The Girls of Room 28: Friendship, Hope, and Survival in Theresienstadt

by Hannelore Brenner-Wonschick; Hannelore Brenner

  24. As Bernd Biege reports in his book Helfer unter Hitler. Das Rote Kreuz im Dritten Reich [Helpers Under Hitler: The Red Cross and the Third Reich] (Reinbek: Kinder Verlag, 2000), Ernst Robert Grawitz, chief medical officer of the SS, confidant of Heinrich Himmler, and active as well as passive participant in criminal experiments conducted on human beings, was executive president of the German Red Cross from 1937 to 1945. He wrote the rules by which selections were made in concentration camps. Thus, it was Grawitz who ordered the immediate death of 70–80 percent of the Jews arriving at these camps—above all the ill, the frail, the aged, and small children.

  25. Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente 1994, ed. Miroslav Kárný, Raimund Kemper, and Margita Kárná (Prague: Edition Theresienstädter Initiative Academia, 1994), document section, unpaginated.

  26. The Patria never arrived at its destination. Since the British had refused entry into the harbor, the ship exploded just off the Israeli coast. There were many casualties. Flaška’s sister survived and swam ashore, but the events surrounding her arrival remained a lifelong trauma.

  27. Sokol (Czech for “falcon”) was a Czech athletic club founded in 1862 as part of the Czech nationalist movement. After the occupation, it was closed to Jews, and in 1941 the entire organization was declared illegal and dissolved.

  FOUR Island in a Raging Sea

  1. Rudolf Franěk, “Brundibár, der Brummbär” [“Brundibár, the Grumbler”], in Iltis, Ehrmann, and Heitlinger, eds., Theresienstadt, pp. 272–78. After the war, Rudolf Freudenfeld changed his name to Rudolf Franěk.

  2. Honza Holub played the ice-cream vendor. Unfortunately, the casting information is incomplete.

  3. Kotouc et al., We Are Children Just the Same, pp. 154–55.

  4. According to Vojtěch Blodig, historian for the Theresienstadt Memorial, within thirty-six hours 6,422 people from the Sudeten Barracks and the Bodenbach Barracks were resettled. The vacated rooms were used as a depository for the secret files of the Reich Security Main Office. This institution was given the name Berlin Branch Office and was separate from the rest of the camp.

  5. Manfred Grieger, “Anton Burger—ein österreichischer Dienstmann” [“Anton Burger—an Austrian Henchman”], in Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente 1995, ed. Miroslav Kárný, Raimund Kemper, and Margita Kárná (Prague: Edition Theresienstädter Initiative Academia, 1995), pp. 241–48.

  6. Karel Berman, “Erinnerungen von Karel Berman” [“Recollections of Karel Berman”], in Iltis, Ehrmann, and Heitlinger, eds., Theresienstadt, pp. 254–58.

  7. “Theresienstädter Kindertagebücher,” pp. 114–24.

  8. On the night of August 15, 1943, the SS began liquidating the ghetto of Bialystok, a city in northeast Poland with a high percentage of Jewish inhabitants. (In 1913, 48,000 of the 61,500 residents were Jewish.) From the start of the German occupation on June 27, 1941, to August 1943, approximately 20,000 Jews had already been shot dead or deported and murdered in the death camps. The remaining 30,000 Jews in the Bialystok ghetto were murdered on the spot between August 16 and August 20, 1943, in the course of a futile attempt at resistance, or brought to Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, or labor camps at Ponoatowa and Blizyn, where they met their deaths. Twelve hundred children, accompanied by 25 adults, were brought to Theresienstadt on a train. The adults were immediately sent on to Auschwitz. On October 5, 1943, the children, plus 35 escorts, left Theresienstadt on Transport Dn/a for the same destination. Immediately upon arrival, both the children and their escorts were murdered in the gas chambers.

  9. Ruth Bondy, “Chronik der sich schliessenden Tore” [“Chronicle of the Closing Gates”], which quotes the Jüdisches Nachrichtenblatt [Jewish Newspaper] of March 22, 1940, in Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente 2000, ed. Miroslav Kárný, Raimund Kemper, and Margita Kárná (Prague: Edition Theresienstädter Initiative Academia, 2000), pp. 86–106.

  FIVE Light in the Darkness: Brundibár

  1. Adolf Hoffmeister in the film Brundibár—die Kinderoper von Theresienstadt (Munich, 1966). Produced by Cineropa Film; directed by Walter Krüttner.

  2. “Berichte zum ersten Jahrestag der Theresienstädter Heime in L 417”: Hans Krása, “Brundibár,” in Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente 1998, pp. 178–80.

  3. Franěk, “Brundibár, der Brummbär,” pp. 254–58.

  4. Typescript of a lecture by Professor Israel Kestenberg, 1943. Original in the Jewish Museum in Prague, Terezin Collection, Inv. No. 304/1.

