Who am I, the lost child?
Is mine the wall of the ghetto or is it the fertile soil?
Small and graceful
is my homeland Czechia
Or is it the whole world?
Poem by Hanus Hachenburg Killed in Auschwitz at the age of 1 4
Ruth Kopecková
What we experienced cannot be described.
No film or testimony can capture that.
lt has to be lived.
It's impossible to share.
The daily terror of the transport.
Who will be beaten? Me, or someone next to me?
Who will be disliked? Who will be sent where?
No one can truly explain that.
No matter how good the film, it cannot be captured.
l was born in Prague.
Jirí Steiner
My family was proud...
to be Czech and from Prague.
Karel Borský
My father, Adolf Beller, and my mother, Alice...
had a store on the square in Frenstat.
l was also born there.
l have a twin brother, which is an important part of my story.
For the record, l am the younger one by 15 minutes.
This could be the reason behind my lifelong " twin complex.' '
I can't be alone.
The Jewish village was so small.. .
that we could almost see what everybody had for dinner.
Mrs. Rabin would holler from the yard to Mrs. Fridl:
" What are you cooking?"
We were not very religious.. .
celebrating only major holidays.
I don't recall.. .
following any traditions.
Doris Grozdanovicová
We were orthodox Jews.. .
which meant holidays were sacred.
Of course, we had two nights of temple.. .
and l had to recite the prayers.
Pavel Eckstein
All traditions were observed.
Dr. Karol Bernath
Every week, we went to temple.
We had a nanny.
She spoke German to us, so we grew up bilingual.
That came in handy many times in my life.
l was brought up...
speaking both Czech and German.
Both languages were spoken in our house.
Every Monday morning, my father, with his driver Macourek...
went on the road.
He went...
to all the textile shop owners.. .
along the border.
My father would walk into a store...
with a huge bag full of textile samples.
Well, then the selling began.
And every evening, he would call my mother with the order:
" Mr. Jejteles...
" three etapeens, four gorgets."
Munich Agreement 1938
I got my information from my uncle.
He knew well ahead of time...
Hanuš Münz
...how aggressive the Nazis were going to be.
Karlovy Vary 1938
It started on the eve.. .
of September 13.
That night, all the Jewish stores were broken into and burned.
Czech and Jewish.. ..
And the synagogue was burned.
Mynek snuck my sister and me.. .
into the train station.. .
and we went.. .
to our uncle in Pribram.
Brigita Bakovská
Everything was nice...
until the Germans came in 1939.
Everything changed after that.
Prague 1939
My father got up in the morning and looked out the window.
There were Germans downstairs, but he didn't know that.
Hana Sušická
They pointed a gun at him and said, "Close the window."
He turned around and said, "My God, the Germans are here."
Viktor Laš
The way l found out that l was a Jew...
was by getting a Jewish-star.
Then the discrimination against us began.
The Nuremberg Laws were imposed.
We had to turn in radios, silver...
and all kinds of other things.
This was a way to harass us.
I was supposed to wear a Star of David.. .
but l didn't give in to the Germans.
I didn't wear it.
My father enlisted me into a children's transport...
without my knowledge.
When l realized what was going on...
l jumped out of the train and into his arms.
He couldn't get rid of me.
Our parents wanted us to leave.. .
but I was very happy that I didn't .
Can you turn it off?
Eva Hrušínská
l'd run through the Jewish village...
to the wooden gate of the synagogue...
where the lists were.
With my heart pounding in my throat and full of fear.. .
I would look to find out who was on it.
l remember doing a courageous thing.
We went to the movies. We took off our stars and went in.
l was saying goodbye to my mother.
" lt won't be long. l'll be back soon."
l said goodbye and left.
l had a secret love...
and she was the only one l shared my plan with.
I would escape the first chance I got.
Znamenackova went with me to the Veletrzni Palace.
l recall having a wristwatch.
l took it off at the last minute...
and gave it to her:
" Here, take it to remember me by."
That watch was the only thing l got back after the war.
Alena Hájková
Arnost Neuman, Heda Tyrkova, Berger, Jany, and Kruh...
they all agreed not to board the transport.
It would have been easy to run away, but there was nowhere to hide.
