Part 5 (2/2)

When the girls got back to ”their” Room 28, Strejda (Handa's father) was already kneeling at the old stove. The fire was burning and spreading comforting warmth. Without a word, the girls took to their beds and fell asleep at once.

Helga's father kept a sober record of what happened: ”Autumn parade. Census in the Buhoovice Hollow. Evidently a former drill-field. About thirty thousand Jews report for duty. Our building at nine o'clock in the morning. I've been on my feet for fourteen hours. I arrived home at a quarter to eight. Helga, who was standing at the other end of the field and held out bravely, arrived at her quarters at nine o'clock. We were let back into the ghetto at half past seven.” His love of puns came through in his summary of the events of the day: ”Open-air production on Buhoovice Field: The Tallies of Hoffmann.” The Tallies of Hoffmann.” Another musical allusion also made the rounds in whispers: Weber's Another musical allusion also made the rounds in whispers: Weber's Freis.h.i.+t. Freis.h.i.+t.15 ”The administration and the Council of Elders,” stated Order of the Day #37 on November 13, ”thank all those ghetto inmates, especially the staff of the barracks, the Ghetto Guard, the finance office, the doctors and nursing staff, the staff of Central Registry, and those working groups who a.s.sisted in both departure and return, for the discipline they displayed while the census was taken in the Buhoovice Hollow on November 11, 1943.”

It was not until ten days later, on November 21, that Helga retrieved her diary from its hiding place and wrote, ”I had to put you aside for a while, at the bottom of my suitcase, because I expected the Germans to do a search. I had to hide all my notebooks, hide you under dead things! Even now I cannot describe what had happened during this time.”

”We're expecting some kind of inspection from the outside world,” Helga wrote on November 29, 1943. ”Everyone learned about it on the 27th. The entire ghetto is to be prettied up-the store windows, the barracks, and the children's homes. Shelves have to be hidden behind curtains. Nothing is to be left lying in the open. We're under quarantine. We're allowed outside, but no one is allowed to visit us. Encephalitis has broken out, thirty cases, four of them ours.”

In Room 28 one bunk after the other stood empty, the sick bays were filled to their limit, and the Sokolovna was turned into a hospital for encephalitis cases. An inflammation of the brain, the disease is very infectious and results in both a high fever and narcolepsy, which is why it is also called sleeping sickness. There was hardly a girl who did not come down with it-Ela, Flaka, Handa, Helga, Frta, Marianne, Judith, Lenka, Hana, Hanka, Eva Winkler. One after the other they fell ill-as did the adults, and it was often worse for them than for the children. Tella suddenly could no longer move her fingers; it was as if she were paralyzed, and for a while she was absent from Room 28.

The disease caused great confusion and undermined the discipline that usually prevailed in the Girls' Home. Even prohibitions were ignored. Because of the contagious nature of the disease, no one was allowed in the Girls' Home except the residents, but this did not prevent a few boys from visiting their girlfriends.

Marianne Deutsch (left) (left) and Hana Brady. Hana lived in another room in the Girls' Home. The two became friends when they were both confined to the same small sick-bay room. Hana had only her brother Jii in the ghetto. ”She was a very pretty blond girl. I liked her a lot and got along with her wonderfully,” Marianne says. Marianne would have loved to live with Hana in that little room until the end of the war. She didn't want to return to Room 28 and Hana Brady. Hana lived in another room in the Girls' Home. The two became friends when they were both confined to the same small sick-bay room. Hana had only her brother Jii in the ghetto. ”She was a very pretty blond girl. I liked her a lot and got along with her wonderfully,” Marianne says. Marianne would have loved to live with Hana in that little room until the end of the war. She didn't want to return to Room 28.

”My boyfriend Polda put on girls' clothes and a fuzzy cap and managed to get all the way up to us on the third floor,” Hanka recalls. Ela's and Flaka's boyfriends, Honza and Kurt, also wiggled their way through a hole in the garden fence right next to the compost heap. After a quick exchange of words, the two disappeared again the way they had come.

