The Girls of Room 28

by Hannelore Brenner

  Wednesday, December 22, 1943

  Eva 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 fiancé. 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 Grünfeld, Milka Poláček, 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 Markéta Stein, owned two shops on Školni Strasse, 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 Lány, the summer residence of President Tomáš 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 Nazis 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, Markéta 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 Glass). That night and for several succeeding days, attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions reached levels never seen before—and not just in Germany, but also in the “Sudetengau,” as the Nazis called the newly conquered peripheral Czech regions. Synagogues were desecrated, plundered, razed, and burned—in Liberec, Karlovy Vary, Mariánské Lázně, 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 Nazis had assembled in town. Shouting and bellowing and beating drums, they began to march toward our house. I can still hear that 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.

  “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 and SEND JEWS TO PALESTINE.” In no time the Gestapo had confiscated the Steins’ assets. The shop was handed over to a German commissioner. Markéta 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, Markéta 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 Markéta’s brother, Otto Altenstein, lived. Before the occupation he had been a state secretary in the Ministry for Social Welfare. His apartment in Prague-Holešovice was much too small to house them all, so the children were taken to Brno, where Markéta Stein’s family lived.

  Ela and Ilona were enrolled in the Czech School in Brno. After classes, they often went to visit their aunt, Kamila Korn, at Plotní 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. Markéta 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 Šumovska 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, Markéta Stein, and Ilona Stein. The last one, 896, was Ela Stein.

  On February 14, 1942, they made their way through deep snow to the assembly point for Jews in Prague-Holešovice. Three days later they were led to the train station in a procession of about one thousand people. “My uncle Otto was ordered to lead the parade—Uncle Otto of all people! The Germans thought it was a good joke, because my uncle used a cane, the result of a childhood illness that left his legs too short. He could barely plod through the deep snow. I can still see myself in my heavy winter clothes walking beside him, and dragging a lot of luggage. First to the station in Prague-Holešovice, then once we arrived in Bohušovice, about a mile and a half to Theresienstadt.”

  Eva Landa

  Eva Landa. Her real name was Evelina, but everyone called her Eva. Eva Landa was born on December 25, 1930, into a peaceful and auspicious world. Surrounded by her parents, Emil and Ilsa Landa, her older sister, Liesl, and her governess, Stási, she grew up in a large modern apartment in a stately building at U Smaltovny 18 in Letná, Prague. There was an elevator in the building, and a spiral staircase that led down to the courtyard, where street musicians played happy songs from time to time. Whenever Eva heard them, she would quickly wrap a few coins in a piece of paper and toss it down to the courtyard from the kitchen window, feeling confident that these strolling musicians were now playing their songs just for her.

  Eva’s childhood was one of affluence and security. Her father had founded the Landa Horsehair Fabrics Company. Her maternal grandparents, Nathan and Ernestine Klein, owned a wholesale pharmaceutical firm. Eva would later say, “Everything was just as it should be. My parents were hard workers. My life was well organized. I went with Stási to nearby Stromovka Park nearly every day. I spent most summer vacations on Mácha Lake in Tammühl. I have the loveliest memories of those days.” At age six Eva was enrolled at the Czech Elementary School on U Studanky Street. She was a good student, especially because she was fond of her teacher, Josefine Littmann. And, like thousands of other Czech children, she joined the Sokol Athletic Club.

  It is difficult for her to pinpoint when the first major changes appeared on the horizon. The images of that period are a jumble, apart from one image that stands out clearly: “I was with my mother on the street, and airplanes with spotlights flew over Prague. And I suddenly felt sick—I think that was when I began to sense that something awful was going to happen.”

  But the strolling musicians who enjoyed playing in the courtyard of U Smaltovny 18 were still able to drive such gloomy thoughts away. “The Czech Guard stands at our borders. Don’t think you can swallow us, Adolf,” they sang at the top of their voices, setting these words to the melody of an old Czech folk song. This time Eva quickly wrapped a few more coins than usual in paper and tossed them down to the musicians in her courtyard.

  Then came March 15, 1939, a Wednesday. Jutting out from the window of a building on U Smaltovny—neighbors called it Little Berlin because it was inhabited by Germans—was a large flag with a black swastika. It was snowing, and there was a cold wind. As usual, Eva went to school. “Everyone was upset, sad. Our teacher told us about what happened to Napoleon, about his ascent and deep fall, and about his horrible end. Although we were still very young, we immediately understood that she was speaking about Adolf Hitler.”

  From then on the Landa family was caught up in earnest discussions about whether they should emigrate. They had money and good business contacts in Zurich. They could have fled. “I can recall that I was very much against going to Switzerland, because I didn’t want to go to a German school. But that of course was not the reason my parents stayed on. I think they simply found it very hard to leave their home, to give up everything and go off into the unknown. I understand now what a very difficult step that is.”

