Part 1 (2/2)
Only years later would they be able to make sense of an old parable that was known among some of the ghetto inmates: The inhabitants of a valley are told that within two days their hometown will be flooded by a natural catastrophe. There is no escape. No chance to be rescued. So the rabbi calls his faithful to the synagogue and tells them: 'Ladies and gentlemen, we have exactly forty-eight hours to learn how to live under water.' ”
This book recounts these ”forty-eight hours.” While enduring unimaginable suffering, the children of Theresienstadt also studied, played, danced, sang, did gymnastics, created art, wrote poems, and appeared in theatrical productions. This is why many of those who survived, particularly those whose road to survival also took them through the death camps, remember Theresienstadt as a last instance of humanity, a place where there was still love, education, art, and culture.
The renowned musician and conductor Karel Anerl, one of the few musicians in Theresienstadt who survived the Holocaust, wrote in his memoirs: ”Yes, the n.a.z.is almost succeeded in exterminating the Jews. However, they did not succeed in exterminating the idea of the human dimension of humanity.”6 Abraham Weingarten, Hanka's husband, captured the spirit of this book when he said to me in Spindlermuhle: ”We are witnesses to a miracle. Everyone here, apart from you and me, experienced the Holocaust firsthand and survived. Those girls are now grandmothers. Each has a unique personality, temperament, and outlook, and each has traveled a different road. But despite all these differences and despite the scars that life has left on them, just look at how cheerful they all are, how they laugh and sing, how happy they are here together. Life has proved stronger. Isn't that a miracle?”
CHAPTER TWO.
Saying Goodbye.
One day in late August 1938, a little brown-haired girl stood frozen in place on the balcony of an old apartment house in a desolate neighborhood of the Moravian capital city of Brno, her gaze fixed on a figure that was slowly walking away. Her eyes remained riveted to the spot long after the figure had vanished from sight. After what seemed an eternity, time that is etched into her memory, she went back inside, into a large dim room in a musty old building that now served as a boardinghouse. Sobbing, she buried herself in one of the empty beds in the deserted room. Her world was falling apart.
Helga Pollak was eight years old when she left Vienna and became a stranger in a strange land, when her childhood came to an end in an inhospitable boardinghouse in Brno, when she said goodbye to her mother, unaware that more than eight years would elapse before they would be reunited. Czechoslovakia (as it was called then) was still a country at peace. To Helga's mind, the ever-increasing persecution of Jews that she had experienced in Vienna was not a serious danger, or at least not a life-threatening one. She was only vaguely aware of the fact that she was Jewish.
More than sixty years later, these images live on in Helga Pollak's memory. ”At the end of August, my mother, who had come from Vienna to Kyjov, where I was spending the summer, brought me to a boardinghouse in Brno. I can still see her walking away. I was standing on a balcony, watching her go. I wept.
Helga Pollak, circa 1941.
No one in that gloomy boardinghouse paid any attention to me. The young women who were living there like me, in a sublet room containing four or five beds, were, I suppose, working somewhere or attending cla.s.ses. They all spoke Czech. The only person who was around during the morning was a maid from the countryside, but she didn't speak to me, either. How could she have? I didn't speak Czech back then, and she didn't know any German. I felt totally abandoned.”
The Palmhof, a concert cafe Otto Pollak operated with his brother Karl from 1919 to 1938 Up to this point, nothing in her life had ever hinted that anything like this could happen. Born in Vienna on May 28, 1930, the only child of Otto and Frieda Pollak, Helga had led a sheltered childhood. Her father was the owner of a large and well-known concert cafe on Mariahilfer Stra.s.se called the Palmhof. She had grown up in a s.p.a.cious apartment in the same building, and had been tenderly cared for by her mother and her governess, Johanna. The adults kept her out of the cafe in her early years. ”Going to the cafe was something very special for me,” she recalls.
Otto Pollak, who came from the southern Moravian town of Kyjov/Gaya,1 had moved to Vienna and joined the army in 1916, where he saw action in a field artillery unit and was so severely wounded that one leg had to be amputated. A disabled veteran, he was awarded a silver medal for bravery, first and second cla.s.s, at the end of World War I-a circ.u.mstance that would later save his life. had moved to Vienna and joined the army in 1916, where he saw action in a field artillery unit and was so severely wounded that one leg had to be amputated. A disabled veteran, he was awarded a silver medal for bravery, first and second cla.s.s, at the end of World War I-a circ.u.mstance that would later save his life.