”Some of us did everything we could not to be sent to the Sokolovna,” Handa remembers. ”When a doctor examined us we would sometimes fake reflexes. The knee reflex was no problem. But it was more difficult if he p.r.i.c.ked us in the stomach. But we tried anyway and practiced producing the reflexes they wanted. I know I didn't want to miss a single performance of Brundibar Brundibar for anything.” for anything.”

It was the same for the others. During this period they had a much better chance of being allowed to step in for one of the leads. Maria, who enjoyed playing the sparrow, much preferred, of course, taking over the role of Aninka, right beside her brother Pit'a. She had proved herself in the part several times by now, and the girls in Room 28 were proud to have an Aninka in their ranks.

Everyone loved this pretty girl with the dark eyes and wonderful voice. Maria was three years younger than Rafael Schachter's first choice for the role, Greta Hofmeister from Room 25, whom, as Flaka puts it, ”we younger girls regarded as something of a prima donna. She had a very beautiful, crystal-clear voice, like a bell. But our Maria was more childlike, more natural. For us, she was the real Aninka.”

Stephan Sommer slipped into the role of the sparrow as often as he could. He was always close at hand, waiting for his chance. The little boy was the darling of the ensemble. ”Everybody liked him, hugged and kissed him,” Helga recalls. ”He was so charming onstage, hopping about so marvelously, just like a sparrow.”

By now the children knew every song by heart. It was no problem for Batik to find stand-ins for any role. Some children were just lying in wait for the chance. Handa was given the role of the dog for one performance during this period, and Flaka even got to play Aninka. ”One day both Aninkas, Greta Hofmeister and Maria Muhlstein, were sick,” she vividly recalls. ”And I asked Batik, 'Please, can I can sing Aninka? I can do it, too.' And he let me. I sang it without a rehearsal- and didn't make many mistakes. Only when I was dancing with Pit'a, he kept stepping on my toes. I did two performances on one day, afternoon and evening. And I was so happy that I could sing the role of Aninka!”

Alice Herz-Sommer (born 1903) and her son, Stephan (19372001), who loved playing the sparrow in Brundibar. Brundibar. In 1949 Stephan adopted the name Raphael. ”My boy was enchanted, bewitched by In 1949 Stephan adopted the name Raphael. ”My boy was enchanted, bewitched by Brundibar, Brundibar, ” Alice recalls. ”Whenever he returned from a performance he would sit on the top bunk with a ladle in his hand and conduct, and the other five children (there were six in our room) would sing along, and sometimes we adults sang along, too. The text is simply delightful.” ” Alice recalls. ”Whenever he returned from a performance he would sit on the top bunk with a ladle in his hand and conduct, and the other five children (there were six in our room) would sing along, and sometimes we adults sang along, too. The text is simply delightful.”

Each performance was a special event, a cultural and social high point in the daily monotony of camp life. The story and the music brought all the partic.i.p.ants, both boys and girls, closer together. And there were such wonderful scenes! Whenever the little trumpeter played his solo, the children would waltz in time to it. ”It always made us laugh,” recalls Ela, who would never miss a show. ”He was this little Danish boy-and he played so beautifully!”

The ”Danish boy” was Paul Rabinowitsch, born in Hamburg in 1930. He had emigrated to Denmark with his mother and stepfather, but had been deported to Theresienstadt in October 1943. Since then he had lived in Boys' Home L 414, where he was the only Dane among a majority of Czech and German boys. He owed his partic.i.p.ation in Brundibar Brundibar to a rare talent-he played the trumpet. And not badly, either. After all, he had already made his debut as a member of the Copenhagen Tivoli Guarde Band. to a rare talent-he played the trumpet. And not badly, either. After all, he had already made his debut as a member of the Copenhagen Tivoli Guarde Band.

And now he was performing in a children's opera. He sat beside the pianist, the handsome Gideon Klein (or sometimes Batik himself) and when it was time for his entrance, Paul stood up and played his trumpet with all his heart. ”I vividly recall,” he would report decades later, ”playing that solo, that lovely Valse lente cantabile Valse lente cantabile, and watching the children dance and laugh. It was fantastic.”

