Friedl d.i.c.ker-Brandeis. "I'd love to learn to do that, too. It's lovely!" Marta said in astonishment. Shortly after that, Eva took her along for drawing lessons in Room 28.

For many children, art cla.s.ses with Friedl d.i.c.ker-Brandeis were bright stars in the gloom of the ghetto. "During art cla.s.s I was oblivious to everything else," Helga recalls. "There was only that big table with the painting supplies, even though the paper was nothing much, sometimes just waste paper or packing paper from some old packages. But at these moments I felt like a free human being."

The children painted and drew, did handicrafts, and made collages. Friedl supplied the paints, brushes, pencils, and paper, and often brought a few art books or objects that served as models-a vase, a Dutch wooden shoe, a teapot. One day, she would offer a theme-an animal in a landscape, or would simply say, "Storm, wind, evening-paint it!" Another day, she would sketch a fantasy story in a few sentences or would say nothing more than "Paint where you would like to be now. Paint what you wish for yourself. Paint whatever means a great deal to you." Or, "Look out the window and paint what you see."

There was usually a hush while the children worked. Friedl radiated a magical aura that inspired them. "You didn't have to draw well. That was not what really mattered," Helga says, describing her teaching method. "The crucial thing was that you developed your talents, that you learned to see. To recognize colors. To play with colors. To move your hand in time to music or a specific rhythm. For example, she would rap out a certain tempo on the table, and we were supposed to draw according to the rhythm. Her method of instruction gave us moments of lightheartedness. She had a capacity for awakening in us a positive att.i.tude toward our condition, toward life in Theresienstadt. In her presence everything seemed to fall into place-more or less all on its own."

When she entered Room 28, Friedl did not always find calm, disciplined pupils who were eager to paint. Sometimes they were anything but. But in a flash, Friedl was able to engage the children in her subject. Most often it was rhythmic exercises that helped. "Besides making the painter's hand and whole person light and flexible, such exercises are an appropriate means by which to turn an unruly mob of individuals into a working group ready to devote itself cooperatively to a cause," she wrote in a report in mid-1943, on the first anniversary of the establishment of the Theresienstadt Children's Homes. "Moreover, they lift the child out of old habits of thinking and seeing [and] present the child with a task that can be fulfilled with delight and fantasy and yet with the greatest precision."5 Friedl loved children, and children loved her. This small, energetic woman with short, light brown hair, hazelnut brown eyes, and a gentle, bright voice was always cordial, always calm and patient with them. She did not reprimand the children, push them too hard, or coerce them in any way. Using fantasy and intuition, she set about her work in a playful spirit. She watched with interest her pupils' first, hesitant efforts at painting, cautiously asked questions, casually steered their attention. Above all, she encouraged the children to follow their own ideas and inspirations, and to give them graphic expression. One of her basic principles was: "Let the child be free to express himself."

Friedl d.i.c.ker-Brandeis was forty-four years old when she, her husband, Pavel Brandeis, and her friend Laura imko arrived in Theresienstadt on December 17, 1942, on transport "Ch" from Hradec Kralove. In acknowledgment of her career as an artist, she was first a.s.signed to the "Technical Department," a sort of engineering office whose official task was the production of whatever technical drawings the ghetto needed. But this SS-sanctioned activity produced creative work that doc.u.mented the reality of life in the ghetto-studies, sketches, paintings, posters- hundreds of works in all. The department was headed by the painter Bedich Fritta (aka Fritz Taussig). At his side were experienced colleagues: Otto Ungar, Leo Haas, Felix Bloch, Jo Spier, the young Peter Kien, and others.

The strict doc.u.mentary realism characteristic of these artists was not really in Friedl's nature. Her understanding of art was nourished by other sources. Her interests moved her in a different direction, and soon, following her inner desires, she was to be found only among the children.

In her cla.s.ses Friedl pa.s.sed on her rich trove of experience in both artistic and human realms, rousing in the children latent energies that could function as a positive counterweight to their oppressive existence and that could restore their psychological balance. She awakened memories of what was good in the children's past and strengthened their hope for a better future. And she helped them recapture some of their self-confidence and build up their courage. In this way she lived up to her credo: "Wherever energy reflects upon itself and, without fear of appearing ridiculous, attempts to prevail on its own, a new source of creativity opens up-and that is the goal of our attempts to teach drawing."

Proof that she succeeded, if only for a few hours, is found in the more than three thousand drawings created by children under her leaders.h.i.+p- each one a child's witness to life in the ghetto. They offer a message different from that of the drawings and paintings by Theresienstadt's adult artists, who were committed to doc.u.mentary realism. This was the case not only because children painted and drew these pictures, but also because the work of these children reveals the influence of a particular school of art and of a very modern theory of artistic pedagogy. These children's drawings-some of which can be considered works of art- are the result of an ambitious professional method of instruction and the influence of an extraordinarily gifted teacher.

Born Friederike d.i.c.ker in Vienna on July 30, 1898, she began her education in art as a sixteen-year-old pupil of Franz Cizek at the Vienna School of Applied Arts. Cizek, whose drawing and painting cla.s.ses were founded on the principle of the free development of spontaneous artistic expression, helped give birth to what would ultimately become modern art therapy. Cizek and Johannes Itten, whose private art school Friedl attended a year later, gave her the crucial foundation for her own work. It was above all Itten's artistic instruction-which was based on chiaroscuro, color composition, and rhythmic drawing exercises, and on the principle of recognizing and appreciating individual expression-that provided the fundamental methodology for her work as an artist.

Friedl d.i.c.ker-Brandeis (18981944) When Johannes Itten was invited by Walter Gropius to be part of the Bauhaus in 1919, Friedl followed her teacher to Weimar. The innovative concepts of this most influential art school of the twentieth century matched the ideas and expectations of the young art student eager to put theory into practice. "There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is the exalted craftsman," Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus, proclaimed in a prospectus that called for an end to traditional idealized concepts of art and for the enn.o.blement of the work of the craftsman.

For the next four years Friedl studied all that the Bauhaus had to offer: textile design with Georg Muche, lithography with Lyonel Feininger, and theater design with Oskar Schlemmer and Lothar Schreyer. She learned bookbinding, graphic design, weaving, and embroidery. After Paul Klee arrived at the Bauhaus in 1921, she never missed one of his lectures-or any opportunity to watch over her revered master's shoulder as he worked. Along with Franz Cizek and Johannes Itten, it was above all Paul Klee who became the inspiration for her remarkable pedagogical achievements, which ultimately reached their full maturity in her art cla.s.ses in Theresienstadt.

