FEW FATES OF MANY

 

OTTO WOLF

Otto Wolf was born in Mohelnice on June 5th, 1927 to Jewish parents. To avoid being deported to a concentration camp, Otto, together with his parents and sister, lived from 1942 to 1945 by hiding in the nearby forest of the village Trsice by Olomouc. Three weeks before the end of the war Otto was captured by accident during an anti guerilla raid conducted by the German secret police. He was tortured but never revealed the names of his protectors or the hiding place of his family. Otto was burnt to death with some other men on April 20th, 1945. His parents and sister Felicitas survived. Otto's older brother Kurt fought the Nazis on the Russian front and was killed in the battle by Sokolovo in 1943. A memorial plaque for both brothers was unveiled in Mohelnice in 1948.

While in hiding, Otto wrote a diary, which was later published under the title: "Denik Otty Wolfa 1942- 1945" (The Diary of Otto Wolf). He started to write this work when he was just 15 years old. His diary is considered to be a unique and important document illustrating the life during the occupation, and describing help of the Czech people to their endangered compatriots.

ZIEGLERS

My grandfather Edmund Ziegler came to the town of Mohelnice around 1870. Together with his wife (my grandmother) they owned a small distillery in a house on Trebovska street No 4. They also operated a factory manufacturing garments.

I was born in Mohelnice in 1920 and I lived there with my parents and grandparents until early 1930s. At that time about 20 Jewish families used to live in the town. The cantor Fuchs came each Sunday to Mohelnice to teach Jewish children religion. My childhood was quite nice there. I was very good in soccer and I also took part in several swimming competitions. After 1930 we moved to Bratislava, but our relatives stayed in Mohelnice and we visited them each summer.

In 1939 I left Bratislava, because of my Jewish origin. I was lucky and managed to get to Denmark. However, in September 1943 I left with my girlfriend Denmark for Sweden. At night we had to swim to board a fishing boat. When we came close to the Swedish coast we had to swim again. We escape from Denmark, because we learned that Nazis planed to send all Jews from Denmark to concentration camps. The “Big Jewish Rescue” was organized by the Danish government with a co-operation of the underground movement, church, fishermen and others. Almost all Jews from that country were saved.

For some time I lived in Sweden. I studied in the Upsala University and got married there. I also registered with the Czechoslovak Army Office in Stockholm. In the last year of the war I flew to England and joined the artillery unit. In fall of 1945 I returned to Denmark and later I moved to Canada, where I still live with my family. (2006)

My younger sister Charlotte, who was also born in Mohelnice, left before the WWII the country for Palestine and later joined the medical unit of the Czechoslovak army fighting in the Western front. My uncle (brother of my father) Dr. Othmar Zieger was born in 1896 in Mohelnice. In 1938 he left Czechoslovakia for England, where he joined the army and became lieutenant-colonel by the end of the war.

My father Erwin Ziegler was also born in Mohelnice. He was Jewish and a member of the Social democratic party as well so his chances to survive the Holocaust were low. On December 23rd 1944 he was murdered in Buchenwald. His name is engraved in our family tombstone in the Mohelnice cemetery.

Dr. Edgar Ziegler, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

In the fall 2005 Dr. Edgar Ziegler visited Mohelnice and the foundation for the Respect and Tolerance. Before that he sent to the foundation his family religious items, which he inherited from his father and grandfather - prayer shawls (tallit), small prayer shawl (tallit catan) for child, prayer book, embroidered cover for barches, and tefillins and embroidered teffilin bags with monograms EZ. (His grandfather’ name was Edmund and his father was Erwin).

“I read with great interest and admire you and you colleagues for you effort to foster respect and tolerance”, wrote Mr. Ziegler in his cover letter.