In addition, we were told that by staying.. .
Miroslav Kárný
...our parents were protected from the transport.
lt was awful because we couldn't say goodbye.
The German soldier had to literally rip us apart...
me and my mother.
There was one more mother...
who was parting with her little boy.
She was kissing his hands, telling him:
" l'm asking God that your hands will always provide for you...
" that you won't go astray in this world.. .
" and that you will become a decent person.' '
She was standing next to us. l never saw the little boy again.
l will always remember that moment for the rest of my life.
Terezin
We were put into the Sudeten army barracks.
They were built with concrete.
Everything was cold. Huge halls.. ..
lt was shocking to lose my freedom. l suddenly realized that.
There were many worries, of course.
Worry number one: transport. Worry number two: diseases.
And danger number one: lice, mites, and fleas.
I arrived there at the age of 18.
An age when young people start to live and think about life.
But I was placed in this environment.
When we went to Terezin.. .
we invented codes for our letters.
We wrote messages in German.
That was how we kept our families informed.
One day, they lined us up.. .
and announced that those sending illegal letters.. .
would be severely punished.. .
but that those who came forward would not be harmed.
Several people confessed.
They were executed.
For example, there was one boy.. .
the youngest of them all.
He must have been 16 or 1 7.
He was just writing to his mother not to worry...
that he was doing fine.
l was working in Terezin with children.
Eliška Jermárová
None of the girls.. .
who were there with me survived.
At first, l was taking care of geese...
brought from Lidice.
Then l was promoted to be a shepherd.
This photograph is from that time.. .
with my own little flock of sheep.
I had a traditional wedding.
l can't even describe it well. l was in such a state.
My parents were already dressed for the transport...
and just after the wedding ceremony, they left.
I never heard from my parents again.
One day, my husband was working in the Vohousice train station...
when a transport from Berlin was announced.
lt was just a single car...
with old people from a home for the aged.
Some had died on the train.
When they cleaned out the car.. .
there was a bundle in a blanket.
lt was a child, still alive.
My husband took the child.
lt was naked...
covered only in a gray military blanket full of mites.
My mother died soon after l was born.
Her sister Hajtmanova took me in.
She lived in Berlin...
in a mixed marriage.
Judis Baer-Urbanová
She kept me for two years.
But then most likely she got scared, or....
l don't know why...
but she put me...
in a home for the elderly, among old people.
lt was a Jewish home for the aged...
used for deportation to Terezin and other camps.
She put me there.
I didn't know who she was.
She had a string around her neck with a little paper tag...
stating her name and date of birth.
" Judis Baer, born October 2, 1940.' '
l owe her my life.
We took care of her.
As long as we could make her life a little better.
Even though we were in Terezin, threatened by deportation.. .
l remember this...
as the most idyllic part of my life.
Of what use is the beauty of science?
Of what use is the beauty of pretty girls?
Of what use is a world without justice?
Of what use is a sun when there is no day
Of what use is a God? Only to punish?
Or to improve mankind?
Or are we beasts suffering from our own feelings
Destined to perish?
l remember once we received a package.
lt was full of Christmas cookies.
My brother and I sat down with it, and we said, " Let's each take one.
" Well, one more. Well, one more. Well...."
And so it went on until the box was empty.
ln order to keep the faith...
and the resistance in the camp...
it was necessary to have a cultural life.. .
and to try and maintain human dignity.
Faith and spirit.. .
played an irreplaceable role.
The SS tried to break them both.
One night we heard noise out on the stairs...
and they burst in.
They went through everything. I didn't know what they were after.
But they arrested me.
When I arrived at their headquarters.. .
I had to take my clothes off.
One of the men picked me up and sat me on the stove naked.
" Tell us what you know. Tell us everything.' '
I kept saying, " I don't know!" I only spoke broken German then.
" You know what we want from you.' '
The stove wasn't red-hot.. .
but my skin was completely blistered.
l still bear the scars today.
It was horrifying when Terezin was overcrowded.
The original 7,000 inhabitants.. .
eventually swelled to 57,000.
Everything crumbled, all life functions of the city.
Four thousand people were dying each month.