"As the former director and founder of the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar, I followed the artistic work of Fraulein d.i.c.ker with great interest," wrote Walter Gropius in 1931 in a letter of recommendation for his former student. In that same year, in addition to her work in her design firm, Atelier Singer-d.i.c.ker, in Vienna, she also began her career as an art instructor for kindergartens. "During this period she always distinguished herself by her unusual and extraordinary artistic talent and thus attracted the attention of the entire faculty to her work. The variety of her talents and her great energy resulted in accomplishments and works that were among the very best of the inst.i.tute."6 Indeed, numerous objects bear witness to her inexhaustible creative energies: posters, invitations, book designs, embroidered pieces, set and costume designs (for Berthold Viertel and Bertolt Brecht, among others), drawings, paintings, sculpture, furniture, interior designs, and photo collages. These works of art were created during her student days, in the Werkstatten Bildender Kunst (Workshop for Fine Arts) in Berlin, which she had opened together with fellow student and friend Franz Singer in 1923, and, from 1926 to 1931, in Vienna in the Atelier Singer-d.i.c.ker, whose renown soon spread well beyond that city.

Beginning in 1933, the changing times began to make themselves felt in Friedl's life. Sometime during the February 1934 uprising in Vienna, which resulted in several hundred casualties and imprisonments, Friedl was arrested for being a member of the banned Communist Party. Released from prison that same year, she fled to Prague, where she remained until 1938. These years were marked by two crucial turning points in her life. In the aftermath of her imprisonment and flight, and after having broken off a complicated longtime love affair with her professional partner, Franz Singer, Friedl underwent a period of introspection and inner withdrawal. Her new orientation found its artistic expression in a series of new paintings-portraits, landscapes, still lifes, cityscapes-that announced her emanc.i.p.ation from the influences of the Bauhaus and the development of her own unique style. On a personal level, it also led to a new partners.h.i.+p with Pavel Brandeis, whom she married in 1936.

Following her inclination to work with children, Friedl set up a children's art studio in her apartment in Prague. It was attended mainly by children of German-speaking Prague families and by children of emigrants from Germany and Austria, among them Georg Eisler, son of the composer Hanns Eisler. One of Friedl's most talented students was Edith Kramer, who had moved to Prague from Vienna in order to stay close to her teacher and master. At the age of twenty she became Friedl's a.s.sistant. "I knew that I couldn't learn nearly as much from anyone else as from Friedl. She was an inspired and wonderful teacher," she would later say of her mentor.7 Friedl's circle grew smaller with each pa.s.sing day. More and more friends were saying farewell. She herself could have emigrated; she had a certificate from Palestine in hand. But she didn't want to leave her husband and his family. "I cannot go," she said when saying goodbye to her friend Wally Fischer. "Theoretically I could leave for Palestine tomorrow. But I have a task to do here, Wally. I have to stay, no matter what happens."8 It is difficult to say today how she conceived this task. We know only one thing: Friedl, who so desperately wanted a child, had a miscarriage during that time. This trauma might have led her to think that she was not meant to be a mother of a single child, but rather a teacher of art to many children.

"I believe," Edith Kramer would later say, "that it worked to the benefit of the children of Theresienstadt that she herself did not have a child. Otherwise she would have found a way to save herself. And the children of Theresienstadt would never have had those wonderful experiences with her."

In the summer of 1938, Friedl and Pavel moved to Hronov, a small town northeast of Prague, near the Polish border. They managed to lead a modest life there. And Friedl, though not used to life in a provincial town, enjoyed the picturesque surroundings, which became a source of new energy for her.

"This life has ransomed me from a thousand deaths by allowing me to paint with earnest diligence, and it is as if I have freed myself from some guilt whose cause I do not know," she wrote to a girlfriend shortly after arriving in Hronov9 Friedl threw herself into her painting with the utmost intensity. She painted to combat the suffering in this world and her own personal pain, creating her most beautiful, most personal works. "In those dark gloomy days," an acquaintance from the period reports, "she radiated energy, wisdom, and cordiality-emotions that seemed to come from another world and had almost been forgotten at the time. ... And she was always drawing. Even while she was preparing supper she would sit at the window and draw, not wanting to waste a single minute." Friedl threw herself into her painting with the utmost intensity. She painted to combat the suffering in this world and her own personal pain, creating her most beautiful, most personal works. "In those dark gloomy days," an acquaintance from the period reports, "she radiated energy, wisdom, and cordiality-emotions that seemed to come from another world and had almost been forgotten at the time. ... And she was always drawing. Even while she was preparing supper she would sit at the window and draw, not wanting to waste a single minute."10 On December 9, 1940, Friedl wrote to her friend Hilde Kothny in Germany: "I have slipped through the net and am gratefully enjoying life. I only hope that if I have to pay for this, I will have stored up enough energy from it to do so."11 In December 1942 Friedl and Pavel received their transport orders. Composed and prepared for what was in store for her, she started on her way to Theresienstadt.

Helga's diary continues:Wednesday, November 3, 1943Ela cried. I could not at all believe that she's so fond of me and loyal to me and valued our friends.h.i.+p so much. I'm well aware that my friends.h.i.+p with Erika was a disappointment to her. But how should I have known that she and Flaka aren't such close friends, that they only go to their rendezvous together because their boyfriends are pals and that's why they all go for their evening walk together? Flaka and Zajiek have exchanged friends.h.i.+p rings, and now Flaka also has friends.h.i.+p pendants with Hana Lissau and Eva h.e.l.ler. Zajiek has left Flaka, just as Pavla once left Ela and I'm leaving Ela now. Flaka is all alone. Ela is all alone-her friends have betrayed her. Marianne doesn't have a friend, but she gets along well with Ela and Flaka. They're friendly with one another, but haven't offered each other real friends.h.i.+p. I told Ela just now that I'll always think of her as my best friend, even if she no longer wants it that way. I offered her my friends.h.i.+p again, to which she replied that she'd have to think it over seriously. I'm curious how it will turn out doesn't have a friend, but she gets along well with Ela and Flaka. They're friendly with one another, but haven't offered each other real friends.h.i.+p. I told Ela just now that I'll always think of her as my best friend, even if she no longer wants it that way. I offered her my friends.h.i.+p again, to which she replied that she'd have to think it over seriously. I'm curious how it will turn out.We lie packed together like sardines on our triple-decker bunks. Between the stench, the narrow confines, and the vermin, it's really terrible here. I've drawn a sketch of our bed, where two people lie on each level. We sleep in our beds, and live and eat in them like monkeys in a tree or chickens in a henhouse.