“The history of the Ziegler family shows, how Nazis and later Communists were able to erase information about Jewish history. Now, not too many people know that there was a prayer room right in the Mohelnice town square or there is a beautiful Jewish cemetery in the town of Lostice. Nazis tried to destroy Jewish people and their history. Indifference to Jewish history is continuation of this process. Members of the foundation Respect and Tolerance are bringing information about Jewish life and history back to life”..…

Moravsky Sever Daily, May 3, 2005

Terrry Haass

Painter, graphic artist and sculptor

She was born in 1923 in Cesky Tesin and before the WWII lived with her mother and younger brother in the town of Mohelnice in Northern Moravia. They lived with her grandfather Ferdinad Grimm, who owned a house and fashion store there. (Presently Italian Cafe, ulice S. K. Neumanna 5). Terry studied in nearby Olomouc in a girl school Pöttingeum. After Nazis occupied the Sudetenland she and her mother and brother escaped to France. They feared for their lives because they were Jews. Shortly after their arrival to Paris in 1939 she started her studies at Ecole des Beaux – Arts. After the occupation of France they left for Portugal and later went to New York, where she received the Scholarship for Art Student's League. During next ten years in States Terry Haass studied art, worked in a studio under the renowned engraver Stanley W. Hayter and met leading figures of the Abstract Expressionist movement (Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline a others). In 1950 she began to teach graphic art at the New York City College and met Albert Einstein. His theory regarding time and space strongly influenced her artistic imagination.

By the end of 1951 Terry returned to Paris and started to work in the Lacouriere studio. Through her work in Paris she met many most important contemporary artists (Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, André Masson and others). Besides art she devoted her time to classical archeology. After receiving a degree in archeology from the Ecole du Louvre she took a part in archeology expeditions to Turkey, Libanon, Izrael, Iran and Afghanistan. Experience from expeditions influenced her art and also her writing. Terry's book Inanna, which was published in 1961, is inspired by Sumerian poetry from the third millennium BC. During 1960s she worked as an artist and also as archeologist, while from early 1970s she concentrates on art – especially on painting, graphic art and sculptures made of plexiglass or steel. Her work is shown in major galleries and museums in France, Italy, Germany, Denmark, United States and other countries.
Terry Haas received many medals and awards including the Silver Medal for sculpture from Bilan de l‘Art Contemporain, Quebec, Canada and the Gold Medal for sculpture from Akademie Leonardo da Vinci, Rom, Italy.
Her work is represented in several foremost public and private collections e.g.: Museum of Modern Art , New York; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Art, San Francisco; Smithsonian Institute, Washnigton, DC; Kunstmuseum Basel; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Vile Paris; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Muzeum umeni, Olomouc; Baronix Alix von Rothschild, Paris, J. J. Rockefeller j.r., New York and many others.

Grandfather of Terry Haass - Ferdinand Grimm died in Mohelnice in 1934 and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Usov. Several relatives including her father perished in the holocaust. Terry Haass lives and works in Paris. She is in a contact with the foundation Respect and Tolerance. In 2006 the foundation established Terry Haass Award for students and teachers who take part in Respect and Tolerance educational and art programs. For more information please see: Others – Prizes and Awards – Terry Haass Award.

By the end of 1920s Ferdinand Grimm (Terry's grandfather) transferred the enterprise to his heirs and the store's sign was changed to „Egon Goldmann nastupce Ferdinanda Grimma“.

Sources and literature:
Simkova, A., Renotiere, G.(ed).: Terry Haass svetlo - cas – prostor. Exhibition catalogue.Muzeum umeni Olomouc, 2006
Rosatzin, E.: Jews in Mohelnice. Record of oral history, Warden 2003. (-Respekt and Tolerance Archives-) R&T Archives.
Achab, J.: Project keshet –Jewish Cemetery Usov, 2004
Moravsky sever 1928. Promotional material.
Col.: Terry Haass – graphisches Werk. Exhibition catalogue, Bochum 1997
Letters from Terry Haass. R&T Archives.

GRÄTZEROVA TOVÁRNA PŘESNÝCH NÁSTROJŮ

Owners, workers and trainees
Mohelnice 1925

Grätzer Tool Factory
Mohelnice 1930

In 1919 Moritz Grätzer (4th from right – with a mustache) established in Mohelnice the factory for manufacturing the precise tools and instruments. By the end of the first year already about forty employees worked there. The operation was very successful and during the 1930s a number of employees grew to almost 180.