When l was tending the sheep...
l saw mass graves for the first time in my life.
lt was terrifying.
They would throw someone out of a sheet and that was it.
lnstead of going to the construction site...
we stayed in the square.
A truck came.. .
and 30 of us were loaded in.
There was a large barrel of powdered lime in the truck.
The smell hit us immediately.
The truck took us away.
We were very tense.
Something was happening.
We smelled fire.
Over a hill, we saw a burning village.
Lidice
It was Lidice.
That's when I really felt the fear.
We saw a field of corpses.
Until then, I hadn't seen a corpse.
You can imagine the shock.
They brought us into the garden. There were many SS soldiers.
They were drunk.
Five minutes later, Seidl came and told us:
" Dig a grave here!"
Anyone who couldn't do it.. .
was whipped and beaten.
Whoever couldn't keep up was beaten like a dog.
They ordered us to strip all the dead people.. .
empty their pockets.. .
and turn everything in.
The dead people must have been told they were going somewhere.. .
because everybody had a little bit of food on them.
Seidl said that we could eat it.. .
but we couldn't bring ourselves to do it.
Whether you were hungry or not...
fear and the incredible tension...
wouldn't let you swallow a bite...
of food from people who had died so tragically.
And as always.. .
I had the luck.. .
of standing...
in the corner of the grave...
and with my hands...
passing each corpse on to the next person.
Can you imagine such atrocities.. .
for an 18-year-old boy?
They were between 15 and 80 years old.
There were children. Fifteen-year-old boys.
Younger boys than me.
There was a priest, a grandfather...
a local policeman.
This mentally and physically horrible work.. .
took some 36 hours.. .
with maybe only two half-hour breaks.
Then they drove us back to Terezin.
The ghetto was like a sponge.
They would herd in people in large numbers from surrounding ghettos.. .
to be transported to the death camps.
Hanuš Arendt
When the number of people decreased...
they brought in more from other ghettos.
ln January 1943, my wife was listed for transport to Auschwitz...
where almost nobody survived.
We tried to keep her off the transport.. .
by having her " attempt" suicide.
That was risky.. .
because even with an injury.. .
they might still put her on the train.
To go in an unfit condition...
would be certain death.
I walked all the way to the SS soldiers.. .
and they said, " What do you want?"
l said, " l want to be put with my daddy on the transport."
They said, " No.' '
I said, " I will be alone here.' '
And they said, "It's nice to be alone in Terezin.' '
The luggage was piled up...
against the walls, and in the center...
there was one bucket with water.. .
and another one for urinating.
Soon, the bucket started to overflow.
We were packed in like sardines.
l just remember holding onto my father by his trousers.
Words cannot describe the shock a person went through.
Absolutely horrible.
When we arrived at the unloading ramp.. .
Auschwitz - Birkenau - Poland
the kapo overseer, also a prisoner, yelled:
" Fast! Out! Leave everything on the train."
" Out! Out! Leave everything!"
We left everything lying there, and they lined us up.
We went before Dr. Mengele.
I was still in good spirits as I walked with Bohous Bondy.
I said, " Bohous, I'll say I'm sick.' '
He said, " Idiot! I should smack you.' '
At that point, I realized.. .
that Bohous knew what was going on in Auschwitz.
It was a doll.. .
a teddy bear.
They tore it out of my hand.
We had to get out.
A woman picked up her child and held it close.
An SS soldier noticed her.
He ripped the child out of her hands, picked it up by its legs.. .
and smashed its little head against the train wheels.
Another woman in front of me was limping.
They took her walking stick...
and because she couldn't keep up.. .
a Nazi came and killed her with a single shot to the head.
l saw that and cannot forget it.
My first impression after getting off the train.. .
was the red sky.
The camp was surrounded by barbed wire.
Behind the wire, the prisoners were running out...
begging us to throw them some food if we had any.
They were being shot at by the guards.
They were shooting people begging for food.
We saw the apocalypse...
something absolutely beyond comprehension.
Behind the wires, prisoners were jumping up and down.. .
in striped clothing.. .
while other prisoners yelled commands at them:
" Up, down, up down!"
