The Girls of Room 28

by Hannelore Brenner

  Handa and Tella returned to Prague on May 12. There they waited in vain for Karel Pollak; they had no better luck with inquiries sent to Olbramovice. Still hoping for his return, Handa spent a few weeks in Olbramovice with a family that had once been friends with her father.

  Handa will always remember with profound horror the moment when she finally learned of her father’s fate. It was in the loft of a barn where Handa was hiding from the Russians together with the daughter of the family with whom she was living. Tella had been in Olbramovice the day before. She had wanted to tell Handa about her father, but couldn’t bring herself to do it and had told the family instead, which is how the daughter learned of it. It was from this girl that Handa had to learn the awful news. “Your father’s kicked the bucket,” the girl hissed. “And if you cry, I’ll slap you like you’ve never been slapped before.”

  Karel Pollak had died in a secondary camp attached to Dachau on March 9, 1945, “of despair,” as a man who was with him to the end later reported. “After his bout with typhoid,” Handa says, “my father, my robust father, had become a specter. He was so weakened that he believed that if he was in such a state, there was no chance that we were still alive. He lost all hope and didn’t know for whom he should go on living.”

  Of the thirty-one members of her immediate family who had been deported by the Nazis, Handa was the only one to survive. Tella wanted to rebuild her own life in Prague as a piano teacher, and she saw to it that Handa returned to high school and learned to play the piano. Handa’s uncle, Karel Ančerl, was looking after her, too. But Handa did not feel that anything was keeping her in Prague. She was drawn increasingly to Hanka Wertheimer’s circle of friends, many of whom wanted to immigrate to Palestine. “I was not very much of a Zionist, but I wanted a new beginning,” she says.

  In February 1949 Handa immigrated to Israel as part of a Youth Aliyah group. Tella followed her not long after. Handa found a new home at Kibbutz Hachotrim, where she and her husband still live today.

  After she was released from quarantine, HELGA POLLAK was not sure whether she should go to a sanatorium in Switzerland. Then came a surprise—a cousin from Kyjov arrived on a Russian truck, and from that moment on she was certain that she would greatly prefer to go home with her father. “Besides which,” she says, “I had found a louse on my pillow, and I said to myself, ‘I’m not staying one day longer. I have survived all this, and I’m not going to die of typhus. I’m leaving.’ The train to Brno was already there. And the three of us took it to Brno, and from there to Kyjov.” Soon they were faced with a terrible fact: Sixty-three members of Otto Pollak’s family would never return—not Aunt Marta or Uncle Fritz, not her cousin Joši or little Lea.

  Helga Pollak Kinsky

  In 1946 Helga’s greatest wish was fulfilled: She joined her mother in London. There she graduated from high school and attended college. In 1951 she married an emigrant from Rössl in former East Prussia, who had escaped the Nazis by moving to Bangkok and building a new life there. Helga first moved to Bangkok with him, then to Addis Ababa. This retreat to the Far East satisfied a very basic need. “For a long time after liberation, I didn’t want to speak German. Or even think of building a house or buying one. For years I wanted to be prepared to leave Vienna at the drop of a hat.”

  Gradually her life began to take a more normal course. In 1957 Helga, her husband, and their two children returned to Vienna. They wanted to provide the finest possible education for their daughter, who had been born deaf, and Vienna offered the best educational opportunities for her. Another reason for their return was that Helga wanted to be near her beloved father, who lived in Vienna until he passed away in 1978.

  Two documentary films by the American filmmaker Zuzana Justman include segments on Helga’s story: Terezin Diary (1989) and Voices of the Children (1997).

  Ever since the first staged reading of Helga’s Diary: A Girl of Room 28, in Freiburg, Germany, in 2002, Helga Pollak has frequently accompanied me on the traveling exhibition “The Girls of Room 28, L 410, Theresienstadt,” to performances of the children’s opera Brundibár, and to other related events, where she offers her personal eye witness account and reads from her diary. In May 2005 Helga was a guest of the Theodor Heuss Gymnasium in Freiburg for the premiere of the play Ghetto Tears 1944: The Girls of Room 28, directed by Elmar Wittmann. The model for the main character is the diarist Helga Pollak.