The first workshops used to be located on present Zabrezska Street. In 1932 Grätzer brothers - Arnost (3rd from right in a hat) and Richard (3rd from left) purchased a large building on Masaryk Street. Their factory, which enjoyed an excellent reputation, trained many specialists, who were able to transfer their expertise to younger generations for a long time. The factory still exists in its original location and still specializes in manufacturing tools, instruments and machinery.

Grätzers were Jewish and therefore before WWII they left for Palestine. Sons of Richard Grätzer - Otto and Kurt joined the Czechoslovak Army Unit and fought Nazis in Africa and Western Europe. In 1945 they returned back to the Czech Republic and later Otto married Felicitas Wolf (sister of Otto a Kurt Wolf). In the 1960s they left for the United States, where they lived under a new name Garda.

Some other enterprises in Mohelnice were established or owned by Jewish families e.g. the Felix Lechner Saw Mill, which used to be located near the railway station. The saw mill included workshops, where wooden boxes and toothpicks were made and around 1920 about a hundred workers found their employment there.

Jiri Fiser - an interview with a man who met the Angel of Death

Mr. Fiser lives with his wife in Mohelnice. During our first meeting he told me he does not like to think about his childhood in the concentration camp. However he occasionally gives interviews or provides information for articles, because he wants to honor the memory of his relatives and friends who perished in the Holocaust. He shares his information to give the frank warning to those who did not experience suffering caused by Nazis and therefore do not understand what happened and what could happen. Now he sees the danger in those who preach theories about solutions which will simply and quickly solve all problems of the mankind. He believes the race hatred, violence and killing did not end. Horrors just moved to other parts of the World.

How everything started?
I was born in 1936 in Ceska Trebova, where my father worked in the Czechoslovak Railway. At the beginning of the Nazi occupation he was arrested for his “activities against state” and shipped to Germany, where he was executed. We used to live in Nesovice, not too far from Brno. In April 1942, when I was six I was deported together with my mother, twin brother and younger sister to the Theresienstadt Ghetto (transport Ah19). The reason for our arrest was just one – we were Jewish. We were held in the Ghetto for two years. The time went by very slowly in this gloomy environment and we were very homesick. We went to school just for a short period of time. We often had to help to clean the courtyard or peal potatoes in the kitchen. We had better time in the summer, because we could go with our uncle Richard Fischer to fields and help him with his work. He worked as a horse driver and he was gathering harvest and cattle food there.

But you were children. Did you have a place to play? Were you in any mood to play?
Children can play everywhere and it is very good. In a spare time we modeled a little plasticine figures, cut out fairy tale heroes from book illustrations and later we even created a small puppet theatre. We also participated in a real theatre, which was set up in a makeshift space in the attic above the barracks. I still remember the name of that play - it was Brundibar. Such activities were extremely important and useful, because they helped us to get our thoughts away from the horrors which surrounded and threatened us.

How did you get from Teresienstadt to the Angel of Death?
Our stay in Theresienstadt was suddenly brought to the end on May 15, 1944, when we were with the rest of the family send by the transport DZ 410 – 413 to the feared Auschwitz. Our journey lasted three days and two nights but to us it seemed endless. We were crammed in cattle wagons without food and water. Many people died before we got to the final destination. The saddest moment of our “trip” came when the train went through our native town Ceska Trebova. We stepped on top of our baggage and stared through a small window on places we used to know. They were so close but in the same time so far away for us. Immediately after our morning arrival to Birkenau there was a selection, which was conducted by Joseph Mengele. We were lucky, because we were placed in so called Theresienstadt Family Camp B II b. We stayed there until the fateful night from June 11 to June 12, 1944, when the Family Camp was destroyed and all people not able to work and also mothers who did not want to separate from their children were murdered in gas chambers. Our mother with our younger sister Vera felt to this category. The mother did not want to give up her daughter, so they had to both die. Vera was just ten at that time.

