When Time Stopped

by Ariana Neumann

  It is unsurprising that many of the local families who had made Terezín their home before the war went elsewhere and that no others replaced them. Official figures suggest that there are a few thousand residents left today, yet when we visited, it felt emptier. All but a handful of the buildings are uninhabited and neglected. The place feels mostly soulless, depleted. And yet as I walked the gravel paths between the buildings where my grandparents were housed, I could almost hear them utter the words in their letters. They were not mutterings of despair. What survived and resonated were their dreams, the descriptions of moments of happy respite or mundane frustration, tidbits that seeped through enough to give me a glimpse of who they were, of how they lived, of how, despite all, they still hoped and loved.

  That day in Terezín, as I looked up at the unwavering stone buildings, it seemed to me that I saw silhouettes, delineations of their figures looking back from the depths of the windows, behind the bars. I maintained the gaze for a yearning second before reminding myself that the light plays games and creates shadows, especially as it finds its way through years of accumulated dirt on the glass.

  Terezín was a concentration camp, another tier in the carefully constructed Nazi strategy. The first tier had been to exclude the Jews from society, the second to concentrate them as a segregated temporary workforce in places like Terezín, and then, finally, to deport them to extermination camps farther east. Terezín was not itself a death camp, like Auschwitz or Dachau. Sometimes it is also referred to as a ghetto, but this word fails to convey the heinous crimes committed there. It had no gas chambers, although thirty-four thousand people perished from disease and starvation within its overcrowded confines. It is referred to as the “model” camp, because Terezín was used for Nazi propaganda. It incorporated a bank and a post office, and it had a working hospital. Nevertheless, the inmates were malnourished and frail. This, together with the overcrowded and unhygienic conditions, meant that illnesses proliferated. The hospital functioned and was staffed by superb doctors from all over Europe who had themselves been deported there. The bank and post office, on the other hand, were mostly a charade. Inmates nominally had bank accounts and were paid for their labor, but Terezín banknotes, complete with an image of Moses, had almost no value other than for buying tickets to concerts or plays put on by inmates. The post office could be used to receive some letters and small packages that were checked but only postcards could be sent, and they were read by the SS and censored. Solely letters that were sneaked out of the camp by illegal methods told the truth about the conditions there.

  While the Nazis, of course, retained ultimate control and set the laws, they established a Council of Elders in Terezín to self-administer. As in Prague, the Council was made up of respected Jews who had to organize labor, provide some degree of municipal services, ensure that the Nazi guidelines were obeyed, and ultimately, draft transport lists. This body consisted of inmates and worked in much the same way as the local Jewish Councils did throughout occupied Europe. While taking part might offer some protection to its members and families, it was only temporary. The organizational structure was a clever tactic, since it helped create the illusion that the Jews remained in control of their fate even as it pitted them against one another. Refusal to participate in this sham governing body was not an option. As the majority of Jews from the Protectorate were transported to camps in 1942, the center of power shifted from the Jewish Council in Prague to the Council of Elders in the camps.

  When my grandparents arrived in 1942, Jacob Edelstein was the head of the Council in Terezín. Contemporary accounts say he believed, at least initially, that if the Jews of Terezín worked hard and made their value obvious to the Nazis, they would be allowed to live. Everyone between the ages of sixteen and sixty-five was required to work. Men found employment in one of the workshops or in construction or in the nearby fields or mines. Women tended to work in agriculture, food preparation, in the clothing warehouse, or as nurses and cleaners. There were hierarchies to these positions, and a few were prized, especially those that allowed some freedom from the constant watch of the SS, a little privacy, access to food, or some protection from being on a further transport list.

  My grandparents hoped that Pišta in Prague could put in a good word with the Terezín Elders. Like them, thousands of other inmates hoped to attain a favorable nod from the Elders that might convey some form of sanctuary.

  In 1942, with both Otto and Ella interned at Terezín, the family established a connection to smuggle clothes, food, and other useful items into the camp. They managed to secure the services of a Czech gendarme and a local woman. Each time a parcel went in, a letter or two was smuggled out of the camp.

  Unlike “official” correspondence sent from the post office that served propaganda purposes, Otto’s and Ella’s letters were not limited in length or censored. Yet there was no guarantee that their letters would have been read only by the intended recipients, so they were guarded and coded with nicknames or initials often used for people or contraband. Bekannte, the German word for acquaintance, was clearly a reference to German marks. There were constant references to the fluctuating price of Robert or Roberty, most likely a foreign currency, perhaps Swiss francs. The letters returned time and again to the treasured parcels, the supply of which kept them fed, enabled them to help others in the camp, and gave them the means to barter. The letters often mentioned the kind gentleman, in all likelihood a friendly Czech gendarme, and Mrs. Rosa, a laundress who could enter and move freely around Terezín. In order to safeguard the couriers, their real names were never disclosed.