We couldn't comprehend what was happening.
lt is something the human mind fails to understand or believe...
even after experiencing it.
One Polish prisoner said:
" I will not shave you unless you give me your shoes.' '
All around were SS soldiers walking with their whips.
The Polish prisoner insisted.. .
and so the new prisoner gave away his shoes...
and got some broken clogs or something like that in return.
We had to take off the clothes we were wearing...
and l was given a nice woolen sweater...
and a long skirt.
The next day, l found that it was full of lice.
I couldn't get rid of them.
The lice carried encephalitis, and many people died from that.
I was given military riding pants.. .
three times my size.. .
a shirt without a back with only a collar and a front.. .
and a jacket with sleeves I had to roll up four times.. .
so I could wear it.
We looked like fools.
l had a dress coat with its tails cut off...
a beautiful French silk shirt.. .
that ended halfway down my back.. .
and underwear and socks.. .
that were made.. .
out of cut-up Jewish prayer shawls.
Walking around wearing this.. .
we could hardly recognize our closest friends.
" 1-7-0-8-5-7.' '
Jan Salus
" 7-3-6-2-8.' '
I'll remember that in my grave.
Barracks in Auschwitz were truly barracks.. .
with only a roof.. .
and a chimney which was never used for heating.
lnside, there were three-story bunk beds all around.
There you lay without a blanket or mattress, just on the boards.
People were lying head to toe.. .
so they could fit more of us in.
When one person tried to turn, everyone else had to turn as well.
Otherwise it was impossible. There wasn't any space.
Today it seems unbelievable...
that l survived such unimaginable conditions.
There were long latrines.. .
women on one side, men on the other.. .
only divided by some kind of net.
That is where I used to meet my father.. .
but he was already very weak.
We used the latrine only when we were told.
lt was just a board over a hole.
A small piece of bread was handed out there...
and it had to be eaten in the latrine.
To come out with the bread wasn't allowed.
l carried a spoon...
in one of my buttonholes.
It was an aluminum spoon.. .
with the handle sharpened like a knife.. .
so l was always ready to eat...
or cut something.
Everything that came in was thrown into a big pot, cooked...
and that was called " soup."
There were pieces of potato or some vegetables...
but there were also threads, needles, and bandages in it.
Everything that came in was thrown in together.
They brought it in a sink.. .
chamber pot, or some other container.
There were three of us, so one would have a sip and pass it on.
We didn't have anything to eat it with...
so we would fish out a piece of turnip or beet...
or we drank it out of the pot.
The food was so sparse and so bad that if you didn't have to eat...
it was better not to eat at all.
" We want bricklayers." " l'll go!"
It meant extra soup.
That was the currency in Auschwitz.
My legs were very swollen.
Gerty Kersten was standing next to me.
She was saying, "Come on. Let's try one more time.' '
l will walk with my legs in between yours...
and we'll fool him.
l said, " That won't work."
" Come on," she said, and dragged me.
lt worked, and she saved my life.
Fredy Hirsch was able to start...
a children's block in the family camp.
Fredy Hirsch
He didn't worry about himself.
He only wanted to improve the children's lives.
Once a 4-year-old asked me:
" When you go to the gas chamber, will I go, too?
"And my mommy, too?"
Fredy Hirsch was told if he leads his children into the gas chamber...
they will spare his life.
Fredy was begging...
the camp commandant...
to exclude his children.
They didn't , of course.
The SS officer of the family camp...
called out about 40 numbers...
including my brother's and mine.. .
and we went back to the family camp.
From there they took us to different barracks and gave us sedatives.
There was some hope in the air...
as people began to think they would get out.
Nobody was allowed out...
and in the morning the camp was empty...
except for the smoking chimneys.
We asked, " Where are our parents?" "They went to board the transport."
Nobody told us that at night.. .
they had forced everyone out of the barracks by cruelly beating them.. .
loaded them into trucks.. .
and drove them to the gas chambers.
In a single night in crematorium number four.. .
they gassed 3, 792 men, women, and children.
It's a historical fact that in the gas chamber.. .
the people from our transport sang the national anthem.
June 1 4, 1944...
is the official date of liquidation...
in the gas chamber...
of my mother and father.