  Besides, the Landas were optimists, and they were Czech patriots. “We firmly believed that someone like Hitler could not stay in power for long. We believed the whole hullabaloo would soon be over.” But then it really started. “We were forbidden to go to the movies, theater, concerts, even parks. Then we could board only the second car on the trolley, and even there we could sit down only if all the Aryans had first found a seat. Eventually we couldn’t use the trolleys at all. We weren’t allowed on the street after eight in the evening, weren’t allowed to leave the town where we lived or to ride the train. All Jews were fired from the civil service, their entire fortunes confiscated. All Jewish doctors, lawyers, et cetera, had to close their offices. Jews were no longer allowed to have housemaids. Jews could not have anything to do with Aryans. Their bank accounts were blocked. We had to hand over all our valuables—jewelry, musical instruments, skis, radios. Even our pets. I had a little canary, Punta, that I had to give up. I can still remember the window on the street where I had to hand it over.”

  The transports began in October 1941—first to Poland, to the ghetto in Lodz, then to Theresienstadt. When the two construction commandos left Prague for Theresienstadt in November and December, Eva’s sister, Liesl, was among them. She volunteered to go because her husband, Franz Petschau, whom she had only recently married, was forced to join the transport. In the spring of 1942, Eva’s grandparents Nathan and Ernestine Klein were on the transport list.

  Then came the assassination of Heydrich in May 1942 and the Nazis’ bloody reprisals, which filled the Czechs with fear and horror. On June 4, as part of their revenge for Heydrich’s death, the Nazis ordered ten large transports in one fell swoop. The Landa family was on that list.

  At six o’clock on the morning of June 28, 1942, they arrived with the prescribed hundred pounds of baggage at the Messepalais, the assembly point for Jews. On the morning of July 2, their journey continued in the direction of Theresienstadt.

  It was a lovely summer day when they arrived. Many of the ghetto’s inmates stood outside on the street, eyeing them with curiosity. Suddenly Eva recognized a former neighbor. “It was Herr Reiser. He was very thin and pale. He had a black ribbon on his sleeve, a symbol of mourning. My mother pointed to his sleeve, asking what it meant. He made a sign with his hand, and we understood right away: His little daughter Eva, age seven, had died of the measles. I had often played with Eva. The family had come from the Sudetenland and had been living with my grandparents. We had given the girl clothing, and supported the whole family. I was devastated—and afraid. I said to myself that day: I will do whatever I must to stay alive.”

  Marta Fröhlich

  Marta Fröhlich came from an impoverished family in the southern Bohemian town of Písek, where she was born on July 17, 1928. Her father, Leopold Fröhlich, was Jewish; her mother, Barbora Fröhlich, née Skřivanová, was a Christian. Marta loved her mother. “She was very tidy and very hardworking, had a good heart, and was kind to everyone. She sewed us coats, shirts, and blouses, although she was no seamstress. But she knew how to help out with all kinds of work.”

  Barbora Fröhlich did not have much of a choice. Her husband was hardly a pillar of strength for the family. He was often ill, always hot-tempered, and had a tendency to tyrannize his family. This was also the reason why, with the help of better-situated relatives, the children were sent to Prague as soon as they reached school age—the boys to the orphanage on Belgicka and the girls to the one on Hybernska. Despite their poverty, they were to get a good education. Marta was enrolled in the Jewish grammar school on Masna Street.

  Marta and her siblings soon felt at home in the Old City of Prague—until the day in March 1939 when the Germans marched into the city. “They sent us back to the orphanage from school. I can still see the huge crowds standing along the streets. Many people were crying. From that day on everything changed. Soon we weren’t allowed to go to school anymore, Jewish institutions were closed one after the other,
and we finally ended up in an overcrowded old people’s home in Strašnice next to Hagibor, the Jewish athletic field.” In one of the buildings in the complex, Brundibár, which had premiered in the dining room of the orphanage on Belgicka, started up again, and Marta and her sister Zdenka sang in the schoolchildren’s choir. Shortly thereafter, when the inmates of the old people’s home had been deported and the doors were locked, the remaining Jewish boys and girls were resettled in the Belgicka orphanage, and the five Fröhlich children were all under one roof again.

  Then came the day in January when they were taken away by the Gestapo. That same night, after having spent hours in a cold cellar, the Gestapo put them into a police van along with three other prisoners— a woman with two children. Guarded by six policemen, they arrived at Theresienstadt. It was February 1943.

  Eva Winkler

  Eva Winkler was born in Brno on October 12, 1930, the daughter of Fritz and Edith Winkler, née Rosenblatt. She spent her childhood in Miroslav, a little village in southern Moravia, where her parents owned a sawmill.

  When Hitler’s troops marched into the Sudetenland in October 1938, the family left everything behind and fled by night to Brno, where Eva’s grandparents Adolf and Wilma Rosenblatt lived. They also owned a sawmill with extensive grounds and quarters for workers. The family took refuge in one of these buildings, and Eva soon got over the shock of their sudden flight. Eva liked her new surroundings. She admired her grandmother, “a generous and elegant lady. Actually, it was very fancy there, quite special, and it made a huge impression on me.”

  Life seemed to return to its normal course, and while she attended school or played with her cousin Bed’a, her father spent his time in a little workshop making stack upon stack of crates for the many people who hoped to emigrate or flee the country. The demand for them kept growing.