November 11, 1943, was a day of fear-a cold, gray, rainy day. The evening before, an order had been given for everyone living in the ghetto to report the following day for a census to be taken two miles from Theresienstadt, in a low area just outside of Bohuovice that the Czechs called kotlina kotlina, the "hollow." The order had been preceded by the arrest of the deputy Jewish elder, Jakob Edelstein, and three of his colleagues from the Central Registry, the office a.s.signed to keep a precise record of all arriving and departing transports and an accurate daily count of the population. The arrested men, who vanished into the camp prison in the cellar of the bank building, were accused of falsifying records and abetting the flight of at least fifty-five people.

In fact, it had become the practice among the Central Registry staff to occasionally enter the names of dead persons on transport lists in order to protect some people from being deported to the East. Sometimes births (beginning in 1943, abortions were obligatory)12 were covered up by falsely entering the names of dead persons in the registry. And they attempted to hide the names of people who had fled the camp by listing them in the daily count as still present. were covered up by falsely entering the names of dead persons in the registry. And they attempted to hide the names of people who had fled the camp by listing them in the daily count as still present.

After several prisoners, including Walter Deutsch, had escaped from Theresienstadt that October and were later arrested in Prague, the SS examined the records and, discovering all sorts of irregularities, sent some of those responsible to the camp prison. These events were known only to a small circle, and if the majority of the ghetto residents did learn of them, it was only by way of dubious bonkes bonkes. But there could be no mistake about the meaning of the orders issued for November 11, 1943.

Beds in Room 28-a drawing from Helga's diary Everyone had to get up at five o'clock in the morning and make themselves ready for the march. Soon afterward the ghetto's inhabitants were streaming from its buildings and barracks: between thirty and forty thousand people, from babies to ninety-year-olds, mothers holding their children's hands, some with a baby in a carriage, the sick on crutches, the frail clutching canes or clinging to someone younger. Row upon row, the crowd moved forward, some of them in panic because they feared the worst, others apparently more composed even while they tried to calm themselves with the notion that this was just another absurd n.a.z.i torment that they would have to endure.

"I didn't sleep at all during the night of November 10th," Helga confided to her diary ten days later, after removing it from its hiding place. "First came the Home elder, then the doctor, then the nurse-and it was all about the census to be taken in the Bohuovice Hollow. We got up at five, had to put on the warmest clothes we had, and by half past seven we were required to be at the door and ready to march. We stood there for an hour, then we were sent back into the Home, only to be whistled for again ten minutes later and ordered to march back downstairs and line up out on the street. There were three hundred fifty children. Then we walked for forty-five minutes to the hollow. We had enough to eat with us, because that same morning we had been given our ration of three ounces of sugar, a pound of bread, half a tin of liverwurst, and two ounces of margarine. We stood in one spot from ten in the morning until five that evening."

"We were with the children," the counselor Eva Weiss recalls. "And we thought up games to play. Word games or the sort of guessing games you play with children when you don't have anything else, just to divert them and lessen their fear. But the whole time we were afraid they would shoot us. We didn't know if we would be coming back."

Today, the children who were under her care have no recollection of playing any games in the kotlina kotlina. Only a few of them managed to remember how they formed a little circle, facing outward, so that a friend could go to the toilet. Much stronger are memories of how cold it was, the pain in their frozen hands and feet, and how their legs hurt from standing for hours in one place. And they all share one memory burned forever in their minds-fear.

"I was terribly afraid," Flaka recalls. "I thought they were going to shoot us. The whole valley was surrounded by armed police and SS men, with airplanes circling overhead."

"I wanted to find my mother and grandmother, but that wasn't possible. We weren't allowed to leave our group," Hanka says. And Handa remembers, "No one knew why we were there or what was going to happen next. And under those conditions you think of all sorts of possibilities. The worst part of that day for us was that we really didn't know if we would be returning home or what would happen next. We thought we would never return to the camp. It was a trauma for us all."

In the crowd were Alice Herz-Sommer and her little boy, Stephan, who sometimes played the sparrow in Brundibar Brundibar. She sat on a blanket that she had brought and laid out on the damp, cold ground, with Stephan on one knee and another boy on the other. She told the two boys stories-how else was she to counter their anxiety, how else to make light of their questions of "why"? Why did they have to stand around here in the rain and cold? Why couldn't they go back to the ghetto? Alice told stories to fight against the increasing tension; she even managed to make the children laugh. And then suddenly came another booming command from the SS: "Line up in groups of one hundred!" In the distance Anton Burger, the camp commandant, could be seen riding a black horse. A few gliders were drifting overhead, several SS men on bicycles were circling the large area filled with prisoners, Czech policemen held machine guns aimed at the crowd. Dogs were barking, whips cracked. Shots could be heard in the distance. What was happening to those left behind in the ghetto? It was late afternoon, and dusk was falling.

Suddenly the eerie rumor spread that it all might end in a ma.s.s execution by firing squad, or through some other kind of liquidation. Those who had lived in the ghetto since January 1942 recalled in horror the execution of the young men whom the SS made a point of hanging before the eyes of the members of the Council of Elders as punishment for their having tried to smuggle letters out of the camp.13 The camp commandant wanted to set an example that would deter anyone else from disobeying camp rules. Was this so-called census in the Buhoovice Hollow merely a pretense for a.s.sembling everyone in order to murder them? An act of reprisal for some acts of disobedience? An act of revenge taken in the manner of the ma.s.sacre at Lidice? The camp commandant wanted to set an example that would deter anyone else from disobeying camp rules. Was this so-called census in the Buhoovice Hollow merely a pretense for a.s.sembling everyone in order to murder them? An act of reprisal for some acts of disobedience? An act of revenge taken in the manner of the ma.s.sacre at Lidice?