People were very tense.. .
because no matter where you were...
you could see the smoke coming out of the crematorium.
When the smokestacks were smoking...
you felt like a cannibal...
because you breathed in the somewhat sweet smell of the burned bodies.
I can remember that smell to this day.
The sweetish stench was spreading throughout the camp.
And I thought to myself.. .
that if Jews are God's chosen people...
then there is no God.
By chance, as my group was unloaded...
l caught a glimpse of my parents and sister also getting off the train.
Before my very eyes they went to the gas chamber.
Dasha quickly pulled my sister away.. .
or she would have gone in as well...
because my mother wouldn't leave my blind father.
She didn't tell me anything.
Her last words were:
" Promise me that you will never leave your brother Otto."
Those were her last words. After that she didn't say anything.
Saying goodbye was like:
" Take care of yourself. Don't catch a cold."
As if l were going skiing...
or to a summer camp.
Both of us knew it was our last goodbye.
My mother's calmness....
She worried about me.
She had saved me a little piece of bread.
" Take it. Take it."
Professor Epstein from Prague was trying.. .
to get as much medicine as possible.
He recruited prisoners from Kommando Kanada.. .
who collected valuables from the transports for storage.
They collected medicine.. .
from the suitcases left on the trains.
The only way to bribe these people was with gold.
So we organized a system...
that when someone died in the hospital and had gold teeth...
the local dentist would melt it into nuggets in his little oven.. .
and we'd use them to bribe people working in the Kanada warehouse.
Dr. Josef Mengele experimented...
on twins, on midgets.. .
and on any other " abnormal" humans.
This meant constant examinations for us.
Finally he asked us what we wished for.
We said we would very much like to see our parents.
And he said, " You will see them soon."
That it would be in the afterlife, he didn't mention.
We were standing outside the gas chamber, believing this was the end.
At the last minute some command must have come in.. .
and they turned us around and we walked the other way...
into some barracks that had showers in them.
There they showered us, warmed us up, gave us some rags to wear.. .
and we got on the train.
We went to a shower room.
Water came out, not gas, and they gave us burlap bags.
Nothing but burlap bags...
with a hole at the top.
No other clothes, just that.
And like that they forced us into trains.
The SS came and said:
" There's a transport ready. Who wants to go?"
I didn't go because I was very sick.
When they loaded us up, we were all thinking...
maybe we will get out of Auschwitz and we will live.
When we were leaving...
Jan Jecha
...they set the camp on fire.
They set fire to the barracks where the sick people were.
At the end of our marching group...
there was a horse-drawn wagon.
People who weren't able to walk anymore went to sit on it.
When the wagon was full, they pulled over into the woods...
and then we heard shots.
A while later, the wagon came back empty.
As the days went by, the march lasted about 10 days.. .
more and more people were dying.
Jirí Pavel
They shot people right in front of us.
They put 1 10 of us into each car.
There were so many of us that we couldn't even sit down.
Each of us had one bowl, which we used as a urinal...
and possibly to collect some rainwater.
There wasn't anything else.
The whole time, we weren't given any food or drink.
Suddenly there was an air raid.
They started bombing us, and machine guns went off.
I was filled with energy.
I threw myself out of the open car.. .
and let myself fall onto the train tracks.
When the raid was over...
the three airplanes turned around four or five times.
We ran out into the woods.
We had to get off the train...
if we still had the strength...
and bury those from the other trains...
most likely Polish men.. .
who had died during transport.
We had to bury them in the woods, under the birch trees...
without any shovels.
We just covered them with leaves.
Of the 1 10 people in each car.. .
thirty or forty were dead at the end of the four-day journey.
There were so many of us that you could say that we were in layers.
I remember a bare foot.. .
constantly pushing me in the face.
I kept trying to push that foot away.. .
but it always came back.
Then l saw that this foot belonged...
to a person who was already dead.
We rode part of the way and then we walked...
until we came to Belsen.
That was horrible.
l was crawling on my hands and knees.
All I saw.. .
were dead bodies all around.
Here and there a person was still alive.
On one side of the entrance were containers with food...
on the other, there were corpses piled high.
We were on the very edge, between life and death.
It was very bad.