In 1919 Otto and his brother Karl opened the Palmhof in Vienna and devoted great energy to running it. Otto loved the cafe atmosphere and personally waited on his guests, among them prominent artists such as the operetta composer Franz Lehar, the tenor Richard Tauber, and the actors Hans Moser and Fritz Imhof. Well-known musical groups often performed there, and the concerts were broadcast live weekly on RAVAG, the Austrian radio station. Once a year, Otto went in search of performers, both throughout Austria and abroad. Sometimes the musicians he discovered would make their Viennese debut at the Palmhof, then go on to play in major symphony orchestras.
Vienna became Otto Pollak's second home, and he felt so closely bound to it that even when dangerous times loomed, it took quite a while before he seriously considered leaving Austria-although there were ample reasons to do so. As early as 1934-in connection with an at tempted putsch by Austrian National Socialists and the a.s.sa.s.sination of Engelbert Dollfuss, the Austrian chancellor-the Palmhof became a target of vandalism by members of the then-illegal Austrian n.a.z.i Party. Two attacks were carried out against the cafe, the first a smoke bomb that went off in the checkroom during a Sunday tea dance, and the second an incendiary bomb that exploded beside a cellar window in the middle of the night. ”I'll never forget the blast of that bomb,” says Helga. ”I was four years old at the time. The bomb could have caused devastating damage, and it was only due to good luck and the fact that it was so poorly positioned that no one was injured and no more serious damage was done to the building. But many windows were shattered.”
Four years later, the situation in Austria had come to a head. In the meantime, Otto Pollak and his wife, Frieda, who was fourteen years his junior, had divorced amicably. Helga remained with her father in his apartment on Mariahilfer Stra.s.se. Her mother, who had taken an apartment of her own, visited her every day and continued to a.s.sist Otto Pollak in running the Palmhof. But it was the governess, Johanna, who looked after Helga most of the time and became a second mother to her.
That is why Helga always a.s.sociates the memory of two crucial events with the image of her governess. The first took place on the evening of March 11, 1938. ”I was in the living room. Johanna had turned on the radio and was listening intently to a speech. It was the abdication speech of Kurt Schuschnigg, the Austrian chancellor. I can still remember his final words precisely-'May G.o.d protect Austria,' he implored. That was the first time I ever saw Johanna cry.”
Early the next morning, Helga stood with her governess at the window overlooking Mariahilfer Stra.s.se. ”I saw soldiers marching up the street. And there were lots of swastika banners hanging from the windows of other buildings. An officer came up to my father and asked whether he would serve the soldiers. And my father said, 'No. This is a Jewish business.' To which the officer replied that this was of no interest to him; he cared only about his men. Suddenly the cafe was full of soldiers. A few days later, the Palmhof was shut down.”
With the appearance of German troops, greeted jubilantly by a majority of the population, a new and invigorating self-confidence blossomed in the hearts of thousands of Austrians, a feeling fueled by hatred of judische Untermenschen judische Untermenschen (”Jewish subhumans”) and by pride in belonging to the (”Jewish subhumans”) and by pride in belonging to the arische Herrenra.s.se arische Herrenra.s.se (”Aryan master race”) that had come to power. In an instant, the anti-Semitism that had been smoldering for decades became a raging wildfire that spread across the country with pogrom-like excesses. Jews were hara.s.sed, mistreated, and beaten. Eventually, they were fired from their jobs, robbed of their possessions, and expelled. The scale of n.a.z.i terror on Austrian soil a.s.sumed even greater proportions than the attacks then rampant in Germany. Thousands fled across Austria's borders or scrambled to get visas so they could emigrate. (”Aryan master race”) that had come to power. In an instant, the anti-Semitism that had been smoldering for decades became a raging wildfire that spread across the country with pogrom-like excesses. Jews were hara.s.sed, mistreated, and beaten. Eventually, they were fired from their jobs, robbed of their possessions, and expelled. The scale of n.a.z.i terror on Austrian soil a.s.sumed even greater proportions than the attacks then rampant in Germany. Thousands fled across Austria's borders or scrambled to get visas so they could emigrate.