The Germans were capable of anything. For those who were older, November 11 was a date that awakened the ghosts of the past. In Berlin on November 9, 1918, the Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann had proclaimed Germany a republic. And November 11, 1918, marked the signing of the armistice agreement that later led to the Treaty of Versailles, which in the eyes of the n.a.z.is had brought "disgrace and shame on Germany for all time." Ever since the early 1920s, these dates had been thorns in the side of all enemies of the Weimar Republic, especially Adolf Hitler and his n.a.z.i Party, which was why they had repeatedly unleashed their hatred and thirst for power on their anniversaries. Their failed putsch in Munich occurred on November 9, 1923. And Kristallnacht-the pogroms unleashed against Jews throughout the German Reich, which by then included the Sudetenland-began on the night of November 9, 1938. The events of that night now lay five years in the past. But for those standing in the Buhoovice Hollow, those events were once again real and menacing.

"So I picked my boy up and held him tight, even though that was rather difficult," Alice Herz-Sommer continues in her report. "And now the moment was here. We are going to be shot. This is the end. Life is over. Yes, and how does a person react in such a situation? One does not react at all. There is no way to react. Your own emotional life is no longer functional. It is more like a dark wall. Everything is black. The only thing I could feel was the warm body of my son. And I told myself, Well, he's here with me. Whatever happens to me happens to him. And that lies in G.o.d's hand."14 As the day drew to a close, people-especially the elderly-began falling to the ground in exhaustion, some of them fainting, others still quite conscious and yet incapable of staying on their feet. Many younger people were barely able to hold out, either, and-without arousing the notice of the police or SS men who were pacing along their ranks and bellowing numbers-they took turns slipping to the back of their groups of one hundred, where they could crouch down and relax their exhausted bodies for a few minutes. Several more hours pa.s.sed. It was growing dark and still they were being held in check. When would this nightmare end?

Little Frta, Marta Frohlich, was ill with bronchitis and in the infirmary in the Hohenelbe Barracks, so she did not have to appear for the census in the kotlina kotlina, as was the case with several hundred other patients. Many of them, especially the old and frail, had been brought to the hospital early that morning. The hospital was overcrowded, and there was so little room that even those who were seriously ill not only had to share a cot with others, but many of them could not even stretch out and had to sit up. There they huddled, shoulder to shoulder, the entire day. Including Marta: "Sick as I was, I sat on my cot from morning to night. I couldn't even go to the toilet. They just kept counting us over and over-like cows. I heard airplanes and I heard shots, and I thought we would all be shot."

As the hours pa.s.sed, her feverish thoughts were with her brothers and sisters in the kotlina kotlina. It seemed like an eternity. "What are the Germans up to? If only I could be with my brothers and sisters! If they shoot them, then I want to be shot, too."

"And then something happened that I will never forget," Alice Herz-Sommer recalls. "A loud cry, in Czech: 'Zpt do ghetta! 'Zpt do ghetta! Back to the ghetto!' There's no describing the feeling. The ghetto had become paradise. The ghetto, that indescribable ghetto, that h.e.l.l-in that moment it became paradise!" Back to the ghetto!' There's no describing the feeling. The ghetto had become paradise. The ghetto, that indescribable ghetto, that h.e.l.l-in that moment it became paradise!"

Zdenk Ohrenstein, the boy from Prague who had played the dog in Brundibar Brundibar (and who later went by Ornest, the Czech version of his surname), described these events in an article for (and who later went by Ornest, the Czech version of his surname), described these events in an article for Vedem: Vedem: "A great rush, as if a rope had slackened and everything gave way. People moved forward. No one knew who had given the order, but everyone started to walk. Like a slowly churning-and deadly-avalanche. Pus.h.i.+ng and shoving. Loud cries. People ruthlessly trampling each other. Everyone just thinking of himself. Me, n.o.body else! My life is at stake. We rolled back to the barracks, which then stood in our way. This horde of people became one great mob. You couldn't breathe, and everything stood still. Each was carried along, scarcely aware even of himself. The strength and force of the individual no longer counted. There was only one awful force, the force of the mob, unstoppable and cruel. Yes, so it was-and yet we managed to get home. No one knows precisely how. Everyone fled, leaving everyone else behind. We escaped like flies from a spider-web, our faces expressing only bafflement." "A great rush, as if a rope had slackened and everything gave way. People moved forward. No one knew who had given the order, but everyone started to walk. Like a slowly churning-and deadly-avalanche. Pus.h.i.+ng and shoving. Loud cries. People ruthlessly trampling each other. Everyone just thinking of himself. Me, n.o.body else! My life is at stake. We rolled back to the barracks, which then stood in our way. This horde of people became one great mob. You couldn't breathe, and everything stood still. Each was carried along, scarcely aware even of himself. The strength and force of the individual no longer counted. There was only one awful force, the force of the mob, unstoppable and cruel. Yes, so it was-and yet we managed to get home. No one knows precisely how. Everyone fled, leaving everyone else behind. We escaped like flies from a spider-web, our faces expressing only bafflement."

At nine o'clock the girls reached their Home. Flaka had fainted from exhaustion on the way back and had to be carried for a while. But that was harmless in comparison to those who were so old and weak that they did not survive this day of absurd census taking, or who later died from its rigors.

When the girls got back to "their" Room 28, Strejda (Handa's father) was already kneeling at the old stove. The fire was burning and spreading comforting warmth. Without a word, the girls took to their beds and fell asleep at once.

Helga's father kept a sober record of what happened: "Autumn parade. Census in the Buhoovice Hollow. Evidently a former drill-field. About thirty thousand Jews report for duty. Our building at nine o'clock in the morning. I've been on my feet for fourteen hours. I arrived home at a quarter to eight. Helga, who was standing at the other end of the field and held out bravely, arrived at her quarters at nine o'clock. We were let back into the ghetto at half past seven." His love of puns came through in his summary of the events of the day: "Open-air production on Buhoovice Field: The Tallies of Hoffmann." The Tallies of Hoffmann." Another musical allusion also made the rounds in whispers: Weber's Another musical allusion also made the rounds in whispers: Weber's Freis.h.i.+t. Freis.h.i.+t.15 "The administration and the Council of Elders," stated Order of the Day #37 on November 13, "thank all those ghetto inmates, especially the staff of the barracks, the Ghetto Guard, the finance office, the doctors and nursing staff, the staff of Central Registry, and those working groups who a.s.sisted in both departure and return, for the discipline they displayed while the census was taken in the Buhoovice Hollow on November 11, 1943."