  5. “Berichte zum ersten Jahrestag der Theresienstädter Heime in L 417”: Friederike Brandeis, “Kinderzeichnen” [“Children’s Drawings”], in Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente 1998, pp. 175–78. Unless otherwise noted, the quotations that follow are also taken from this source.

  6. Elena Makarova, Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. Ein Leben für Kunst und Lehre (Vienna and Munich: Christian Brandstätter Verlag, 2000), p. 21.

  7. Edith Kramer in a conversation with the author in Berlin on July 19, 2001. Edith Kramer, who emigrated to New York in 1938 and made a name for herself there as an art teacher and painter, has been especially active in keeping the artistic legacy of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis alive. In her first book, Art Therapy in a Children’s Community (1958), she formulated the theoretical basis for her work, making her, along with Elinor Ulman and Margareth Naumburg, an American pioneer in this pedagogical discipline. The fact that Edith Kramer dedicated her second book, Art Therapy for Children, to Friedl Dicker-Brandeis suggests what a strong influence her teacher had on her own development.

  8. Georg Schrom in a lecture given as part of the symposium “Art, Music and Education as Strategies for Survival,” Moravian College, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, February 10, 2000.

  9. Makarova, Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, p. 130.

  10. Ibid.

  11. Ibid., p. 131.

  12. In his daily order of July 7, 1943, camp commandant Burger threatened the harshest punishment for unreported pregnancies. For a while all pregnancies were terminated with abortions. Later the commandant reserved for himself the decision as to whether a pregnancy was to be aborted or carried to full term. Most pregnant women, however, could expect to be put on the next transport to the East. A total of about 350 involuntary abortions were carried out. Of 207 children born in the camp, 25 survived.

  13. On January 10, 1942, nine ghetto prisoners were hanged for infractions against camp rules; seven more hangings followed on February 26, 1942. Most of them had smuggled or tried to smuggle illegal letters or news out of the camp. One had secretly met with his non-Jewish wife, who had come to see him at the camp. After February 1942, there were no more executions in the ghetto, although individuals were taken to the Little Fortress and murdered there.

  14. Alice Herz-Sommer in an interview with the author, summer 1999. Additional quotations are also based on this interview.

  15. Elsa Bernstein, Das Leben als Drama: Erinnerungen an Theresienstadt (Dortmund: Edition Ebersbach, 1999), p. 114.

  SIX Appearance and Reality

  1. Otto Pollak, diary entry. Presumably, “Monte Terezino” is the bastion on the ramparts. On July 11, 1943, Otto Pollak noted: “The first time on the bastion with Ornstein and Rühlmann from Berlin. Beautiful view of Litoměřice.”

  2. Miroslav Kárný, in “Jakob Edelsteins letzte Briefe,” in Theresienstädter Stu- dien und Dokumente 1997, pp. 216–29. Jakob Edelstein and his family were shot dead in Auschwitz-Birkenau on June 20, 1944.

  3. Kotouc et al., We Are Children Just the Same, p. 127.

  4. Viktor Ullmann, “Kritik Nr. 8, Musikalische Rundschau,” in 26 Kritiken über musikalische Veranstaltungen in Theresienstadt, ed. Ingo Schultz (Hamburg: Bockel Verlag, 1996), pp. 51–55.

  5. Von Lang, Das Eichmann-Protokoll, p. 225.

  6. There was, in fact, a concentration camp for political prisoners at Heydebreck, Upper Silesia. But Eva is correct. The reality was that “to go to Heydebreck” meant “to go to the gas chambers.” As part of the deception of prisoners, the camp high comm
and told them that the mass murders they were planning were merely a transport to the labor camp at Heydebreck.

  7. “Prominent” people were those designated as such by the SS or the Council of Elders. They were given so-called privileged quarters and enjoyed some protection from being transported. Ultimately, however, such status was of use to only a very few. In the end, they were treated just like all other prisoners and were put on transport lists.

  8. Jindřich Flusser, “Lebwohl, Theresienstadt” [“Farewell, Theresienstadt”], in Iltis, Ehrmann, and Heitlinger, eds., Theresienstadt, pp. 302–6. The number given for the town’s population at its highest level is incorrect. Up to fifty-eight thousand people actually lived in Theresienstadt.

  9. “Theresienstädter Kindertagebücher,” pp. 114–24.

  10. Gonda Redlich’s diary, quoted by Vojtěch Blodig in his Ammerkungen zu Maurice Roussels Bericht, Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente 1996, p. 304 n. 16.