When you put your ear to the ground, you could hear the front lines.
The ground was really rumbling.
Then we would hear a roar.
We were thinking, " Hopefully, we'll live."
We heard shooting from a distance.
The front was closing in.
We were given a piece of bread.. .
and they told us to march on.
Those that stayed.. .
were probably killed and buried.. .
like the ones who couldn't walk any farther.
We walked for 20 kilometers. lt was February.
We were in no-man's -land.. .
with firing above our heads from both directions.
We came onto a frozen field.
On the other side were a road and a grove.
I was slowly sneaking toward the grove.
Just about when I reached the road in the dark.. .
an SS soldier appeared in front of me.
l thought, " Now he will shoot me."
Suddenly, someone at the camp shrieked.
The soldier turned around...
and l quickly ran into the grove.
Mauthausen
Mauthausen was built like a fortress.. .
out of large stone blocks.
The headquarters as well as the kitchen and square.. .
were built with stone from the local quarry.. .
where the infamous stairs were.
When the prisoners couldn't walk anymore.. .
the Nazis threw them down 30 meters into the quarry.
Then they carried them in wagons to the crematorium.
Suddenly l thought, " Where am l?"
l poked my head out.
The Germans were probably there.
Bullets started flying over my head.. .
so I retreated into the grove.
In Mauthausen was a gas chamber. We were to be sent there.
But when we arrived on April 29.. .
the International Red Cross was already there.
The gas chamber wasn't operating, and the SS soldiers were disarmed.
I saw a light in the distance.. .
so I followed the light.
It was a farm with cows and a barn.
No one was around and the farmhouse was locked.
l sat on a stool in the barn.
After a while a farmer woman, about 45 years old, came...
and talked to me for a while.
She asked me if l wanted anything.
She took me into the kitchen and for the first time in three years...
l saw a real house.
" I know you're Jews.
" Over there, in the woods, you'll find everything you want.' '
There the German soldiers undressed, changed into civilian clothes.. .
and left everything behind.
It was unbelievable.. .
everything from bacon to clean underwear.
We changed into clean clothes.
She told me, " l have a lot of milk here.
" l'll go to the woman in the next house to make butter out of it."
Halfway there the Russian rockets started flying.
She left the buckets of milk and ran to her friend.. .
and I stayed in the farmhouse alone.
The Russians were firing rockets.. .
and the Germans were firing rockets back.
Everything was destroyed except the room I was in.
ln the morning the door opened, and in came two Russian officers.
Professional thieves and murderers...
served as wardens in the camp.
It was ironic that they called him "Daddy Boublik.' '
He was a well-built, strong man from Ostrava.. .
and I took many beatings from him.
When the liberation started.. .
the prisoners killed him and many of the others.
We were afraid they would escape.. .
so as a quick way of bringing them to justice.. .
we caught about 20 of these people.. .
and we drowned them in the water reservoir.
We weren't able to cross the front lines.. .
because either the Americans were on the offensive, or the Germans.
So we turned back inland...
and walked to Tlucna by Plzen.
They were having a feast, so they invited us.
Standing in the hallway, l felt l was being drawn toward the door.
l thought, " At least open the door a crack."
So l did.
And there he was, the first Russian soldier standing right there.
We all ran out, the big guys picked the first soldier up.. .
and they carried him through the streets of the camp.
In February, the Russian journalists came.. .
and shot those famous documentaries that still move us.
Fifty years after the war they're still so real.
The next morning, dressed in German uniforms...
we went to look for the military government.
We met an American soldier with a rifle.. .
and he told us in German, " This way!"
So we went " this way, " and we came to a prisoner-of-war camp.. .
for Germans captured by Americans.
An American soldier came to me and asked me if I knew how to pray.
I said in German, " Yes.' '
And then he started the Jewish prayer in Hebrew.
Luckily, during the year l went to temple...
l had learned this prayer.
So l continued in Hebrew.
He clapped his hands and said, "lt is okay. He's a Jew."
We came to an SS canteen.
We ate everything they had, mixing it all.
Somewhere in my mind I knew:
" You're killing yourself."
Almost everybody was shouting "Water, water, please some water."
