The Girls of Room 28

by Hannelore Brenner

  On one of those sweltering summer evenings, Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem was given its first public performance, under the direction of Rafael Schächter, in a room in the old town hall on the main square. “It was a brilliant premiere. The mixed choir was up on the podium— a hundred and fifty strong. The soloists stood in front of the choir: Marion Podolier, Heda Aronson-Lindt, David Grünfeld, and myself,” Karel Berman wrote in his memoirs.6 For the first time, the Latin mass for the dead unleashed its immense power in the ghetto. The effect on the audience was overwhelming. The girls listened from the evening stillness of their garden as the singing, like a gentle earthquake, rolled toward them.

  “At last the day came when the gas had taken care of the vermin,” Hana Lissau described the end of the plague in her essay. “Three days later, we returned to Room 28. And what did we see? Dead bedbugs everywhere. We heaved a sigh of relief. And then our life went on as before. Thank God, without bedbugs.”

  “The news, or rather, bonkes, is moving through Theresienstadt, that a transport of 5,000 people is being put together,” Ruth Gutmann wrote in her essay. “A tense atmosphere has descended over the streets, barracks, and Homes. Here and there people are saying ‘I’m telling you, if a transport is leaving, I’ll be on it.’ ‘Don’t say that, you are protected here. And I’m only a simple worker.’ Sad to say—this time it’s not just bonkes. Now it is the sad truth. Last night 5,000 people were ordered to be on the transport.”

  Thursday, August 26, 1943

  Things are terrible here. There’s an awful tension among the adults and in the girls’ Homes. Transports are being prepared, off to a new ghetto, into the unknown. The first transport is to be made up of people who were convicted by the ghetto court, usually for minor offenses, plus sixty people from the AK transport. It looks like Pavla will be on it, too, since her father was in jail for three months. One of Papa’s neighbors will be on it as well.

  And something else: 1,500 children are to arrive tonight. Word is that they’re from Poland. We’re making toys and little sewing bags for them. They will be in quarantine for a month, so that they don’t bring in any disease with them.—I have infectious diarrhea. Of twenty-seven girls, sixteen are already confined to bed, and three more are also sick.

  The next day there was a barracks lockdown—it was forbidden to leave any building without permission. That evening Eva Winkler watched from the window in the hallway on the third floor as a procession of little children marched down the street. “I can still see it before me. There were maybe fifty, sixty little children. It left a horrible im pression on me.”

  Other girls cautiously crowded around the closed window. It was forbidden to open windows, and the girls didn’t dare let the Germans see them gazing with curiosity at the street below where the children were straggling past. They were dressed in rags, many of them in shoes far too big for them, some in wooden clogs, some barefoot, the larger children holding tight to the hands of the smaller ones.

  The children from Bialystok; drawing by Helga Weiss, Room 24

  Otto Pollak watched the same spectacle from a different perspective that evening. “At 5:30, I was crossing the deserted Q3, Badhaus Gasse, and saw a sad procession of children, maybe twenty-five in all, coming from the bathhouse where they had been ‘disinsectified’ [disinfected]. Led by a few female counselors, they moved slowly in the direction of Bohušovice/Süd Strasse.”

  There they were assigned to quarters in the West Barracks, outside the city walls—some twelve hundred children from the Polish ghetto in Bialystok. Any contact with them was forbidden. “But we did learn a few things about them all the same,” Helga Weiss wrote in her diary. “None of the children can speak Czech, we don’t even know whether they are Polish or Jewish children. From the ramparts we can catch glimpses of them. This morning they were marched to the Receiving Office. They look awful. You can’t even guess at their ages. They all have old faces and very thin little bodies. They aren’t wearing stockings, and only a few of them even have shoes. They came out of the Receiving Office with shaved heads, which means they have lice. Their eyes are full of fear.”7

  To take care of these children, fifty-three doctors and counselors were specially selected—among them Franz Kafka’s youngest sister, Ottla David-Kafka, who worked in the ghetto as a children’s counselor. They were housed in the West Barracks and were not allowed back into the ghetto. The adults were sworn to complete silence about anything they heard or saw there. And everyone else was forbidden under threat of punishment to have any contact with the children.