It was not until ten days later, on November 21, that Helga retrieved her diary from its hiding place and wrote, "I had to put you aside for a while, at the bottom of my suitcase, because I expected the Germans to do a search. I had to hide all my notebooks, hide you under dead things! Even now I cannot describe what had happened during this time."

"We're expecting some kind of inspection from the outside world," Helga wrote on November 29, 1943. "Everyone learned about it on the 27th. The entire ghetto is to be prettied up-the store windows, the barracks, and the children's homes. Shelves have to be hidden behind curtains. Nothing is to be left lying in the open. We're under quarantine. We're allowed outside, but no one is allowed to visit us. Encephalitis has broken out, thirty cases, four of them ours."

In Room 28 one bunk after the other stood empty, the sick bays were filled to their limit, and the Sokolovna was turned into a hospital for encephalitis cases. An inflammation of the brain, the disease is very infectious and results in both a high fever and narcolepsy, which is why it is also called sleeping sickness. There was hardly a girl who did not come down with it-Ela, Flaka, Handa, Helga, Frta, Marianne, Judith, Lenka, Hana, Hanka, Eva Winkler. One after the other they fell ill-as did the adults, and it was often worse for them than for the children. Tella suddenly could no longer move her fingers; it was as if she were paralyzed, and for a while she was absent from Room 28.

The disease caused great confusion and undermined the discipline that usually prevailed in the Girls' Home. Even prohibitions were ignored. Because of the contagious nature of the disease, no one was allowed in the Girls' Home except the residents, but this did not prevent a few boys from visiting their girlfriends.

Marianne Deutsch (left) (left) and Hana Brady. Hana lived in another room in the Girls' Home. The two became friends when they were both confined to the same small sick-bay room. Hana had only her brother Jii in the ghetto. "She was a very pretty blond girl. I liked her a lot and got along with her wonderfully," Marianne says. Marianne would have loved to live with Hana in that little room until the end of the war. She didn't want to return to Room 28 and Hana Brady. Hana lived in another room in the Girls' Home. The two became friends when they were both confined to the same small sick-bay room. Hana had only her brother Jii in the ghetto. "She was a very pretty blond girl. I liked her a lot and got along with her wonderfully," Marianne says. Marianne would have loved to live with Hana in that little room until the end of the war. She didn't want to return to Room 28.

"My boyfriend Polda put on girls' clothes and a fuzzy cap and managed to get all the way up to us on the third floor," Hanka recalls. Ela's and Flaka's boyfriends, Honza and Kurt, also wiggled their way through a hole in the garden fence right next to the compost heap. After a quick exchange of words, the two disappeared again the way they had come.

"Some of us did everything we could not to be sent to the Sokolovna," Handa remembers. "When a doctor examined us we would sometimes fake reflexes. The knee reflex was no problem. But it was more difficult if he p.r.i.c.ked us in the stomach. But we tried anyway and practiced producing the reflexes they wanted. I know I didn't want to miss a single performance of Brundibar Brundibar for anything." for anything."

It was the same for the others. During this period they had a much better chance of being allowed to step in for one of the leads. Maria, who enjoyed playing the sparrow, much preferred, of course, taking over the role of Aninka, right beside her brother Pit'a. She had proved herself in the part several times by now, and the girls in Room 28 were proud to have an Aninka in their ranks.

Everyone loved this pretty girl with the dark eyes and wonderful voice. Maria was three years younger than Rafael Schachter's first choice for the role, Greta Hofmeister from Room 25, whom, as Flaka puts it, "we younger girls regarded as something of a prima donna. She had a very beautiful, crystal-clear voice, like a bell. But our Maria was more childlike, more natural. For us, she was the real Aninka."

Stephan Sommer slipped into the role of the sparrow as often as he could. He was always close at hand, waiting for his chance. The little boy was the darling of the ensemble. "Everybody liked him, hugged and kissed him," Helga recalls. "He was so charming onstage, hopping about so marvelously, just like a sparrow."

By now the children knew every song by heart. It was no problem for Batik to find stand-ins for any role. Some children were just lying in wait for the chance. Handa was given the role of the dog for one performance during this period, and Flaka even got to play Aninka. "One day both Aninkas, Greta Hofmeister and Maria Muhlstein, were sick," she vividly recalls. "And I asked Batik, 'Please, can I can sing Aninka? I can do it, too.' And he let me. I sang it without a rehearsal- and didn't make many mistakes. Only when I was dancing with Pit'a, he kept stepping on my toes. I did two performances on one day, afternoon and evening. And I was so happy that I could sing the role of Aninka!"

Alice Herz-Sommer (born 1903) and her son, Stephan (19372001), who loved playing the sparrow in Brundibar. Brundibar. In 1949 Stephan adopted the name Raphael. "My boy was enchanted, bewitched by In 1949 Stephan adopted the name Raphael. "My boy was enchanted, bewitched by Brundibar, Brundibar, " Alice recalls. "Whenever he returned from a performance he would sit on the top bunk with a ladle in his hand and conduct, and the other five children (there were six in our room) would sing along, and sometimes we adults sang along, too. The text is simply delightful." " Alice recalls. "Whenever he returned from a performance he would sit on the top bunk with a ladle in his hand and conduct, and the other five children (there were six in our room) would sing along, and sometimes we adults sang along, too. The text is simply delightful."

Each performance was a special event, a cultural and social high point in the daily monotony of camp life. The story and the music brought all the partic.i.p.ants, both boys and girls, closer together. And there were such wonderful scenes! Whenever the little trumpeter played his solo, the children would waltz in time to it. "It always made us laugh," recalls Ela, who would never miss a show. "He was this little Danish boy-and he played so beautifully!"