  11. Rumors (bonkes) about a visit by a delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross began circulating with the first orders for beautification in December 1943, but no one knew when it would occur. Himmler officially agreed to an inspection of the Theresienstadt Ghetto for the Elderly in May 1944. A letter dated May 18, 1944, sent by the Reich Security Main Office to Colonel Niehaus of the German Red Cross, said that Himmler “had approved an inspection of the Theresienstadt ghetto and of a Jewish labor camp by you and a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Also taking part in the inspection will be representatives of Denmark and Sweden. The date for this inspection is sometime in early June 1944.” Quoted in Theresienstadt Studien und Dokumente 1994, document section. Historians concur that the term “Jewish labor camp” referred to the family camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which itself was planned as part of a Nazi propaganda campaign.

  12. See H. G. Adler, Theresienstadt 1941–1945, Das Antlitz einer Zwangsgemeinschaft, Geschichte, Soziologie, Psychologie (Tübingen: J. C. Mohr, 1956).

  13. Of note in this context is Cara De Silva’s In Memory’s Kitchen: A Legacy from the Women of Terezin (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), a collection of traditional Bohemian, Moravian, Austrian, and German recipes that were exchanged among the women of Theresienstadt to satisfy their hunger, at least in their fantasies. They had neither the ingredients nor a place to cook or bake the foods in these recipes.

  14. Heinrich Taussig, born in 1923; Bernhard Kaff, born in 1905 in Brno. Neither survived. Viktor Ullmann also wrote about a Beethoven concert given by Bernard Kaff. See “Kritik Nr. 19” in Ullmann, 26 Kritiken, p. 76.

  15. “Theresienstädter Kindertagbücher,” pp. 114–24.

  16. Ibid.

  17. Eva Herrmannová in an interview with the author in Prague, 1998.

  18. See Herbert Thomas Mandl, Die Wette des Philosophen. Der Anfang des definitively Todes (Munich: Boer Verlag, 1996), p. 106.

  19. Franěk, “Brundibár, der Brummbär.”

  20. Maurice Rossel’s report and other documents were first published in their entirety in Theresienstádter Studien und Dokumente 1996, pp. 284–301, with an introduction by Miroslav Kárný, pp. 276–82, and detailed notes by Vojtěch Blodig, pp. 302–20. Unless otherwise noted, all other quotations by Maurice Rossel are taken from this report.

  21. Claude Lanzmann in a conversation with Maurice Rossel, published in Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente 2000, pp. 168–91. Lanzmann conducted this conversation for his documentary film Shoah (1985), but it was not used in the film. It was first published in Un vivant qui passe Auschwitz, Theresienstadt 1943–1944 (Paris: Editions Mille et une nuits/Arte Editions, 1997).

  22. The deportees’ baggage was confiscated by the SS at the “sluice” and then plundered. What was left landed in the Kleiderkammer; it was very strictly inventoried and then distributed among the prisoners and/or sold in shops for ghetto currency.

  23. Karel Kursawe, born in 1892; member of the SS camp high command and director of camp agriculture.

  24. Eva Herrmannová in an interview with the author in Prague, 1998.

  25. From the program of a 1995 production of Brundibár by Jeunesses Musicales Deutschland; premiered at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin.

  26. Käthe Starke-Goldschmidt, “Die Zentralbücherei des Ghettos Theresienstadt” [“The Central Library of the Theresienstadt Ghetto”], in Iltis, Ehrmann, and Heitlinger, eds., Theresienstadt, pp. 185ff.

  27. Hans Höfer, “Der Film über Theresienstadt” [“The Film About Theresienstadt”], in Iltis, Ehrmann, and Heitlinger, eds., Theresienstadt, pp. 194ff.

  28. Eva Herrmannová in an interview with the author in Prague, 1998.

  SEVEN Ghetto Tears

  1. See Ullmann, “Kritik Nr. 16,” in 26 Kritiken.

  2. Ullmann, “Kritik Nr. 24,” in 26 Kritiken.

  3. See Zdenka Fantlová, My Lucky Star (New York: Herodias, 2001).

  4. Paul Kling (1928–2005) in conversations with the author in New York and Berlin, 1997 and 1998.

  5. Leo Haas, “Die Affäre der Theresienstädter Maler” [“The Theresienstadt Painters’ Affair”], in Iltis, Ehrmann, and Heitlinger, eds., Theresienstadt, pp. 170ff.

  6. Mitteilungen der Jüdischen Selbstverwaltung [Communications of the Jewish Self-Administration], no. 45, September 17, 1944, taken from the literary estate of Otto Pollak; also quoted in Otto Pollak’s diary entry of Saturday, September 16, 1944.

  7. Miroslav Kárný, “Die Theresienstädter Herbstransporte 1944” [“The Theresienstadt Transports in the Fall of 1944”], in Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente 1995, pp. 7–37.