Paul found other things fantastic as well-things that had greater meaning for him than they did for the other children, because he spoke not a word of Czech. ”What was so wonderful for me,” he recalls, ”was that the plot was about milk and how the children were able to get milk, and that people stood there buying bonbons and cake and bread. That was incredible! They had cake and bread and milk and ice cream- vanilla, strawberry, and lemon ice cream. Croissants and buns and pretzels, and all the other things they sang about. And all we had, of course, was dry bread! We children hadn't had real milk to drink for years; no eggs, no cake, no bonbons, no ice cream. And suddenly there was someone selling every sort of ice cream imaginable, as if all these things actually existed. And the children acted as if these things were really there. That was fantastic. Reality was transformed, bewitched. And it was especially Brundibar Brundibar that had that great creative power.” that had that great creative power.”

w.i.l.l.y Groag (19142001) and his wife, Miriam (19181946), whom he married in 1940. Their daughter Chava was born in the ghetto in 1944 and now lives in Israel.

Sometimes when the new Home administrator w.i.l.l.y Groag made his evening rounds, someone would mention Brundibar Brundibar, and he would treat the children to a special story- and Groag was a wonderful storyteller. He told the children how when he was a chemistry student in Prague between 1934 and 1936 he would pay his weekly visit-as a ”boarder,” as he liked to put it-to his uncle Heinz, Dr. Heinrich Fleischmann, a lawyer and bachelor who lived on Karlsplatz. ”My uncle played the piano very well. He was an amateur of the highest level. And he played piano together with Hans Krasa. Sometimes they would go to a coffeehouse together, the Deutsches Haus on Na Prikope, which was frequented by the good liberal left-many of them writers for the Prager Tageblatt Prager Tageblatt, such as Rudolf Thomas, Ludwig Steiner, Max Brod, Egon Erwin Kisch, Anton Kuh, and Theodor Lessing.”

It was from Groag that the girls learned many interesting details about the life of Brundibar's Brundibar's composer, who was born on November 30, 1899, the son of a Prague attorney. They learned about his successful debut on May 4, 1921, when Alexander Zemlinsky, the conductor of the New German Theater in Prague, performed his first work, composer, who was born on November 30, 1899, the son of a Prague attorney. They learned about his successful debut on May 4, 1921, when Alexander Zemlinsky, the conductor of the New German Theater in Prague, performed his first work, Orchestral Songs Orchestral Songs, with texts taken from Christian Morgenstern's Gallows Songs Gallows Songs. Groag told them about Krasa's years in Paris, where he studied with Albert Roussell and where in 1923 he heard Roussell's Symphony for Small Orchestra and his String Quartet performed. And most certainly he also told them about Krasa's greatest success, a musical rendition of Dostoyevsky's novella Uncle's Dream Uncle's Dream, which premiered under the t.i.tle Betrothal in a Dream Betrothal in a Dream at the New German Theater in Prague in 1933 and for which Krasa received that year's Czech National Prize. at the New German Theater in Prague in 1933 and for which Krasa received that year's Czech National Prize.

”But you're barking up the wrong tree if you believe I would ever have thought that someday he would compose such a magical children's opera,” Groag would conclude his special account of the life of Hans Krasa. ”You see, in those days, Krasa seemed to me to be a rather odd bachelor, slightly introverted, at least in his dealings with me. But that may have been due to the difference in age. In any case, I was only twenty, and he was of my uncle's generation. But I remember him as a odd fellow, dressed in a rather old-fas.h.i.+oned frockcoat with tails that stuck out, but with an artist's lovely head of curly hair.”