The "Danish boy" was Paul Rabinowitsch, born in Hamburg in 1930. He had emigrated to Denmark with his mother and stepfather, but had been deported to Theresienstadt in October 1943. Since then he had lived in Boys' Home L 414, where he was the only Dane among a majority of Czech and German boys. He owed his partic.i.p.ation in Brundibar Brundibar to a rare talent-he played the trumpet. And not badly, either. After all, he had already made his debut as a member of the Copenhagen Tivoli Guarde Band. to a rare talent-he played the trumpet. And not badly, either. After all, he had already made his debut as a member of the Copenhagen Tivoli Guarde Band.

And now he was performing in a children's opera. He sat beside the pianist, the handsome Gideon Klein (or sometimes Batik himself) and when it was time for his entrance, Paul stood up and played his trumpet with all his heart. "I vividly recall," he would report decades later, "playing that solo, that lovely Valse lente cantabile Valse lente cantabile, and watching the children dance and laugh. It was fantastic."

Paul found other things fantastic as well-things that had greater meaning for him than they did for the other children, because he spoke not a word of Czech. "What was so wonderful for me," he recalls, "was that the plot was about milk and how the children were able to get milk, and that people stood there buying bonbons and cake and bread. That was incredible! They had cake and bread and milk and ice cream- vanilla, strawberry, and lemon ice cream. Croissants and buns and pretzels, and all the other things they sang about. And all we had, of course, was dry bread! We children hadn't had real milk to drink for years; no eggs, no cake, no bonbons, no ice cream. And suddenly there was someone selling every sort of ice cream imaginable, as if all these things actually existed. And the children acted as if these things were really there. That was fantastic. Reality was transformed, bewitched. And it was especially Brundibar Brundibar that had that great creative power." that had that great creative power."

w.i.l.l.y Groag (19142001) and his wife, Miriam (19181946), whom he married in 1940. Their daughter Chava was born in the ghetto in 1944 and now lives in Israel.

Sometimes when the new Home administrator w.i.l.l.y Groag made his evening rounds, someone would mention Brundibar Brundibar, and he would treat the children to a special story- and Groag was a wonderful storyteller. He told the children how when he was a chemistry student in Prague between 1934 and 1936 he would pay his weekly visit-as a "boarder," as he liked to put it-to his uncle Heinz, Dr. Heinrich Fleischmann, a lawyer and bachelor who lived on Karlsplatz. "My uncle played the piano very well. He was an amateur of the highest level. And he played piano together with Hans Krasa. Sometimes they would go to a coffeehouse together, the Deutsches Haus on Na Prikope, which was frequented by the good liberal left-many of them writers for the Prager Tageblatt Prager Tageblatt, such as Rudolf Thomas, Ludwig Steiner, Max Brod, Egon Erwin Kisch, Anton Kuh, and Theodor Lessing."

It was from Groag that the girls learned many interesting details about the life of Brundibar's Brundibar's composer, who was born on November 30, 1899, the son of a Prague attorney. They learned about his successful debut on May 4, 1921, when Alexander Zemlinsky, the conductor of the New German Theater in Prague, performed his first work, composer, who was born on November 30, 1899, the son of a Prague attorney. They learned about his successful debut on May 4, 1921, when Alexander Zemlinsky, the conductor of the New German Theater in Prague, performed his first work, Orchestral Songs Orchestral Songs, with texts taken from Christian Morgenstern's Gallows Songs Gallows Songs. Groag told them about Krasa's years in Paris, where he studied with Albert Roussell and where in 1923 he heard Roussell's Symphony for Small Orchestra and his String Quartet performed. And most certainly he also told them about Krasa's greatest success, a musical rendition of Dostoyevsky's novella Uncle's Dream Uncle's Dream, which premiered under the t.i.tle Betrothal in a Dream Betrothal in a Dream at the New German Theater in Prague in 1933 and for which Krasa received that year's Czech National Prize. at the New German Theater in Prague in 1933 and for which Krasa received that year's Czech National Prize.

"But you're barking up the wrong tree if you believe I would ever have thought that someday he would compose such a magical children's opera," Groag would conclude his special account of the life of Hans Krasa. "You see, in those days, Krasa seemed to me to be a rather odd bachelor, slightly introverted, at least in his dealings with me. But that may have been due to the difference in age. In any case, I was only twenty, and he was of my uncle's generation. But I remember him as a odd fellow, dressed in a rather old-fas.h.i.+oned frockcoat with tails that stuck out, but with an artist's lovely head of curly hair."

Hanukkah, the festival of lights and of hope, was drawing near. The children in the Homes set about preparing their gifts. This meant a great deal of craftwork and organizing. Helga had a Theresienstadt coat of arms made for her father, for which she paid five hundred fifty ghetto kronas, nineteen ounces of sugar, and two ounces of margarine-all of it saved up through an iron will. And although their friends.h.i.+p was falling apart, she wanted to give Ela a pendant. "It's all over with Ela. We've told each other that we aren't a good match. Nevertheless, I intend to treat Ela cordially, so she won't have a bad opinion of me. And I want her to have a memento from me, since I have one from her," she wrote in her diary.

Pendants and brooches were the two presents most girls could give each other. With a little skill, they could even make them themselves. As we learn from her notebook, Handa was planning the same sort of presents: she wanted to give Muka a brooch in the form of a dog. For Helga it was to be one with a horse's head, for Ela one with a cat's head, and a treble clef for Pit'a Muhlstein.

But during this time their thoughts were also revolving around Hana Epstein-"Holubika." What had become of her? She had disappeared from their room a while ago. No one knew what had really happened to her. Some said she was in the Cavalier Barracks, among the mentally ill. But why? Something was not quite right with Holubika, they all knew that. She was slightly handicapped and a bed-wetter; she lisped and seemed naive. She usually had a smile on her face-even when the girls made fun of her, something she never seemed to really notice.

The girls missed Holubika, and Ela and Marta decided to try to find her. They set out for the Cavalier Barracks.

"As we were crossing the courtyard of the Cavalier Barracks, we suddenly heard someone shout, 'Elinka, Elinka,' " Ela recalls. "We looked around, and there among the other sad creatures, we saw an utterly gaunt, disheveled woman dressed only in her underpants. She stared at me distractedly and frantically waved her hands. I was close to panicking. Did this woman really know me?"

"Elinka, Elinka," she cried again as the girls walked on. Suddenly Ela recognized her voice-this woman was from her hometown of Lom. She had once been elegant and well-to-do, a hatmaker who had later lived on Na Prikope in Prague. Now she had ended up in the Theresienstadt madhouse. Just like Hana Epstein.

