Survivors in Among the Many
In my book, Among the Many, I talk about these survivors in my book.
Let’s go through each one so you can know who they are!
Eva (Chava) is an exceptional artist in Israel. She is an amazing mother, teacher, and the younger sister of Petr Ginz.
Born on February 21, 1930 in Prague, The Czech Republic, Eva was the baby of two children. Her older brother, Petr was born a few years before and she adored him. She said that when they were kids, Petr called her Slecna Brecna, which means cry baby. She said he called her this because she was always crying, but as she remembered, Petr never cried.
Just like Petr, she grew up in a traditional Jewish home.
Petr and Eva lived in an apartment in Prague. They went to the synagogue on Jewish Holidays and they went to a Jewish elementary school.
Her parents met at an Esperanto conference, and both had liberal views. They believed in promoting world peace by having a common language to all humankind. They often hosted people from all around the world in their home.
Petr and her remained close, and rarely fought. She looked up to her brother. She knew he was talented and she read his stories.
When they were not in school, they went to the mountains or the countryside. Eva Remembers:
“It wasn’t the custom to eat in restaurants, we ate at home, but my parents often went to coffee shops with their friends. There weren’t many cars yet in those days, and so every car ride was quite a big experience. For me, unfortunately, a bad one, because during every ride I suffered from car sickness and would be nauseous. On the contrary, riding on the train wasn’t anything special for us. We didn’t have our own car.”
Eva had a happy childhood, but all that was to change when the Nazis came to power in the Czech Republic in March of 1939. They annexed the Czech Republic.
In October of 1941, the Terezin Ghetto was established. When the Anti-Jewish laws were placed, Petr and Eva were labled Mischlinge (Children of a mixed marriage).
In October of 1942, Petr was deported to the Terezin Ghetto. In May of 1944, Eva found herself in the same situation. Like Petr, Eva brought with her a diary, in which she wrote about her time in Terezin. She had hoped she would be out of there in three months, but when that did not happen, she began to worry. She lived in a girl’s home in L410. There were lots of girls who were her age and her cousin, Hanka Ginzova was there too.
Shortly after she arrived in Terezin, she got sick. She said Petr came to visit her twice, even three times a day. While she was sick in the infirmary in Terezin, Petr insisted he improve her English. He thought of English as a language for the future. He wrote her notes in English and asked her to reply in English for her to practice. He also taught her shorthand. He found a textbook and they learned it together.
Eva got sick many times from the filth and diseases that were spreading around the Ghetto. She suffered from diphtheria and scarlet fever. She was also starving. She remembers that in Terezin there was hunger. She wrote in her diary about the filth in her barrack. She wrote in her diary about how she and her cousin Hanka caught bed bugs.
Eva felt alone and scared in Terezin. She saw Petr and that made her feel better. But Petr was about to leave and she would be alone.
On September 27, 1944, she noted in her diary that there was going to be a transport of males ages sixteen to fifty. She heard that Petr was going on this transport and when it was confirmed she wrote how she cried her eyes out. Little did she know that this transport was on its way to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
She would not know until after the war that Petr was sent to die in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Eva was the only one of the two of them to survive.
Her father was sent to Terezin on February 15, 1945. Eva’s mother was able to stay home and was able to send a few letters to the both of them. Eva’s father lost all his siblings( there were five of them all together, two sisters and three brothers), his mother, his uncles, aunts, cousins and of course, his son, Petr.
Eva continued writing in her diary until the end of the war. She wrote that when Petr comes back she would make a note of it. In 1947, she made one note in her diary, “Petr hasn’t returned.” By the time she wrote that, Petr was already dead.
After losing so many years of not being able to study in school, she was eager to study anything: history, literature, mathematics, art, secretarial work, driving and anything she could fit into her day. She then went to the School of Applied Arts on Narodni Avenue for two years.
When she was in high school, she learned French, which she took full advantage of. She was supposed to graduate in 1948, but she left for France with future husband, Jindrich (Abraham) Pressburger. They had met during a ski trip in the Zionist Youth grop “ Hashomer Hatzayir”. He was born in 1924 and from Slovakia. He was a Zionist. Zionism is about the pursuit of an independent Jewish state.
After they were in France, they wanted to move to the Holy Lands, Israel. They arrived in the fall of 1949. She did not know the language and she was learning English, as Petr had taught her. When she arrived in Israel, she chose her Hebrew name, which is Chava. Chava is what she goes by.
Petr was always on her mind and she said it was a terrible loss for her not to have known Petr as an adult. She is sure that given his many talents, he could have been something great.
Eva’s parents stayed in Prague until 1956, when they too moved to Israel. Their mother was a supporter of the Zionist movement. Her parents had a hard adjustment in Israel.
Her father died in 1975. Her mother died in 1990 at age ninety-three.
For the past fifty-three years Chava and Abraham lived in Omer. They have two children, Yoram and Tamar. Chava also has three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Eva (now Chava) became a renowned artist in Israel .She taught and then directed the Visual Art Center in Ber-Sheva for ten years.