Hanukkah, the festival of lights and of hope, was drawing near. The children in the Homes set about preparing their gifts. This meant a great deal of craftwork and organizing. Helga had a Theresienstadt coat of arms made for her father, for which she paid five hundred fifty ghetto kronas, nineteen ounces of sugar, and two ounces of margarine-all of it saved up through an iron will. And although their friends.h.i.+p was falling apart, she wanted to give Ela a pendant. ”It's all over with Ela. We've told each other that we aren't a good match. Nevertheless, I intend to treat Ela cordially, so she won't have a bad opinion of me. And I want her to have a memento from me, since I have one from her,” she wrote in her diary.

Pendants and brooches were the two presents most girls could give each other. With a little skill, they could even make them themselves. As we learn from her notebook, Handa was planning the same sort of presents: she wanted to give Muka a brooch in the form of a dog. For Helga it was to be one with a horse's head, for Ela one with a cat's head, and a treble clef for Pit'a Muhlstein.

But during this time their thoughts were also revolving around Hana Epstein-”Holubika.” What had become of her? She had disappeared from their room a while ago. No one knew what had really happened to her. Some said she was in the Cavalier Barracks, among the mentally ill. But why? Something was not quite right with Holubika, they all knew that. She was slightly handicapped and a bed-wetter; she lisped and seemed naive. She usually had a smile on her face-even when the girls made fun of her, something she never seemed to really notice.

The girls missed Holubika, and Ela and Marta decided to try to find her. They set out for the Cavalier Barracks.

”As we were crossing the courtyard of the Cavalier Barracks, we suddenly heard someone shout, 'Elinka, Elinka,' ” Ela recalls. ”We looked around, and there among the other sad creatures, we saw an utterly gaunt, disheveled woman dressed only in her underpants. She stared at me distractedly and frantically waved her hands. I was close to panicking. Did this woman really know me?”

”Elinka, Elinka,” she cried again as the girls walked on. Suddenly Ela recognized her voice-this woman was from her hometown of Lom. She had once been elegant and well-to-do, a hatmaker who had later lived on Na Prikope in Prague. Now she had ended up in the Theresienstadt madhouse. Just like Hana Epstein.

Ela and Marta finally found Holubika in a room locked to visitors. They could only peek at her through a large window. There she lay, side by side with other patients. She was in a straitjacket, staring into s.p.a.ce, inert and apathetic. ”She didn't recognize us. It was terrible. We felt so dreadfully sorry for her.”

Transports! The news struck like a thunderbolt. ”Transports! That terrible word brought Theresienstadt into a state of shock,” Helga wrote in her diary on December 13. ”Two transports of 2,500 people each will be leaving. The only people ineligible are those with infectious diseases. Four of us will be leaving: Irena Grunfeld and Eva Landa. Fika and Milka are on the reserve list. But even though they're reserves and not on the first transport, they're sure to be leaving on the second. Papa and I are protected. The rumor making the rounds is that all Jews from the Protectorate are being sent to Birkenau.”

Eva Landa was in sick bay when her mother came to tell her the terrifying news. There was no escape. Eva had to pack her things and say goodbye to her roommates. And to Harry. Or was he going to be on this transport as well?

She kept a lookout at the window. Suddenly she saw her boyfriend on the street. She waved wildly and informed him by gestures that she had to leave on the transport. He pointed to himself. Eva understood at once: Harry would be among those on the transport, too. At least they would be together.

The Hanukkah celebration, which was now quickly moved up, left Eva in a kind of feverish trance. She watched as presents were taken from a small suitcase and distributed among the children-pendants, brooches, postcards, pictures, drawings, pencils, and, for each girl, a tiny booklet with pictures and a poem from their counselor Eva Weiss.

Saying goodbye was hard. ”I still remember that big transport in December 1943,” Hanka says, ”and how so many of my friends had to leave, among them Eva Landa and Resi Schwarz. We kept saying, 'See you soon. See you again soon.' We always hoped and believed that the war would be over in a few days or a couple of weeks. We were firmly convinced that the Germans would lose. And we told ourselves that it wasn't important who left or who remained-far more important was that we would all meet again after the war. And we agreed it would be on one particular day after the war in Prague, under the old astronomical clock on the Old City Ring.”