Ela and Marta finally found Holubika in a room locked to visitors. They could only peek at her through a large window. There she lay, side by side with other patients. She was in a straitjacket, staring into s.p.a.ce, inert and apathetic. "She didn't recognize us. It was terrible. We felt so dreadfully sorry for her."

Transports! The news struck like a thunderbolt. "Transports! That terrible word brought Theresienstadt into a state of shock," Helga wrote in her diary on December 13. "Two transports of 2,500 people each will be leaving. The only people ineligible are those with infectious diseases. Four of us will be leaving: Irena Grunfeld and Eva Landa. Fika and Milka are on the reserve list. But even though they're reserves and not on the first transport, they're sure to be leaving on the second. Papa and I are protected. The rumor making the rounds is that all Jews from the Protectorate are being sent to Birkenau."

Eva Landa was in sick bay when her mother came to tell her the terrifying news. There was no escape. Eva had to pack her things and say goodbye to her roommates. And to Harry. Or was he going to be on this transport as well?

She kept a lookout at the window. Suddenly she saw her boyfriend on the street. She waved wildly and informed him by gestures that she had to leave on the transport. He pointed to himself. Eva understood at once: Harry would be among those on the transport, too. At least they would be together.

The Hanukkah celebration, which was now quickly moved up, left Eva in a kind of feverish trance. She watched as presents were taken from a small suitcase and distributed among the children-pendants, brooches, postcards, pictures, drawings, pencils, and, for each girl, a tiny booklet with pictures and a poem from their counselor Eva Weiss.

Saying goodbye was hard. "I still remember that big transport in December 1943," Hanka says, "and how so many of my friends had to leave, among them Eva Landa and Resi Schwarz. We kept saying, 'See you soon. See you again soon.' We always hoped and believed that the war would be over in a few days or a couple of weeks. We were firmly convinced that the Germans would lose. And we told ourselves that it wasn't important who left or who remained-far more important was that we would all meet again after the war. And we agreed it would be on one particular day after the war in Prague, under the old astronomical clock on the Old City Ring."

Eva Landa packed her few belongings, placing a couple of drawings, poems, and her poetry alb.u.m carefully between her clothes. She wanted to hold on to these things to remember her friends in Room 28, which had meant so much to her. She didn't cry. When they said their goodbyes, Handa told her, "After the war, be sure to call me in Olbramovice, okay? Our telephone number is simple, you know-just dial one."

"I wanted to be brave, had to be brave, and I did not want to betray our ideals," Eva wrote decades later. "I took with me my memories of our shared striving for justice, for a better life, for perfection."

And she wrote a goodbye message in Flaka's alb.u.m: "Your path will lead you up the mountain and down the mountain, and sometimes through rocks, puddles, and snowdrifts. But whatever your path may be, walk bravely and hold your head up high, whistling a happy tune. Don't be glum, don't complain, hold out! Always remember your Eva Landova."

Milka said her farewell to Flaka in a letter: Theresienstadt, December 14, 1943My dear Flatiko,I have to say goodbye to you today. But we must be brave-there is no other choice. I hope we shall meet again somewhere. And that we shall once again be the good friends we were here. Flaka, you know how well we got along, but our time was short. I hope that even when I am far from you, we will remain the same good friends we were here.I will think of you every day. And if it's possible, I'll write you right away.And don't forget, Flaka: if I sign my letter "Milka" that means "things are bad for us." But if I sign it "Your Miluka," that means "we're doing all right." Flaka, if Freda goes out with another girl, write me about it. Flaka, I wish you much happiness in life, that you have a carefree life, and lots of little Buddhas. [Buddha was the nickname of Flaka's boyfriend.] Flaka, Flaka, think of me and don't forget me. My head is so full of thoughts that I don't know what I should write. think of me and don't forget me. My head is so full of thoughts that I don't know what I should write.So farewell, and rememberYour MilkaHelga's diary continues:Friday, December 17, 1943The first transport has left. Irena Grunfeld and Eva Landa were on it. Fika was taken off the list, and Milka is still here, too. She was on the standby list to go but has been left behind; she will be on the second transport. Holubika's father has learned that they are on the standby list, too. Eva Weiss also. Fika is writing poems in bed next to Handa, who is sick. They keep coming up with new topics.Wednesday, December 22, 1943Eva Weiss is gone. Everyone in our home who was on the transport is gone. No one was released from the second transport. Eva Weiss is traveling all alone, without her mother, brother, or fiance. Helena wasn't able to get taken off the list this time either. Her parents gave her an injection that left Helena with a high fever and diarrhea, just to keep her from being included in the transport. But now Helena is on her way to Birkenau with a high fever and diarrhea-in a cattle car without a toilet or even a bench to sit on.

Five thousand seven people left the ghetto on transports Dr and Ds. Among them were 115 children under the age of five and 500 children between the ages of six and fifteen. In Room 28, the bunks of Hana Epstein, Helena Mendl, Irena Grunfeld, Milka Polaek, and Eva Landa were now empty.