Why you were spared?
My brother Joseph and I were saved because we are twin brothers. Together with many other twins from Italy, Hungary, Austria and other states we were placed to the special hospital section, which was frequently visited by Josef Mengele. This Nazi criminal, philosopher, physician and anthropologist called the Angel of Death was conducting there his pseudo scientific experiments. He regularly examined us, compared our measures, weights, fingerprints, lengths of nails and many other things. Each month he took samples of our blood for a laboratory analysis. Sometimes he injected to our arms solutions, which caused feverish diseases, and he monitored if course and reactions are the same in both twins. Mengele’s experiments also surveyed the possibilities of improvements in amputations and blood transfusions for the injured German soldiers. He was also researching methods, which would ensure the higher fertility of German women to compensate the decrees in racially pure men killed in the war.

Were you afraid?
We were children and especially from the beginning we believed that we are really sick and we thought the doctor is trying to cure us. When a blood sample was taken from us we received several sugar cubes and other treats. We survived the Holocaust, because we were children and we did not realize what was really happening. For that reason we went through these events with more hope then adults. The feeling of terror came upon us later, after the war, when we learned what was happening in other sections. Suddenly we realized how easy we could be transferred from groups where experiment were performed on living material to other sections, where the results of experiments were verified by an autopsy.

All medical experiments were conducted by the doctor Mengele only?
He was not the only one there. He was accompanied by many German doctors, which were bad as well. They were competing with each other. There were also several doctors- prisoners. They tried to make our lives easier, in a given circumstances. However, it is necessarily to realize that any “fault” in their conduct could mean the execution for them. After the war some of Mengele’s colleagues were brought to the justice and punished. Unfortunately Mengele escaped to the South America, where he lived for a long time. I learned that some of his relatives supported him for decades after the war. It is hard for me to comprehend that.

What do you remember about the end of the war?
Auschwitz was liberated on January 27, 1945. In 1948 we wrote an article about our feelings from these beautiful moments. Let me quote from the authentic text which was written three years after the liberation. We were twelve years old.
“We will never forget June 27, 1945. One day we felt something extraordinary is happening outside. We heard guns and cannons and also stamping of German soldiers, who were running in the courtyard. The doctor did not show up. Aircrafts were flaying above the camp and cannon shots were getting closer. No one was allowed to go outside. We whispered: “Russians are coming”. Suddenly we heard yelling, crying, singing – everything mixed together. Prisoners were running from their sheds like a flood. It was a sure sign that Russians entered the camp. Russians were quite careful and tried to capture some Germans. Prisoners ignored the danger, they were crying and hugging and kissing soldiers.”
Russian soldiers were very tired and exhausted. I think they were as hungry as we were at that time. Apparently they were advancing so fast to save us that their supply unit got lost somewhere. They were nice to us. Even though they faced the death for many years during the war, horrors of Auschwitz moved them. Very soon they started to care about our food, clothing and health.
Russians were filming these events and some shots included into a documentary movie called “Leningrad and Auschwitz”. In one shot people can see me and my brother walking in striped prison uniforms between barbed wire fences. We were eight years old.

How did you get home?
Our journey back home was quite complicated. We were only survivors from our family. Instead names we had just tattooed numbers. We had no parents and no home. We were sent to Kosice to a sanatorium which was set up to help people to recover from trauma they experienced during their imprisonment. In the meantime our uncle Emil was searching for us. After four months he found us in Slovakia and brought us back to Nesovice. We lived with him and later we moved to Lostice.

What is the conclusion?
I really wish that the horrors of Nazism and concentration camps will never repeat again. Therefore I beg you: “Do not be silent and right in the beginning uncover all signs of intolerance, anti-Semitism, racism and restriction of freedom - not only in our country but also around the world.”