  ANNA FLACH (“Flaška”) was fortunate in that her parents and siblings survived the Holocaust. But she never again saw most of her relatives.

  A new life began for Flaška in Brno. She devoted herself to music and became a pianist, singer, and professor of song and piano at the Brno Conservatory and the Janáček Academy. In 1955 she married the oboist Vitešlav Hanuš; each has shared in the other’s brilliant musical career. They have been guest performers together at countless concerts both at home and abroad—in Beijing from 1959 to 1961, in Beirut from 1966 to 1969, and in Sydney in 1968 and 1969.

  Anna Hanusová-Flachová

  Their son, Tomáš Hanuš, who was born in 1970, is an internationally renowned conductor. He founded the New Czech Chamber Orchestra and is permanent conductor of both the Prague Chamber Orchestra and the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra in Bratislava. In 2007 he was appointed music director of the National Theatre Brno.

  Anna, who remains devoted to promoting music, belongs to the Dvořák Society in Brno while continuing her work as an educator. She is deeply committed to preserving the memory of Theresienstadt composers, especially Pavel Haas, who was born in Brno. Her unflagging efforts have resulted in many musical events. Over the last few years she has often served on the jury of the annual Verfemte Musik (banned music) instrumental and vocal competitions in Schwerin, Germany, which are sponsored by the Jeunesses Musicales of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the Schwerin Conservatory.

  Anna also serves on the board of the Theresienstadt Initiative in Prague.

  Since the touring exhibition “The Girls of Room 28, L 410, Theresienstadt” first opened in Schwerin, Germany, on September 23, 2004, with the assistance of the Stiftung Erinnerung, Verantwortung, und Zukunft (the Foundation for Remembrance, Responsibility, and Future) and the Verfemte Musik festival, Anna has frequently been invited to appear as a witness to history. In the course of the many events and activities connected with this project, Anna and the other girls have not only shared their experiences, especially with the younger generation, but experienced wonderful moments together and made friends in many parts of Germany, the Czech Republic, and Austria. One particular highlight was the opening of the exhibition at the Deutsche Bundestag in conjunction with National Holocaust Memorial Day in January 2008; eight of the girls from Room 28 were invited to Berlin to participate.

  What Anna has said about her motivation for involvement applies equally to all the girls: “I see it as my duty to speak about our experiences in the Holocaust, all the more in view of the growing chorus of voices denying, ignoring, or belittling it. I do not want those years to be forgotten or denied.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My God, my God

  May these things never cease:

  The sand and the sea

  The rushing of the waters

  The lightning in the heavens

  The prayer of man

  —Hannah Senesh

  More than ten years have passed since I first met the Girls of Room 28 and we began to hatch the plan of writing a book to commemorate the murdered children of Theresienstadt and the adults who lovingly and selflessly devoted themselves to the well-being of all the children there. I was also intent on relating the background and tragic story behind the first performances of the children’s opera Brundibár, which is how my own interest in this project began.

  I would like to thank Frank Harders-Wuthenow, the music publisher who in 1994 first brought to my attention Hans Krása’s children’s opera and steered me toward a course on which I have remained ever since. Never has a project mesmerized me as t
his one has. Today I know why: It offered challenges, experiences, encounters, and friendships that have enriched my life and expanded my horizons.

  I would never have been equal to these challenges had a series of individuals not stepped forward time and again to support the project. In 1999 Thomas Rietschel, then secretary-general of the Jeunesses Musicales Deutschland (JMD), got hold of my book proposal and decided to invite the Girls of Room 28 and me to Weikersheim, where the JMD is based, so we could work on the book together. In 1996 Rietschel had launched an educational Brundibár project and thus played an essential part in making this children’s opera known throughout the world.