  People in Theresienstadt were puzzled by something very unusual about these children. Why had they held back and screamed so loudly when they were sent to the showers, they asked themselves? Why had they acted so strangely? It was incomprehensible to the residents of Theresienstadt, for whom a shower in the bathhouse was the ultimate luxury. The whole affair was veiled in secrecy. Rumor, bonkes, had it that they were to be sent to Palestine or Switzerland; some sort of exchange, some deal was being planned. But no one knew anything specific about it.8

  Uneasiness and anxiety had held sway over the ghetto since the an nouncement of the imminent transports, especially after August 24, when all residents of the Hamburg Barracks between the ages of sixty and eighty had to register.

  The first and second transports, Dl and Dm, were to be made up of twenty-five hundred persons each, plus eight hundred others on a reserve list—all of them primarily from the Protectorate. Who would receive the dreaded slip of paper this time? Fear was growing throughout the ghetto.

  Ruth Gutmann wrote in her essay:

  A few girls in our Home knew they would be on the transport. Among them was Pavla, my best friend. My first thought was that I could not live without her.

  There was no order to assemble for transport that night, or the next morning either. We were so agitated that we couldn’t remain inside the Home. There was still no news at noon.

  That afternoon our Kuře (Zdenka Löwy) received her summons. We thought she would cry. But Kuře was brave. That evening the summons came for Pavla and Olile. Olile’s parents didn’t want to tell her. We decided we would all stay awake. But we all fell asleep after a while, as if someone had dropped us into deep water.

  The next morning the reserve list was posted, and Poppi’s and Helena’s names were on it. Now began a great flurry of packing. They were supposed to report at three that afternoon. It’s hard to fathom how much fright one morning can contain! Zdenka’s father came and wanted to help her pack. She offered him three tomatoes. But he refused them and said, “Keep them, Zdenka. I’m so hungry I could eat all three at once.” And then he began to cry, and it became clear to us that he hadn’t eaten anything and that the whole family didn’t have even a piece of bread. When we heard that, we all began to cry too, and each of us looked for something to eat. That day was the third time I had ever seen a grown man cry.

  Zdenka gave us all a kiss, happy that her suitcase was being stuffed fuller and fuller. We told her, “Don’t forget, we are in this together, we all help each other. It’s the most natural thing in the world.” Olile didn’t have anything to wear either. We gave her what we could. Then at three o’clock they left.

  Helga’s diary continues:

  Saturday, September 4, 1943

  People are to board the transport tomorrow morning. For the time being, Zdenka is the only one of us on it. But the summons will come in several batches. Zdenka is being brave. Everything’s in a terrible commotion here. Lilly’s parents and her sister are leaving, which is why she volunteered to join them. It will be a total of 5,000 people, only Czech Jews. Frau Stein is leaving with her husband, Uncle Max, and Aunt Paula. They are supposed to stay at the building where they live, and get together with their families only at their assembly point. There are so many assembly points. Zdenka is going to the Hamburg Barracks, where she will stay in quarantine with 500 other people.

  From Otto Pollak’s diary:

  Sunday, Se
ptember 5, 1943

  A dark day despite the sunshine. The 5,000 to be transported are quartered in barracks, awaiting transport. Twenty-nine people from our Home have been summoned for transport. Assembly at nine o’clock at Hamburg Barracks. Four people from my room are among them.

  It’s a beautiful day, so people can do their packing outside. Both courtyards look like an oriental bazaar. Everywhere tables are piled high with things. I’m working hard in the main office.

  Helga is all churned up inside, since six of her best friends are leaving. She has a little goodbye gift for each one. Helga doesn’t want to spend time with me in the garden tonight because it reminds her too much of her comrades, who had to line up to be counted there—about seventy in all. It is an awful evening. Saying our goodbyes, perhaps forever, is cutting us to the quick.

  Helga’s diary continues:

  Sunday, September 5, 1943

  What a day! But it’s all over now. They are all in the “sluice.” Pavla, Helena, Zdenka, Olile, and Poppinka are the ones from our group to be going. Poppinka and Helena are in the reserves, and there is a possibility that they will be left out. Each of us gave Zdenka something. She is so poor. I gave her a half ration of bread, a tin of liverwurst, some linden blossom tea, and sugar. Her father came to help her pack, and Zdenka gave him bread, sugar, and tomatoes. He didn’t want any of it for himself. We girls forced him to take it and promised to give Zdenka more things. He began to cry and thanked us children and the counselors for taking such good care of his daughter. We were so touched that by now we were all crying. Strejda gave him a whole loaf of bread. We managed to furnish them with a little bag of food in a very short time.