Only Eva Landa and the counselor Eva Weiss would survive Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Ela Stein Ela Stein was born in Lom, a small town in the Ore Mountains, on June 30, 1930, four years after her sister, Ilona. Her parents, Max and Marketa Stein, owned two shops on kolni Stra.s.se, in the house where they also lived.Max Stein was a man full of enterprise. On weekends he would often travel with his family to nearby Lany, the summer residence of President Toma G. Masaryk. They would sometimes cross paths with him there, and if the opportunity arose and Max Stein could exchange a few words with the president, he was overjoyed. "You simply can't imagine what Masaryk meant to the Czechs. And especially to us. Because he was a friend to the Jews." When Masaryk died on September 14, 1937, Czech Jews were among those who mourned the loss of a great statesman and symbol of hope. On the day he was buried, thousands of people, among them the Stein family, climbed the hill to Prague Castle. "We approached the Hradschin at a snail's pace, a long funeral procession ahead of us, a great many cars with flowers and wreaths. We stood in line outside the entrance to castle, where a black carpet had been rolled out on which was placed the catafalque with Masaryk's coffin. It took us four hours before we could pay our final respects."The times grew more troubled. The Germans marched into Vienna, and cries for help from among the large circle of the Steins' friends and relatives became ever more frequent. Then came the first refugees from Austria. The border regions of Bohemia and Moravia, settled by a German majority, were still loyal to Czechoslovakia. But the invasion of ideology and anti-Semitic propaganda had long since begun. "I can remember my sister and me listening to Hitler's voice on the radio-the radio trembled! We couldn't listen to his screaming. And my father kept saying: 'Nothing's going to happen. Nothing can happen. It's not possible that they'll enter Czechoslovakia.' "Then came a fateful day in the summer of 1938. Max Stein was having his hair cut as usual by a German barber, when a fierce argument about Hitler and the Germans broke out among the customers. The abyss that had opened between the two opposing parties grew deeper as they continued. On the one side were uncompromising n.a.z.is who supported the Sudeten German Party (SdP) of Konrad Henlein, the strongest political movement after 1935, and on the other, Czech patriots like Max Stein, who finally became so excited that he shouted, "I'll give ten thousand krona to the man who'll kill Hitler." The next day he was at the top of the blacklist in Lom.Shortly thereafter, the German army marched into the Sudetenland, and the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) and its ally, the SdP, seized power. Max Stein was one of their first victims; the Gestapo took him into custody from his home. A few days later, Marketa Stein was informed that her husband had died of a heart attack. When Ela and her sister, Ilona, returned from summer vacation, they no longer had a father.The night of November 9 marked what has come to be known as Kristallnacht (Crystal Night, or Night of Broken Gla.s.s). That night and for several succeeding days, attacks on Jews and Jewish inst.i.tutions reached levels never seen before-and not just in Germany, but also in the "Sudetengau," as the n.a.z.is called the newly conquered peripheral Czech regions. Synagogues were desecrated, plundered, razed, and burned-in Liberec, Karlovy Vary, Marianske Lazn, Chomutov, Znojmo, and Opava. A manhunt began. In Lom the hatred was directed especially at the Steins-one of four Jewish families in the town."It was a horrible night. A whole horde of maybe three hundred n.a.z.is had a.s.sembled in town. Shouting and bellowing and beating drums, they began to march toward our house. I can still hear that boom, boom, boom boom, boom, boom even now. An old school friend of my father's came running to my mother, shouting that she had to close the shop at once. My mother could scarcely believe her ears. Then, all of a sudden, they were at our house, and began to break all the doors and windows. We ran up to the attic, where we hid." And so they waited until far into the night, huddled in one corner of the attic and clinging to one another in shock. even now. An old school friend of my father's came running to my mother, shouting that she had to close the shop at once. My mother could scarcely believe her ears. Then, all of a sudden, they were at our house, and began to break all the doors and windows. We ran up to the attic, where we hid." And so they waited until far into the night, huddled in one corner of the attic and clinging to one another in shock."My mother prayed while downstairs they smashed everything to smithereens-everything. The next morning the house was smeared with swastikas and graffiti that said things like JEWS GET OUT JEWS GET OUT and and SEND JEWS TO PALESTINE." SEND JEWS TO PALESTINE." In no time the Gestapo had confiscated the Steins' a.s.sets. The shop was handed over to a German commissioner. Marketa Stein was summoned by the Gestapo and interrogated for hours. Finally they threatened her, saying that if she did not leave town in the next twenty-four hours, "then we'll see you in Dachau." In no time the Gestapo had confiscated the Steins' a.s.sets. The shop was handed over to a German commissioner. Marketa Stein was summoned by the Gestapo and interrogated for hours. Finally they threatened her, saying that if she did not leave town in the next twenty-four hours, "then we'll see you in Dachau."On a late November afternoon, with a cold rain falling, Marketa fled with her children on a motorcycle with a sidecar. A relative drove, Ela and Ilona sat in the sidecar, and their mother sat behind the driver. Freezing and afraid, Ela began to cry. When they reached the border at Louny, they saw hundreds of people under SS guard. By this time it was known that their destination was Dachau. But no one knew what Dachau really meant.While they were being checked at the border, Ela suddenly began to whine, "Mommy, I want to go home, I'm so awfully cold." "I don't know if the border guard understood me or not, but I can still remember what he said: 'Quick, drive on.' "A few minutes before six o'clock, they crossed the border, just in time, because it would be closed at six sharp. That night they arrived at the home of relatives in Louny. Normally the confectionary factory belonging to her uncle Anton Krauss produced cookies and candy-one kind was even called Ilonetty, after her sister-but now production had been halted and the Krausses' home and factory had been turned into a refugee camp, which was already so full that there was no place for the Steins. They had to find a hotel room. The next day they took the bus to Prague, where Marketa's brother, Otto Altenstein, lived. Before the occupation he had been a state secretary in the Ministry for Social Welfare. His apartment in Prague-Holeovice was much too small to house them all, so the children were taken to Brno, where Marketa Stein's family lived.Ela and Ilona were enrolled in the Czech School in Brno. After cla.s.ses, they often went to visit their aunt, Kamila Korn, at Plotni 2, which served as a meeting place for Zionists who organized illegal refugee transports and gave agricultural instruction for Hachsharah. The youth counselors Fredy Hirsch and Franta Meier were part of this group; there was also a young fellow named Honza Gelbkopf, who a few years later would become Ela's first boyfriend.March 1939 brought the occupation of what Hitler contemptuously referred to as the "Czech rump" (the remaining Czech territory, which had not been handed over to Germany under the Munich agreement), and the Germans seized power throughout the country. Marketa brought her two children to Prague. They had plans to emigrate. Otto Altenstein already had an airplane ticket for New York, but he was turned back at the airport. "For us that was a signal that any plans to emigrate were doomed. We were already sitting on our packed luggage, and had to unpack it all over again."It was the fall of 1941, and the first transports with Jews were leaving Prague. Ela and her family were living in two rooms of a five-room apartment at umovska 11 in Vinohrady. They got ready for their own impending transport. Feather comforters were sewn into sleeping bags. They bought backpacks, stockpiled bouillon cubes, oatmeal, bowls for eating, warm underwear. Then, in February 1942, they found their names listed for transport, with numbers 892 to 895 beside the names of Anna Altenstein, Dr. Otto Altenstein, Marketa Stein, and Ilona Stein. The last one, 896, was Ela Stein.On February 14, 1942, they mad