Until then, religion had not played a significant role in the lives of the Pollaks. They were a.s.similated, liberal Jews, and they rarely celebrated Jewish holidays. Helga's first sustained encounter with Judaism was during the Jewish religious instruction cla.s.s she attended in grammar school. But now, in these changing times, her parents gave serious thought to their Jewish roots. In April 1938 Otto, Frieda, and Helga Pollak attended synagogue for the first time and partic.i.p.ated in a Pa.s.sover seder.
In order to a.s.sert control over the random acts of terror, the new rulers launched official actions of their own. A first transport of 151 Austrians, a group of so-called Schutzhaftlinge Schutzhaftlinge (”prisoners in protective custody”), among them sixty Jews, had already reached the Dachau concentration camp. In May two thousand more Jews were arrested and taken to various concentration camps. On May 20, 1938, the Nuremberg Race Laws were implemented in Austria as well. Now violence and fear began to dominate everyday life. (”prisoners in protective custody”), among them sixty Jews, had already reached the Dachau concentration camp. In May two thousand more Jews were arrested and taken to various concentration camps. On May 20, 1938, the Nuremberg Race Laws were implemented in Austria as well. Now violence and fear began to dominate everyday life.
However much Helga's parents tried to s.h.i.+eld her from the darkness of this new time, each day Helga felt it creep farther into her life. Jewish students had to sit on special ”Jewish benches” in school. Children who had previously been friendly with Helga now turned their backs on her. The mob controlled the streets. ”One day on the way home from school, a couple of boys I didn't know blocked my way and shouted, 'You Jewish pig!' I remember that I was crying and that a policeman-it was Herr Lahner, who lived in our building-took me by the hand and comforted me and walked me home.”
Helga's teacher, Dora Neuss, still treated her with affection. At the end of the school year she wrote in Helga's poetry alb.u.m: ”When fate turns against you, don't fret. The moon must wane before it can wax again. Your teacher, Dora Neuss, who will miss her little laughing dove very much.”
That year, Helga could hardly wait for summer vacation to begin. She usually spent it with her father's family in Kyjov, near the Austrian border. There, in a stately house on Market Square, lived her grandmother Sophie, together with her father's sister, Aunt Marta, Marta's husband, Uncle Fritz, and their two children, Trude and Josef, whom everyone called Joi. Trude was fifteen, and Joi was twelve. Helga would play with them and the neighborhood children in the big yard behind the house, where there were chickens, a rabbit hutch, and a large shed with all sorts of tools.
More than ever, Helga found her thoughts racing ahead to the summer. Kyjov was an enticing adventure; even the little shop that Aunt Marta ran in the house was great fun. ”There were all sorts of intriguing things there: sewing needles, sweaters, toys, baby carriages. At Christmas she displayed dolls in the shop window, and in the storage room in the back, the boxes of dolls were stacked to the ceiling-one doll prettier than the next. Sometimes my aunt would tell me to pick one out. That made me happy-for me, Kyjov was a magical place.”
This was true in 1938 as well. Helga spent the last lovely summer of her childhood there. Then, at the end of August, her mother came to see her, bringing two momentous decisions along with her baggage. In view of the disastrous events befalling the Jews of Austria, Helga's parents had decided that she would stay for a while with their relatives in Kyjor. But because she did not speak any Czech, she would have to attend the German school in Brno and live there during the school year-on her own, in a boardinghouse if need be. Frieda tried to make her eight-year-old daughter understand that this was for her own good: to keep her safe from the persecutions in Vienna, and to ensure that she continued to receive a good education so she would have a good future.
A few days later, mother and daughter left for Brno. Once Frieda had the feeling that Helga would be well taken care of at the boardinghouse, she bid her goodbye. ”You're a smart girl, you'll manage,” she said, trying to instill courage in her daughter. And with that, she left. What had begun as a carefree summer vacation turned into an exile.
Helga spent the ensuing days in a state of apathy. If someone addressed her, she was unable to reply. Even if she had been able to speak Czech, she could not have explained her predicament, because she did not understand it herself. She began to sink into a deep depression.