  These letters, and Zdenka’s account, indicate that the family’s usual method of supply was to deliver a parcel to Bohušovice Station, two kilometers from Terezín. From there, a trusted intermediary would bring the parcel, suitably concealed, by wheelbarrow to the camp. This incurred great risk for all involved. If Mrs. Rosa or the kind gentleman had been caught assisting inmates in this way, they would have faced severe punishment. The consequences for Otto and Ella would have been far worse.

  In January 1942, nine men had been publicly hanged in Terezín. Their crime had been to smuggle letters out to their families. The SS staged these public executions to set an example and show their sovereignty. Sending anything in or out of the camp was a risk for all concerned. Yet it was also an important emotional and physical lifeline for the family. Lotar, methodical and thorough, kept a record of the contents of every parcel that was sent to my grandparents in Terezín. The box that Madla gave me, that Lotar had stored for decades, contained the inventory for each of the eighty parcels: smoked meats, sugar, Ovomaltine, butter, soap, flashlight batteries, shoe polish, and chocolate bonbons all appear regularly. Lotar’s box also contained the dozens of pages of letters written by my grandparents to their boys that were smuggled out in return. The letters burst with their thoughts, emotions, and practical details of life at Terezín, as well as requests for food, clothing, currency, and messages from other inmates to their families outside. As a contemporaneous record, they provide an unflinching firsthand perspective on the conditions within the camp. For me, they also offer an intimate glimpse of the personalities of the grandparents whom I never knew.

  An October letter from Ella to her boys, her golden ones, sent reassurance that her living conditions were better than those of many others, to the point of arousing envy, in fact. She wrote that she was lucky to have found a job as a housekeeper for a Czech man who belonged to the higher echelons of the Terezín hierarchy by virtue of overseeing the woodwork workshop. This role allowed her to benefit from his somewhat better circumstances and degree of influence and, critically, perhaps, allowed room for the hope that all would be fine except for those excursions to the East. Most inmates of Terezín did not know until later the precise consequences of those journeys east, but rumors abounded. My family was certain that they must avoid these journeys at all costs.

  Ella cleaned and cooked for Engineer František Langer, or Eng.
L, as she referred to him in the letters. He lived alone in the camp and had use of some rooms by the workshops. This meant that Ella could keep some of her belongings away from the desperate occupants of the bunk rooms, to which she had to return each night. The workshop rooms allowed her some precious privacy. A third letter from Ella, of November 1942, described her surprise at seeing Otto, joy at the reunion, and heartbreak at having to watch as he too endured the misery. She herself felt stronger and better able to handle their appalling circumstances, having been already introduced into those terrible secrets.

  Ella announced that she had secured a greatly fought-over certificate with much effort to enable Otto to work as a chemical engineer, which might reduce the likelihood of the dreaded transportation east.

  Some of Ella and Otto’s family were also interned in Terezín that fall. When Ella arrived, she had encountered Rudolf and Jenny Neumann, Erich and Ota’s parents. Rudolf Pollak, the widower of Ella’s sister, Martha, was there with his daughters, Hana and Zita, as well as his second wife, Josefa, and their teenage son, Jiří, a young poet. Some of Jiří Pollak’s poems can be seen today in the archives of Terezín and the Jewish Museum in Prague.

  Finding and helping one another cannot have been easy among sixty thousand segregated by age and gender, but perhaps there was a little comfort to be had from the sight of a familiar face in the sad loneliness of those crowds.

  Otto’s first letter, written in December, was markedly negative in tone and recounted that while the journey to the east was still postponed for the time being, Ella had a police Weisung, a pending criminal deportation order, hanging over her. Weisungs were issued for offenses like smoking, possessing prohibited items, or absconding from a transport, and had to be avoided at all costs. Rumors were they meant certain death on deportation. Otto added, We don’t see each other much. I miss her. He carefully cataloged all the things that he needed: Roberty in every form, lighter, batteries, clothing, shoe polish or hair dye, soap, and, of course, food. His letter warned them:

  … not to expect sensible news… this is one crazy mess… there is barely enough food to half feed you and he who does not have a way to supplement will die of hunger, unnoticed. Housing and hygiene conform to that of antiquated POW camps… Here, man becomes a hopeless, selfish animal that does not care about anything else but, at the expense of a fellow sufferer or even the closest relative, to gain some little advantage.

  In the short time since our separation I have somehow forgotten all that I left behind with you, what used to be important seems now inane… I know you will not understand me as I, myself, nowadays, do not understand the life I left with you… It is all like a terrible dream… “Live life well,” this can only be appreciated by someone who has sunk so low into humiliation as I have… You don’t have to worry about me… I am quite active, in order to get out of the—hopefully—initial difficulties and to adapt to the unreal local circumstances. Please be patient with me, brain cells do not work with the same accuracy as in normal circumstances. If I were not to write, it would be out of fear and nothing else. Think of me as little as possible… Life from 14 days ago has disappeared into darkness.