But they threw us canned pork meat.. .
and those who foolishly ate it got sick.
The latrines were indescribable.
They would overflow.
Feces lined the entire walkway and people walked in it.. .
because everybody had dysentery.. .
if not typhus.
One of the people I owe my life to is a German military doctor.. .
who during my illness, sat next to my bed day and night.. .
and the only thing he could do.. .
was give me injections to strengthen my heart.
First it was paratyphoid and in Belsen it was spotted typhus.
The girls brought an English doctor to me.
He was so shocked from all that he'd seen.. .
that he told me it was the flu and that it was all right.
So the girls took care of me and l made it through.
The way I survived such horrible circumstances was by.. .
harboring an utterly insane hatred.. .
and a desire for vengeance.
I was imagining I would survive.. .
and one day I would get into some little German town.. .
and when I would see a mother with a baby in her stroller.. .
l would go to her, take the child by its legs...
and smash the child's head on the sidewalk.
l don't remember anything more.
Only that l woke up in some fancy villa...
completely alone, in a room.
I know that a doctor came in.. .
looked at me and said, " I will adopt you.' '
And l screamed at him at Czech:
" Bullshit, if the war is over, l'm going home."
When the diarrhea cramps began...
l peacefully defecated in the bed.
l yelled at the German woman, "Mrs. Schmidt, l shit in my bed!"
And she came.. .
picked up the dirty sheets and clothes.. .
washed my Jewish bottom, oiled it nicely and powdered it.
I rolled another cigarette.. .
lit it up, smoked it in bed.. .
and waited almost impatiently for the next cramp...
so l could scream again, "Mrs. Schmidt, l shit in my bed!"
l walked all the way to Prague to Mrs. Roubickova's house.
l rang her doorbell around 6:00 a.m.
" l am Vika," l said.
As l said it, she passed out.
When l woke her up...
she made me take my clothes off...
and she immediately burned them...
then she put me in the bathtub, washed me...
and put me in bed.
The revolution started.
The news came that Russian tanks were approaching Prague...
bringing the first groups of people with them.
lmagine, it was Dasha with lrena and my sister.
Those three girls came...
and found me in bed.
When l walked on the street looking ill...
a man stopped me, and asked:
" Are you Mrs. Lainerova?"
He didn't recognize me.
l weighed only 75 pounds.
When l said yes, he asked me, "And where is the little girl?"
" Why are you talking about the child?" l said.
" You know all the children were gassed."
He said, " No, she wasn't gassed. She stayed in Terezin.
" l was in Terezin until the end, and she was there."
My Aryan aunt lied to me, and said there was nothing for me there.
The people who had been hiding our things...
said that l had been away too long.
But there are worse things in life.
ln order to receive any money, l had to have a guardian.
He shamelessly stole from me...
forged my signature...
and kept half of my orphan pension...
which then was 900 crowns.
Judith was living in Olesovice...
where they put orphans rescued from Terezin.
She was sleeping when we arrived.
She recognized me right away.
We shouldn't have eaten all of that food.
l went to the hospital with typhus.
There, after four or five days of fever, they wrote me off...
and moved me into the basement...
where the dead and dying were.
And l told myself instinctively:
" You have to live through this."
Somehow l collected myself. The beds were on the floor.
l picked up something.
l started to yell...
and broke the glass door.
The doctor said, " This man can make it."
And they put me back in the room...
and l recovered.
A group of doctors got together...
in their white robes...
about eight of them.
They looked at me, shrugged their shoulders, and said to themselves:
" This is because of Bergen-Belsen. We can't help her."
And they left.
So I thought to myself, "What are you thinking, you smart-asses?
" l made it through all of this only to die at home?
" Not a chance!"
The loneliness is bad.
My whole life, l had nobody to go to.
l felt no hatred anymore.
l got rid of it through my diarrhea.
To live your life decently.
Be kind to others.
l love children very much...
and hope that no children...
ever have to go through...
what we had to go through.
Whether it is God's will, or whether it's some kind of destiny...
it is what l owe my life to...
because it is made up of one coincidence after another.
Who can say which peoples could be the future victims...
Who might the Jews be next time? -Yehuda Bauer