  An invitation ensued to Schwerin, where the director of the Jeunesses Musicales Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Volker Ahmels, had started an international competition for young musicians called Verfemte Musik (Forbidden Music). From the very beginning, the Girls of Room 28 project was part of the cultural and historical program accompanying this competition. It was in Schwerin that the exhibition “The Girls of Room 28, L 410, Theresienstadt” first opened on September 23, 2004. Since then, it has made its way throughout Germany and Austria. Thanks to an American donor, Dr. Alfred Bader, there is now a Czech version as well, organized by the Jewish Museum in Prague/Brno.

  On October 3, 2002, there was a staged reading in Schwerin from the then-unpublished manuscript of the book. To our happy surprise, a guest at the reading, Barbara Zeisl-Schönberg, professor emerita of German at Pomona College and the daughter of the Viennese composer Ernst Zeisl, who had emigrated to the United States, spontaneously offered to translate the manuscript into English—and did so because, as she told us, she wanted to help us bring the book to the United States. Many thanks, dear Barbara, for your selfless, wonderful dedication!

  I am also deeply indebted to Susan Cernyak-Spatz, survivor of Auschwitz and associate professor emerita at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. She translated portions of an early draft of the manuscript into English, and thus buoyed the hopes of the Girls of Room 28 that this book might someday appear in English.

  Trevor Glover went to great lengths to help us achieve this goal. Aware of the compelling nature and significance of the children’s opera Brundibár, he embarked from his home in London on a fervent search for an English-language publisher at a very early stage of the project. Unfortunately, he was not able to place the book at that time. Still, his belief in it was not in vain—it helped me move the project ahead. I am deeply sorry that I can thank him only in my thoughts. Trevor died on September 12, 2007.

  This trip down memory lane leads me right back to when the American journalist and author Peter Wyden was an integral part of my life. I owe so much to him, and it pains me to have to express my thanks to him posthumously as well. I began working with him in 1984 in Berlin, compiling information and conducting countless interviews, most of them for two of his books: Wall: The Inside Story of Divided Berlin and Stella: One Woman’s True Tale of Evil, Betrayal, and Survival in Hitler’s Germany. I learned what it meant to work with source material, to carry out meticulous research, and to stick to the facts—and just how much tenacity, stamina, and creativity are required to tackle a big subject and to put a book out. It saddens me to realize that my good friend and mentor will not be there when this book comes out in America.

  In Germany I was told that I had little cause for hope that this book would ever be published in the United States. But here it is, thanks to Sebastian Ritscher at the literary agency Mohrbooks in Zurich, to my devoted American literary agent, Alison Bond, and to my wonderful editor at Schocken Books, Altie Karper. Thank you so much! You have made me and the Girls of Room 28 very happy. And although it took several years for the book to find a home with an American publisher, the dream has become a reality, a result of the dedication on the part of these editors and agents, and of Shelley Frisch, an outstanding translator who rendered the text in her native English and whose great care, attention to detail, and exquisite sensitivity to the story and the people involved gave it an authentic tone. Many thanks, dear Shelley! The girls no longer have to await the outcome with baited breath—they can now revel in the finished product.

  I can still hear their eager questions: When will the book be finished? Who will publish it? We’re not getting any younger, Hannelore! Our conversations kept circling around a single question: When? It was certainly a long and difficult process to turn an idea into a full-fledged book. I try not to recall every twist and turn in this arduous route—just the positive outcome. And it was worth every bit of the effort! I really got to know the Girls of Room 28. No matter how impatient they grew, no matter what doubts gnawed at them, no matter what difficulties they faced, they always stuck by me unconditionally. We grew to be a strong group. This has been the finest part of this project. And so to the girls I say: Thank you. Thank you for your wonderful cooperation. Thank you above all for your unshakable confidence, without which I could never have written this book!

  I would be remiss if I failed to mention another mundane but essential source of assistance—the financial support I have received for this book. I have lost count of how many publishers and potential sponsors I contacted, how many grant applications I submitted in the course of this project. I only know that now and then good fortune came our way, and at each happy financial juncture the project leaped ahead. I therefore offer my heartfelt thanks to the Maria Strecker-Daelen Foundation, the Foreign Office of Germany, the German-Czech Fund for the Future, the Robert Bosch Foundation, and the Walther Seinsch Memorial Fund.