  Lotar and Hans must have felt a profound sadness at reading Otto’s first letter from the camp, one that echoed across the years when my father’s sobbing rocked the fence near Bubny nearly half a century later. Those few words Hans could manage in 1990—This is where we said goodbye—allowed me a glimpse of the separation and the sorrow of the months that followed. Yet the full meaning of the words was not clear to me for another twenty-five years.

  There was a small rectangle of very thin paper among the others in my father’s box. At 8.5 cm by 6 cm, it is by far the smallest item. The letters CC are inked in red in a black box. On the line below is my father’s name. Three large black digits, 449, are printed above.

  This tiny relic was an official transport ticket, the slip of paper that a deported person would hand in to the officials just before boarding the wagon to a camp.

  I know now that Otto’s transport was CC and his number was 448. Spared this journey with his father, Hans held on to his transport ticket. He could have torn it in pieces, burned or crumpled it in relief at his reprieve. But Hans had done no such thing. Amid the dozens of typewritten A4 documents, official identity cards, and photos, this wisp of yellowing paper stands out, minute and immaculately preserved. Perhaps a reminder of his survival. Perhaps a hallmark of his guilt.

  CHAPTER 10 The Shadow Beneath the Candle

  A second telegram arrived for Hans on November 18, 1942, hours after the message that had been his salvation from the transport. This new missive demanded that he report at once to the “Central Office for the Regulation of the Jewish Question in Bohemia and Moravia.”

  This entity, originally known as the Central Office for Jewish Emigration, sat atop the SS command structure in Prague. It had been established and led by the notorious Adolf Eichmann, who held ultimate responsibility for the logistics of the Final Solution, the plan to exterminate the Jews.

  In November 1942, when my father was asked to report there, the department was led by Hans Günther, who managed a staff of thirty-two SS men and reported directly to Eichmann, by then back in Berlin. The office oversaw all the activities of the Jewish Councils in Prague and in Terezín and remained tasked with the deportation of the Jews from the Protectorate. It was uncommon for a Jew to be summoned to the Central Office, and my boxes and archives offer no evidence that might explain the summons.

  Nonetheless, each document in the box was kept for a reason, sometimes sentimental, often practical, and, on occasion, both. Each paper yields a story, a reason for its inclusion as a memento or clue to the puzzle that was my father’s life during the war. Hans would have had some purpose in keeping this telegram. The document itself or the event it recalled must have been important to him. Perhaps he believed that proof of that visit might be useful later. The consensus among the experts with whom I have spoken is that the most likely explanation is my father was called in to pay a bribe. This might have been agreed upon for his retrieval from the transport or perhaps was settled in the hope of sparing his parents’ lives.

  Whatever the reason for the meeting, Hans must have attended that SS office quite alone, utterly shaken by his time at Bubny and his father’s departure just hours before. He had to muster the courage and calm to handle whatever was presented to him by the SS officer in charge of his case. It must have been a risky and delicate encounter, carefully transacting with people who held his fate, as well as that of his parents, in their hands. Though the SS officer had the power, he too must have been apprehensive, facing chastisement, demotion, or worse if his actions were discovered.

  Hans and the SS man would likely have trodden this strange and frightening path together. Hans could not afford the slightest error of judgment. If he uttered the wrong word, if he hinted at insubordination, if his composure slipped, if he refused whatever was asked of him, it could have been disastrous. We can only assume from the lack of repercussions that Hans conducted himself with perfect deference and concluded his business without incident. The man who gave this performance was not the unfortunate and chaotic boy prankster who was always late. This Hans was punctual and punctilious, at the mercy of the world about him but entirely in control of himself. This was the man he would have to become in order to survive the war.

  In a letter dated December 1, 1942, Ella wrote to her boys:

  Jointly we will get through anything. Distance cannot separate us. I have the strong will to last at any cost You too, my golden darlings, have to use your head and give up all sentimentality. We have won the first two rounds and as we approach the final, the stronger we need to be.

  Hans, at twenty-one, was certainly finding a new strength and maturity. But he was far from being led solely by his head.

  He refused to stay in Libčice now that Otto had been transported. Jews were required by law to reside in their registered abode, but
Hans did not. In Libčice, he would have been alone in the large house, heavy with memories. He would have been away from Lotar and Zdenka and his friends in Prague, without radio, telephone, bicycle, or car. At the prospect of this isolation, he decided to ignore Ella’s plea for steely rationality and risk breaking the law.

  He determined to spend weekdays in the city. He arranged for a friendly Libčice neighbor, Pajmas, to visit the house daily. Pajmas had also been caring for Gin, the fox terrier who had outlived their beloved older dog, Jerry. In July 1941, the Nazis had prohibited Jews from keeping pets but the neighbor had agreed to declare the Neumanns’ fox terrier as his own. Hans traveled back to Libčice on weekends, sometimes driven by Zdeněk, Míla, or Zdenka but often alone by train. Lotar, by then remarried to Zdenka and officially registered as living in the city, did not have a permit that allowed him to travel by train.