Informed of this by the owners of the boardinghouse, Helga's father, with the help of his relatives in Kyjov, quickly found a family to take her in, but nothing really changed for Helga. ”The Wittmanns were a distinguished family, living in a beautiful apartment. They were really very kind to me. But I always felt like a stranger. And I wasn't allowed to speak with their fourteen-year-old daughter. I wasn't even allowed in her room to play with her toys.”
About two weeks later, someone near and dear to her finally arrived. Her cousin Joi came for a visit with one of his friends, and the two boys took Helga to the movies. As they were saying goodbye, Helga burst into tears. How she longed to go back with them to Kyjov! Luckily, when Joi returned home, he convinced his parents to send a telegram to Helga's father in Vienna, telling him about Helga's distress.
The very next day, Otto Pollak took the train to Brno. ”It was a beautiful day; the sun was s.h.i.+ning. My father's visit came as a complete surprise. No one had said a word to me. I can see him before me, sitting on a park bench, trying to decide what he should do, while I did my best to persuade him to take me back to Kyjov.”
That evening, Otto wrote a letter to Helga's mother.
Brno, September 11, 1938Dear Frieda,... Frau Wittmann went upstairs to announce my arrival to Helga. An indescribable cry of joy echoed through the stairwell. Helga, in a new summer dress, white shoes, and stockings, ran down the steps toward me.There are no words for our joy at seeing each other again. Frau Wittmann left us alone. Helga stood in front of me and said with a serious look on her sweet young face: ”I've been thinking, Papa, that the moment you stood before me I would tell you that I don't want to stay here any longer. I just want to be in Vienna with my parents or in Kyjov with Aunt Marta.” Wittmann left us alone. Helga stood in front of me and said with a serious look on her sweet young face: ”I've been thinking, Papa, that the moment you stood before me I would tell you that I don't want to stay here any longer. I just want to be in Vienna with my parents or in Kyjov with Aunt Marta.”There is no describing the mature and collected way the eight-year-old little imp had thought things through, and the depth of soul she revealed.Tears kept coming to her eyes, and as I sat down out in front of the house she said to me: ”For all I care they can take away all the parks in Vienna. I'd rather be at home just spinning in circles in a corner of my room than running around in a park here. When Mama left, I tried hard not to cry so that she wouldn't be so sad on the train. But I cried afterwards.”When I told her that Ilse Kalinhof had gone to Palestine, she declared that she'd rather be a little beggar girl traveling the world with her parents than a rich girl living with strangers. She asked about Helga Weiss, and said: ”She's lucky; she can be with her parents.”Then she told me that Joi had visited her and that she couldn't help crying when they said goodbye. And when I asked whether Joi had cried, too, she said that he was very sad, but that he hadn't ever had to live with strangers.It went on like that for hours. It took everything in my power to stand firm when she begged me to make a decision. I shall wait a few days so that I can figure out in peace and quiet, rather than in the heat of the moment, what measures to take regarding the future of this extraordinary child. I sat in the dark outside the house with a heavy heart and gazed for a long time up at the brightly lit window of what I a.s.sumed was the room of my girl, who means everything to me ...Warmest wishes, your Otto Two days later, the decision had been made. ”We took a taxi all the way from Brno to Kyjov-I was overjoyed! I bounced up and down until my head banged against the roof of the car-that's how happy I was! I can still see the landscape as it pa.s.sed by us.”
Because of the language barrier, Helga had to repeat the second grade. But she didn't care. She was glad to be with her relatives again. She learned Czech easily, made rapid progress in school, and soon felt very much at home in Kyjov.
Postcard from Frieda Pollak to her daughter Helga: ”Ostende, March 25, 1939. My darling little girl! In an hour this beautiful little s.h.i.+p will take me across to England. You will soon be making the same journey, and then you will be just as happy as I am now. A thousand kisses for my darling and my warmest greetings to your dear Aunt Marta, Grandma, Uncle Fritz, Uncle Karl, Marienka, Trudel and Joi. Your Mama.”
Under the care of her relatives, Helga barely noticed the menacing events that were brewing in Europe. She was too young to grasp the impact of the disastrous Munich Agreement signed by Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom in September 1938, followed by Hitler's occupation of the Sudetenland, a predominantly German-speaking area on the fringes of Czechoslovakia.2 And she could not see the imminent danger in the German army's advance into the vicinity of Kyjov. But she did notice that with each pa.s.sing day people were becoming increasingly restless and frightened. And she could not see the imminent danger in the German army's advance into the vicinity of Kyjov. But she did notice that with each pa.s.sing day people were becoming increasingly restless and frightened.