  8. Ibid. Kárný’s essay provides solid evidence that Himmler’s chief motive in ordering these transports was to weaken resistance in Theresienstadt, to eliminate all potential for resistance, and to counter what he feared most, an uprising. At the same time he could then carry on unhindered with his camouflage of Theresienstadt and garner any political capital such a deception might yield.

  9. Felix Weiss was a cousin of Otto Pollak and a member of the fire department in Theresienstadt. He died in January 1945 in a concentration camp in Bavaria.

  10. Kárný, “Theresienstädter Herbstransporte 1944,” pp. 7–37.

  11. Eva Herrmannová in an interview with the author in Prague, 1998.

  12. Mica was important for the manufacture of munitions. It had to be splintered into very thin pieces and weighed, both processes demanding good light and exceptional dexterity. After September 1944, more than a thousand women were put to work fracturing mica.

  EIGHT Liberation

  1. Horst Cohn, a resident of Israel, in a conversation with the author in Schwerin, Germany, January 2001.

  2. Paul (Sandfort) Aron, Ben: The Alien Bird, trans. Paul Aron and Alex Auswaks (Jerusalem: Gefen Books, 1999), p. 295.

  3. Irena Lauscherová, “Die Kinder von Theresienstadt” [“The Children of Theresienstadt”], in Iltis, Ehrmann, and Heitlinger, eds., Theresienstadt, p. 111.

  4. Among the dead was the Viennese pianist Renée Gärtner-Geiringer (1908–1945). Flaška’s sister Lizzi, who was on the same train, tripped over the dead body of Gärtner-Geiringer as she left the cattle car after the bombardment.

  5. In their attempt to save Hungarian Jews, Rudolf Kastner and Joel Brand were involved in controversial dealings with the Nazis. On April 5, 1944, when Kastner and Brand first met with Dieter Wisliceny, who was part of Eichmann’s Section IV B 4, Wisliceny demanded $2 million in exchange for the lives of 800,000 Hungarian Jews. After the first partial payment, a rescue operation was set in motion for a selected group of 1,700 Jews, who, after extended incarceration at Bergen-Belsen until late 1944, finally did make it to Switzerland. As part of those April negotiations, Eichmann offered Joel Brand another deal: the release of one million Jews in exchange for ten thousand trucks and other goods from the West. This offer of “blood for goods,” as it was called, was rejected by the Allies. Kastner nevertheless continued negotiations, which the Allies support
ed for tactical reasons. Accused of betraying Jews and collaborating with the Nazis, Kastner was later tried in Israel in 1954–55. Kastner’s legal appeal was still pending when he was shot and killed on the street by nationalist extremists in Israel on March 15, 1957. Kastner’s good name has now largely been restored. Those whom he saved have erected a monument in his honor.

  6. Der Kastner-Bericht über Eichmanns Menschenhandel in Ungarn [The Kastner Report Concerning Eichmanns Traffic in Human Beings in Hungary] (Munich: Kindler, 1961), pp. 323–27.

  7. Kotouc et al., We Are Children Just the Same, pp. 72–73. Eva Ginz is the sister of Petr Ginz, the editor of Vedem.

  8. Alice Ehrmann, “Ein Theresienstädter Tagebuch, October 18, 1944-May 19, 1945” [“A Theresienstadt Diary”], in Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente 1994, pp. 171–205. The author was born on May 5, 1927, and arrived in Theresienstadt on July 13, 1943. There she became friends with Zeev Shek, a committed Zionist leader. In 1947 they married, and in 1948 she followed him to Palestine. Alisah Shek is one of the cofounders of the archives and memorial Beit Terezin, at Givat Chaim Ichud, Israel, where she lived until her death in 2007.

  9. Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente 1995, pp. 306–24. Erich Kessler was born on June 14, 1912. He lived in Prague until he was deported to Theresienstadt on February 9, 1945, along with other Jews living in (as the Nazis called it) a Mischehe (mixed marriage).

  10. According to information provided by Karl-Heinz Schultz, chairman of the Friends of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, “Papa” was a customs agent who had been reassigned to guard prisoners on September 13, 1944. He was killed in an air raid on Hamburg-Tiefstack.

  11. Erich Kessler in Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente 1995, pp. 306–24.

  12. Ibid.

  EPILOGUE

  1. Hanka Brady’s story is told in the book Hana’s Suitcase, by Karen Levine (Morton Grove, Ill.: Albert Whitman & Co., 2007).

  2. Přemysl Pitter (1895–1976) was a Christian humanist who devoted his life to social work with children. Pavel Kohn has written a book in his honor: Schlösser der Hoffnung. Die geretteten Kinder des Přemysl Pitter [Castles of Hope: The Rescued Children of Přemysl Pitter] (Munich: Langen Müller, 2001).