  That I was finally able to devote myself to writing the manuscript for ten uninterrupted months was made possible by a generous grant from the commissioner for the Office of Government Affairs for Culture and Media in Germany, and the advocacy of ministry secretary Dr. Matthias Buth, supported by Dr. Hanna Nogossek, now at the German History Museum in Berlin (DHM). I am very grateful for this help from the German government, which allowed me to complete the decisive last step.

  My cordial thanks go to the staffs of various archives, especially to the Jewish Museum in Prague and to Alisah Schiller and Anita Tarsi of the Archive Beit Theresienstadt in Givat Chaim Ichud, Israel. Sadly, my thanks to Anita Frank and Alisah Shek come too late for these lovely women to read them in print.

  I also mourn the death of people whom I interviewed and who became very precious to me: Willy Groag (1914–2001), who conveyed such a vivid picture of his experiences in Prague and Theresienstadt and of life in the Girls’ Home; the violinist Paul Kling (1928–2005), who became a steadfast friend from the time we first met in 1996 in New York, and whose love for music and nobility of spirit became a source of inspiration; and Thomas Mandl (1929–2007), who impressed me with his outstanding memory and his philosophical and kind nature. The death in 2007 of Paul Aron Sandfort (aka Paul Rabinowitsch), the trumpeter in Brundibár and a close friend, greatly saddened us all.

  I also want to thank pianist Edith Kraus in Jerusalem and Alice Sommer in London, whose one-hundredth birthday on November 26, 2003, I will never forget. Nor will I forget the moment when Anna Hanuš thanked her for the lifelong inspiration she has received from Alice’s music, particularly her concert of Chopin études in Theresienstadt. This precious moment was caught on film for a documentary about the Girls of Room 28, directed by Bill Treharne Jones and edited by Paul A. Bellinger, both of London. I trust that this film, large parts of which were shot in Spindlermühle, Prague, Theresienstadt, and London, will eventually find the support it needs to be completed and shown. Thank you, Paul and Bill, for your unwavering faith and for your commitment.

  I was unfortunately unable to include all the stories I heard, but everyone who shared their experiences with me made an essential contribution to the project as a whole. I would like to thank Eva Herrmann, Dagmar Liebl, Greta (Hofmeister) Klingsberg, Ruth Brössler, Zdenka Fantl, Margit Silberfeld, Zvi (Horst) Cohn, Leopold Lowy, and George Brady.

  Special thanks go to Helga Hosk-Weiss, who once lived next do
or to the Girls of Room 28. It was in 1996, in her apartment in Prague and at the invitation of Ela Weissberger, that I first met several of these women. Helga Hosk-Weiss is a wonderful painter. As a child she drew what she saw in the ghetto, which is why the touring exhibiton is called “Draw What You See.” Her paintings can be seen throughout the world. I was pleased to read in a German review of my book: “The [children’s] drawings in particular, of which those by twelve-year-old Helga Weiss of Room 24 in the same Home have become the best known, can now be viewed against the horrific backdrop of daily life in the ghetto from the perspective of an unbiased child.”

  A complete list of everyone who is inextricably linked with this book project needs to include a tribute to two individuals who accompanied us from beginning to end, and whose presence at the annual meetings in Spindlermühle was key to our success: Micky Kreiner and Abraham Weingarten, the husbands of Vera and Hanka. Their devotion and amiability, and their joy in spending time with us and in working on our project, helped spur us on to achieve our goal. Thanks, dear Micky! Thanks, dear Abraham!

  I owe a debt of gratitude to historian Vojtěch Blodig of the Theresienstadt Memorial, who responded to all my inquiries and offered valuable insights. He also checked the historical accuracy of the manuscript. Thank you, Dr. Blodig, for your invaluable assistance!