When, on March 15, 1939, the Wehrmacht formally occupied the so-called rest of Czechia and set up what they called the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, not much changed for Helga and her family right away. Far more dispiriting was a postcard she received from her mother, who was on her way to England.
On June 21, 1939, the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Race Laws, which had been enacted in Germany on September 15, 1935, were inst.i.tuted in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia as well, and Helga was becoming increasingly caught up in the fate from which her parents had tried so desperately to s.h.i.+eld her. But there were still ways to leave the country. Jewish organizations such as Hechalutz and Youth Aliyah offered agricultural training abroad and thus managed to help young people escape to Great Britain, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Children's transports were also being organized to bring thousands of young refugees to England. Helga was scheduled to leave from Prague on one of the upcoming children's transports.
In the summer of 1939 a seamstress even came to the house to take Helga's measurements and provide a wardrobe for her trip to Great Britain. Helga got new skirts and blouses, a dress, and a coat, each with her name sewn into it in case something went wrong and she landed in a children's home instead of joining her mother right away.
But in the early hours of September 1, 1939, the German battle cruiser Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the Westerplatte Peninsula near Gdansk. The German army invaded Poland, and World War II began. New laws were pa.s.sed that reduced the freedom of movement for Jews, one decree at a time, to an absolute minimum. Then the borders closed, and Helga's dream of a journey to England was shattered. opened fire on the Westerplatte Peninsula near Gdansk. The German army invaded Poland, and World War II began. New laws were pa.s.sed that reduced the freedom of movement for Jews, one decree at a time, to an absolute minimum. Then the borders closed, and Helga's dream of a journey to England was shattered.
One year later-Helga had just completed the third grade-Jewish children were expelled from public schools. Once again her family found it necessary to send Helga back to Brno, this time because the Jewish school there was now the only type of school she was still allowed to attend. In order to ensure that Helga got the best possible care, her family placed her in the local Jewish orphanage, where she met a good many other children in a similar situation. Helga's uncle delivered her to the orphanage shortly before the school year started.
”It was a nightmare. No one was there to receive me, no counselor, no office or service employee, no one at all. I slept in a large, dark room surrounded by about forty empty metal beds. Many children, I learned later, were in the hospital with scarlet fever; others were still on vacation.”
After a few days the children returned. But Helga's situation did not improve. ”We didn't have much to eat. To get anything in the morning you had to run to the kitchen, where two serving girls doled out bread. That was all we got, dry bread, and maybe, if you were among the first, a little marmalade. Sometimes my cousin Joi, who by then was also attending school in Brno, waited for me after cla.s.ses to give me a little wedge of cheese. I couldn't stand it in that orphanage. I wanted out no matter what.”
Helga got her way and eventually found shelter with a couple who lived near the Jewish school. The woman took care of her young boarder lovingly, and Helga soon felt comfortable there, especially because Ruth Steiner-a girl her age, the daughter of an ophthalmologist-lived nearby. She became Helga's first friend.
Then came the spring of 1941, and with it a decree that made it illegal for Jews in the Protectorate to travel. Without asking anyone, Helga packed her things, went to the train station, and bought a ticket to Kyjov. It was still light when she arrived at her relatives' home toward evening. Her aunt was feeding the chickens in the yard and was astonished when she suddenly saw Helga standing in front of her, clutching her suitcase. ”Here I am again,” she said.
In the spring of 1941 Otto Pollak was still living in Vienna. His cafe had been Aryanized and his a.s.sets confiscated. He had been forced to give up his beautiful home on Mariahilfer Stra.s.se, along with its valuable furniture, and to move to another place. He had witnessed the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 9-10, 1938, when forty-two synagogues and small houses of wors.h.i.+p in Vienna were set on fire and plundered, and countless Jewish businesses and homes were confiscated or destroyed. Of the 6,547 Viennese Jews arrested that night, approximately 3,700 ended up in the Dachau concentration camp; some were murdered on the spot.
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