The interview with Mr. Fiser was prepared by Ludek Stipl, coordinator of the Foundation for the Respect and Tolerance. Information from the interview was used for the articles which were published in a magazine Narodni Odboj (2004) and Ceske listy (2005).
The record of the interview was also used during the preparation of project The Angel of Death and my Recollection of Him. This project, prepared by the student Katerina Tysonova of the Gymnasium Unicov, won in the National competition Daniel 2006, declared by the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic.

Note.
The destruction of the Family Camp in Auschwitz, which mentioned Mr. Fiser belongs to the most tragic events in the Czech history. It started in the on March 8, 1944. During a single night almost 3 800 Czech Jews were killed in gas chambers. They marched towards the death singing the Czech national anthem. Tragedy continued several months later, in the middle of July. During the two nights another 6 500 Jewish men, women and children were killed.

Undoubtedly this was the biggest mass murder of Czechoslovak citizens during WWII, but the previous (communist) regime willingly ignored such events. Perhaps that is why even today many people do not realize what happened and history textbooks do not explain it. (LS)

Emile Schindler

She was born on October 22, in the village of Maletin not far from the town of Mohelnice. On March 6, 1928 she married Oscar Schindler from the nearby town of Svitavy. This is a beginning of the story, which became famous thanks to the director Steven Spielberg and his movie Schindler’s List.

In the fall 1944 the Schindler’s factory in Krakow was closed down and Jewish workers were to be deported to feared Auschwitz. However Emile renewed her contacts with the head of the District Office, who was her former acquaintance and received the permission for the transfer of Jewish prisoners to Brnenec u Svitav (formerly Brunnlitz bei Zwittau; now Czech Republic). She was taking care of workers and also getting food for them, often in her native village of Maletin. Some historians have different views on the role of Oscar Schindler, but almost all of them agree that Emilie played a very important part in a saving Jews and that her contribution was not made well known.

Again in January 1945 she saved with her husband almost 100 Jewish workers from the quarry in Golleschau. However, in May 1945 they both had to escape from Sudetenland to Germany and from there later to Argentina, where they settled on a farm in San Vicente by Buenos Aires.

In 1957 Oscar Schindler traveled from Argentina to Frankfurt, Germany and never came back. Emilie was left in a difficult financial situation caused by her husband’s debts. She was forced to sell the farm and later acquired thanks to assistance of a Jewish Community a small house, where she lived for many years.

Emile Schindler received the high recognition only when she was old. In 1993 she was recognized as the Righteous Among the Nations in Yad Vashem, Israel. In the next year the president of Germany awarded her the Order of Merit of German Republic. She also became the honorary citizen of Argentina and Frankfurt. In 2001 she received the Prize of Sudetenland Germans for Human Rights in memoriam. She was very pleased and honored when the Pope John Paul II gave her the audience in 1995. Emilie Schindler visited her native land - Czech Republic in 1999. Two years after that she died in a nursing home near Berlin.

News:

September 2008: September 2008

July 2008 July 2008

Červen 2008: Theatre performance CHAHA in the Lostice synagogue

June 2008: Opening of the Usov Synagogue

May 2008: Educational program, Klopina Elementary School

During 2007 the Foundation Respect and Tolerance created a new website and put together education programs on DVD and CD titled „Remembering Jewish Families from Lostice, Mohelnice and Usov”. Programs were produced tanks to the financial assistance from the Foundation for Holocaust Victims in Prague and are available to students free of charge.

31.12.2007: PF 2008

31.12.2007: Summary of activities 2007 - file size 3MB

26.06.2007: Warning anniversary

16.06.2007: Berta Horova

10.05.2007: Respect and Tolerance gives books about the Holocaust to schools

05.05.2007: Project - Books for the University

01.05.2007: Fanny Neuda and Dinah Berland - New edition of a book which originated in Lostice in 19th century

19.04.2007: Lostice synagogue

16.04.2007: March of the Living

23.03.2007: Exhibition in London

26.01.2007: Terry Haass Prize 2007

20.01.2007: Artur Langer

01.05.2006: Bar mitzvah

Summary of activities:

9.12.2006: There is RaT summary of activities and programs 2006 in PDF format, here