RECOLLECTIONS - JEWISH FAMILIES OF MOHELNICE
Example of Oral History Recordings and Letters
Respect and Tolerance
ARTUR LANGER, WOLF BROTHERS AND GRÄTZER BROTHERS
From the several Jewish boys in Mohelnice I knew Artur Langer, Kurt and Otto Wolf and Kurt and Otto Grätzer the best. I went to Czech school with Artur. The Wolf and Grätzer children attended Czech the school and the Czech athletic club “Sokol”.
Shortly before the war, Artur escaped to Palestine and later he enlisted in the Czechoslovak army unit. He fought the Nazis in Africa and in Western Europe. After the war he came back to Mohelnice but he had no place to stay, as he found out his parents and sisters perished in concentration camps. He stayed some time in our house and then he went to Prague, where he worked at the army headquarters. In 1949 he left again for Palestine. Then I didn't see him for many, many years, but we exchanged letters from time to time. After 1990 he visited me. When he came to the construction site in Vysehorky I didn't recognize him. Then we embraced each other and cried for a long time.
Igor Škrobal, Mohelnice
HIRSCHS
They operated a quite successful shop with leather goods for the industrial use in the Mohelnice town square. They were afraid of Nazis and therefore they left for Palestine. Apparently they traveled the entire journey in their car from Mohelnice through Hungary and Balkan to Middle East – to Palestine.
LUDWIG AND GRETA MOLLER
Mr. Moller operated a textile shop on the south side of the Mohelnice town square. He lived in the apartment above the store with his (ill) sister Greta. They stayed in the town even after Nazis occupied (Sudetenland). They were forced to wear the yellow star and were persecuted and humiliated. Their store and apartment were damaged during the “The Crystal Night”. In 1942 they were deported to a concentration camp, where they perished.
SÜSS FAMILY
They operated the store with textile and supplies for tailors. Their store was located in the town square (a corner of the former Schillersstrase, now Olomoucka Street). They sold their store in early 1930s and moved out of the town.
MANDL FAMILY
They lived and operated the textile shop in the town square (a corner of the former Museumstrasse, now S. K. Neumann Street). Their daughter (Mrs. Wachsmann) opened in the same house a store with linen goods. Parents perished in the Holocaust. Their son left the Czech Republic and lived in the United States. During the war he joined the armed forces and fought the Nazis on the Western front. Before the war he fell in love with a Miss Till, who lived in a nearby village of Mirov and was a Christian from a German family. After the war he returned to Mohelnice, found his girlfriend and moved with her back to the United States. Their house in Mohelnice now bears the plate with inscription “Mandl House.”
GRIMM AND GOLDMANN FAMILY
They lived and operated the textile store on the S. K. Neumann Street (formerly Museumstarsse). Today there is the Italian Café there. They left the country before the Nazis came. Ferdinand Grimm died 1934 and he is buried in the Jewish cemetery in Usov. In 1939 his daughter Adolfine with her children Terry and Ferdinand escaped to France and later they lived in USA. Terry Hass became the renown French artist, who presently (2007) lives and works in Paris. (For more information please see: Mohelnice – Few fates of many – Terry Haass).
LEOPOLD HOCHWALD
He owned and operated a prosperous moving company and distillery with a bar in the former Schillerstarsse (presently Olomoucka Street, Unemployment Office).
Mr. Hochwald and his wife Paula died before the war and are buried in the Jewish section of the Mohelnice civic cemetery.
Documentation of the oral history and letters: Igor Skrobal, Mohelnice; E. Ziegler, Ottawa, Canada; Jerzabek, R.: In Müglitz am Friedhoff. In Schönhengster Heimat.