  At six o’clock in the evening they reported for assembly, each to a different place. The goodbyes were hard, but we were all very brave, except for Helena, whom I saw really breaking down in tears for the first time today. At eight o’clock I went looking for Zdenka. She was with her entire family, all sitting on their luggage, and she was so happy to see me that she wept and laughed at the same time. Although I did sleep last night, I had terrible dreams, and when I woke up I had black circles under my eyes.

  Monday, September 6, 1943

  I got up at six o’clock to see Zdenka one last time. When I got to the Hamburg Barracks, people were just coming out the back gate on their way to board the transport. Everything was blocked by wooden planks, so that you couldn’t see them and they couldn’t get away. I climbed over the fence and ran toward the last people at the end of the line as they were leaving through the barracks gate. When I got to the gate I watched the cattle car pull up that Zdenka left on. I blew her kisses.

  Helena has been removed from the transport. For our friends who were still in the “sluice,” we went to the barricade and brought bread and marmalade as breakfast. There was not much left for us to eat, but somebody did find a couple of old crusts, so each of us at least had a bite.

  I didn’t see any of our girls who had to line up for the transport other than Poppinka, as she marched past our Home this afternoon on the way to the train. We went out to say a last goodbye and brought her four buns from our evening meal. Her mother was so touched that she cried. Eva Weiss brought her a couple of apples and Frau Mühlstein had two little sacks with gingerbread and cookies; one was for her seven-year-old brother. Poppinka cried; her courage was at an end. Zajíček and Flaška stood on either side of her and led her along because she couldn’t see anything through her tears. I’m lying in bed now, and maybe they have all arrived by now—somewhere.

  “That evening, as we all lay in bed,” Ruth Gutmann wrote at the end of her essay, “we were constantly aware of someone missing: the girls who had left. Then we told one another that never again will there be a real Room 28.”

  The trauma ran deep. The two September transports were the first ones to the East in six months. More than 5,000 people left the ghetto on them: 4,769 Czech, 124 German, 83 Austrian, and 11 Dutch Jews. There were 327 children under the age of fifteen. The selection had not been random; the SS made sure of that. Many of the members of the Ghetto Guard, which had been disbanded a short time before, were among them, likewise men with families—young, strong men in particular, who had had some connection with the Czech underground organization. Evidently the point was to weaken Theresienstadt’s potential for resistance in order to prevent any events like those that had taken place in the Warsaw Ghetto a few months earlier. That the transports also served another nefarious purpose did not become clear until later.

  In Room 28 the bunks of Pavla Seiner, Zdenka Löwy, Olilie Löwy, and Ruth Popper were now empty. “Suddenly something was missing,” Handa says of the changed situation. “It wasn’t just the girls that we especially liked, but the others, too. Our community was really like a little clock, with each girl a gear, whether larger or smaller. Each had added her own spice. But at the time for me the particular shock was that, of all people, it was Pavla who had to leave. I liked her very much. And I think she was a girl everyone treasured. She was a focal point in our little community. I know that the empty bunk where she had slept made me very sad.”

  Tuesday, September 7, 1943

  Milka has moved in with us. She sleeps in Elinka’s spot. I’ve taken over Zdenka’s place, with Ela beside me. We have made our space quite attractive. On one wall we have shelving for clothes and underclothes, with a curtain in front, across the top a board that we are decorating. My two pictures are hanging on the wall. I have to get all my things in order, because there could always be another transport leaving for somewhere. Everyone, or no one, could be forced to depart. You never know what scheme they are hatching for us, these Germans.

  The bond linking the girls had grown stronger. Proofs of friendship multiplied. Each girl wanted to bring some joy to another, to solidify the friendship. “I must admit that I like Ela more than I used to,” Helga remarked. “We want to exchange friendship rings.”

  The room was put in order and some things were rearranged. Helga put the photograph of her mother on a little shelf on the wall, and she decorated her bunk with her little colorful pillow, which she called “Dopey,” after the smallest dwarf in Walt Disney’s adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

  Life went on. Each girl had her own way of counteracting the fear— even if it was only a matter of clinging more tightly than before to the daily routine, which despite its difficulties was easier to bear than to be caught in the terrible transports that swept you away into the unknown.