Eva Landa packed her few belongings, placing a couple of drawings, poems, and her poetry alb.u.m carefully between her clothes. She wanted to hold on to these things to remember her friends in Room 28, which had meant so much to her. She didn't cry. When they said their goodbyes, Handa told her, ”After the war, be sure to call me in Olbramovice, okay? Our telephone number is simple, you know-just dial one.”

”I wanted to be brave, had to be brave, and I did not want to betray our ideals,” Eva wrote decades later. ”I took with me my memories of our shared striving for justice, for a better life, for perfection.”

And she wrote a goodbye message in Flaka's alb.u.m: ”Your path will lead you up the mountain and down the mountain, and sometimes through rocks, puddles, and snowdrifts. But whatever your path may be, walk bravely and hold your head up high, whistling a happy tune. Don't be glum, don't complain, hold out! Always remember your Eva Landova.”

Milka said her farewell to Flaka in a letter: Theresienstadt, December 14, 1943My dear Flatiko,I have to say goodbye to you today. But we must be brave-there is no other choice. I hope we shall meet again somewhere. And that we shall once again be the good friends we were here. Flaka, you know how well we got along, but our time was short. I hope that even when I am far from you, we will remain the same good friends we were here.I will think of you every day. And if it's possible, I'll write you right away.And don't forget, Flaka: if I sign my letter ”Milka” that means ”things are bad for us.” But if I sign it ”Your Miluka,” that means ”we're doing all right.” Flaka, if Freda goes out with another girl, write me about it. Flaka, I wish you much happiness in life, that you have a carefree life, and lots of little Buddhas. [Buddha was the nickname of Flaka's boyfriend.] Flaka, Flaka, think of me and don't forget me. My head is so full of thoughts that I don't know what I should write. think of me and don't forget me. My head is so full of thoughts that I don't know what I should write.So farewell, and rememberYour MilkaHelga's diary continues:Friday, December 17, 1943The first transport has left. Irena Grunfeld and Eva Landa were on it. Fika was taken off the list, and Milka is still here, too. She was on the standby list to go but has been left behind; she will be on the second transport. Holubika's father has learned that they are on the standby list, too. Eva Weiss also. Fika is writing poems in bed next to Handa, who is sick. They keep coming up with new topics.Wednesday, December 22, 1943Eva 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 fiance. 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 Grunfeld, Milka Polaek, 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 Marketa Stein, owned two shops on kolni Stra.s.se, 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 Lany, the summer residence of President Toma 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 n.a.z.is 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, Marketa 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 Gla.s.s). That night and for several succeeding days, attacks on Jews and Jewish inst.i.tutions reached levels never seen before-and not just in Germany, but also in the ”Sudetengau,” as the n.a.z.is called the newly conquered peripheral Czech regions. Synagogues were desecrated, plundered, razed, and burned-in Liberec, Karlovy Vary, Marianske Lazn, 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 n.a.z.is had a.s.sembled in town. Shouting and bellowing and beating drums, they began to march toward our house. I can still hear that boom, boom, boom 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. 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 JEWS GET OUT and and SEND JEWS TO PALESTINE.” SEND JEWS TO PALESTINE.” In no time the Gestapo had confiscated the Steins' a.s.sets. The shop was handed over to a German commissioner. Marketa 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.” In no time the Gestapo had confiscated the Steins' a.s.sets. The shop was handed over to a German commissioner. Marketa 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, Marketa 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 Marketa's brother, Otto Altenstein, lived. Before the occupation he had been a state secretary in the Ministry for Social Welfare. His apartment in Prague-Holeovice was much too small to house them all, so the children were taken to Brno, where Marketa Stein's family lived.Ela and Ilona were enrolled in the Czech School in Brno. After cla.s.ses, they often went to visit their aunt, Kamila Korn, at Plotni 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. Marketa 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 umovska 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, Marketa Stein, and Ilona Stein. The last one, 896, was Ela Stein.On February 14, 1942, they mad

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