  Thursday, September 9, 1943

  I would like to describe what it looks like here and how a typical day goes. We have three wooden frames for triple bunks, a double bunk, a single, and a sixer. Opposite the door is a closet for our coats. Our clothes are to one side of the door, and the corner has hooks for our towels and little bags of toiletries. The cupboard for dishes is there, too, and two shelves for the large bowls that we fetch our meals in. In the middle of the room is a table with two benches and two old chairs. Under the window is a shelf for shoes.

  No sooner are we awake than we begin airing our beds. “Get out of bed!” someone says, while someone else calls out, “Today’s my turn to use the window!” A third girl chimes in with: “What do you mean; you’re supposed to use the table today!”—“Then I’ll wait until Lissau’s done, and use the window!”—“But I called dibs on that!”

  Almost everyone dresses very slowly. “Zajíček, get up, it’s seven o’clock already!”—“Fiška, get dressed, the others have already washed up.” They are all back from the washroom. “First group, take everything in and make your beds!”—“Who’s on toranoot today?”— “Didi, you haven’t done it for a long time!”—“I’m not allowed to carry anything.”

  It takes a good while until someone is chosen to fetch food for us all. The cleaning brigade tidies up the room, while the rest sit on their beds, talking or putting their things in order. Some, still sitting on their bunks, quickly shove some food in their mouths, although that isn’t all
owed. If a counselor catches us at it, we’re put under house arrest. At nine o’clock we sit around the table and eat breakfast. We’re not having any lessons this week. We’re allowed a half hour for breakfast. Tella: “Clear the table! Go outside for a while now, so we can sweep up. Afterward I’ll tell you what we’re going to do.”

  We’re supposed to take work with us to the garden. It takes a while until at least a few girls comply and go outside, but most stay in the room. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m cold!”—“I’m not going to cart all this downstairs!”—“I’ve got nothing to wear!” One after the other they find an excuse for not going down to the garden. But the main reason, which no one says, is that we’re all lazybones and want only to loll around on our beds. But if boys were involved, almost all of them would fly downstairs as if somebody had fired a gun in the room—except for a couple of us, including me.

  Of twenty-two girls, ten go down to the garden. There we sit on school benches without a table. In each corner of the garden are benches of some sort. We put them in a little square and sit huddled together, to keep from being cold, while we chat or darn our underwear and stockings, knit, play cards, or whatever. Two hours pass like this—it seems like half an hour to us—until a counselor sticks her head out the window: “Time for lunch! Who’s on toranoot?”— “Where’s Eva Stern gone again?”—“A couple of you need to go fetch the food right now, otherwise we’ll get nothing to eat. Eva Winkler, you’re one of them!”—“I’m not allowed to carry anything!” And Rutka: “But you can do handstands on the ramparts, can’t you!”

  Room 28, drawn by Maria Mühlstein

  The voice of the counselor can be heard again, calling each girl by name, but they all find some excuse. Now it’s Helena’s turn, who pretends she doesn’t hear, while the girls call out in saccharine voices: “Leave poor little Helena alone, she’s doing her history homework. It would break her heart to tear herself away from it.” The mood is edgy. We have to get hold of ourselves. I like it when Helena flies into a rage and starts her river of sobs, until she finally sounds like a howling hyena. Then come a few caustic remarks, and we hear Helena’s pretty voice: “Well, how would you all feel?” After all her shouts and curses, Helena goes to fetch our midday meal anyway. A quarter-hour later we’re called upstairs. After lunch, those on toranoot clean up, and the others go to visit their parents. We have to be back in the Home by three o’clock. If the weather’s nice, we go to the ramparts— once again, reluctantly of course. “I don’t like to walk!”—“My shoes pinch!”—“That’s no fun!”—the same sort of excuses we’ve heard all day. But once we’re on the ramparts, no one wants to go home. By the time evening rolls around, some of us are back with our parents. But by a quarter to nine, we have to have washed up and be in the Home, or at a quarter after eight if we’ve not washed yet. If there is an evening program, we have to be in the Home by eight, and we go to bed right away, but that rarely happens. If there is no program, we don’t hurry, just talk—no one even thinks of undressing. That’s the job of the counselors. “Off to bed with you! Lights out in five minutes! Whether you have your pajamas on or not.”