She thought she had lost Petr’s diaries for years but then they resurfaced.
A man from Prague contacted Yad Vashem offering to give them what he thought was Petr’s diaries. The museum then contacted Eva and she looked at them and they were Petr’s! She managed to get possession of them. She still has them.
Chava is an artist. She had exhibits in Europe, Israel and The United States. Her style changed through the years. She began with realism, and then abstract, and sometimes she would mix both together. In 1993, she received the Sussman Prize for her Holocaust related artwork. Chava taught art and created art for many years. In 2016, the art historian Dr. Ilka Wonschik published a book on her art work.
In 2011, when I was doing research about Petr, with Yad Vashem’s help, I was able to email Chava. She was the sweetest thing and was kind enough to answer all the questions I had about Petr and her. I had written about Petr in a school newspaper and wanted to get the full story. She was kind enough to tell me what I needed to know. I also included her story in the article.
She published Petr’s diaries in 2004. She and Petr’s diaries are featured in Salvaged Pages by Alexandra Zapruder.
Eva still has her diary that she wrote in Terezin.
(Chava and Petr with their dad, Otto)
(Petr and Chava)
(The most famous photo of Petr and Chava- together taken in 1935)
(Chava with her husband Abraham Pressburger)
(Chava in Prague, December 1937)
(Chava’s amazing art. She combined Petr’s photo with art)
(Chava and her family)
(Chava holding the famous and well known photo of her and Petr.)
Felicitas Wolf Garda (1920–2006)
If it had not been for Felicitas donating Otto’s diaries to the United States Holocaust Memorial Musuem — we would not have known about him. But Felicitas has a story all her own.
Felicitas was born in Lipnik, Czech Republic on March 27, 1920. She was the second oldest. Her older brother, Kurt was born on February 13, 1915 in Lipnik, Czech Republic.
Felicitas (sometimes called Licka or Lici) was a very fashionable young woman. She studied tailoring and went on to technical design school, while her brother Kurt was studying to be a doctor at the University of Brno, only one hour away from Olomouc. Felicitas taught dressmaking and was the manager of a clothing boutique.
When the Nazis came to power in 1939, the Wolf’s were living in Olomouc.
As soon as the Anti-Jewish decrees were placed on the Jews of the Czech Republic, the Wolf’s moved to the small town of Trsice. She had to leave school and the boutique. When her father lost his job and was running out of money, Felicitas worked as a farmhand, trying to keep her Jewish identity a secret.
After the annexation of the Czech Republic, Kurt left for the Soviet Union thinking a life in exile would be worth it. In January of 1942, Kurt joined the Czech Army under Ludvik Svoboda’s military unit.
In summer of 1942, the Wolf’s received their deportation notices to be deported to the Terezin Ghetto. Needless to say the family had other plans, and went into hiding instead. Berthold Wolf, her father and gardener Jaroslov Zdaril (also known as Slavek) worked together to create a hiding place for the family. Slavek did this mainly because he loved Felicitas. She had turned twenty-two in March.
Her brother Otto had just turned fifteen and brought with him what she ended up saving: his diaries.
For over two years, they hid under Slavek’s protection. In the spring of 1944, the Wolf’s relationship with Slavek became so horrendous (mainly because Felicitas did not share the same feelings for Slavek, as he did for her. Also his inconsistency with food, fighting with Felicitas became common and his inconsistency with other supplies) that they had to find somewhere else to hide. They found refuge from a dentist named Ludmila Ticha, and their former maid Maria (Called Marencka) Zbořil. On the night of April 13, 1944, they moved into the attic of Maria’s house. They remained there for one year. Mr. Zbořil, who had always been hesitant about them staying there, finally asked them to leave. Mrs. Ticha told them that she found a place for them at the Oheras in Zakrov. Zakrov is only three minutes away from Trsice. They left for their new hiding place on March 5, 1945.
Felicitas helped with sewing and mending of clothes. As Otto described in his diary how Felicitas is using the lining of Otto’s coat to make another piece of clothing. Felcitias was very gifted when it came to dressmaking.
They seemed to be safe for a little while until there was an attack on the town of Zakrov. Felictias and her family were caught in the situation.
On April 18, 1945, the Vlasov Troops invaded the towns of Zakrov and Trsice. They stopped at the Ohera’s house. They demanded identification from the Wolf family. The troops confronted Otto first. Otto did not know what to say but he was visiting the Oheras and he was from Telc. Sadly, the Vlasov troops did not believe Otto. They thought Otto, who was just seventeen, was a Partisan. The Vlasvov Troops were Russian POW’s fighting for the Nazis. Partisans were people who joined the restistance , hid in the woods or around towns and attacked the Nazis at every opportunity.
Felicitas saw that Otto’s diary was left behind. She picked it up and began writing in it. Felicitas wrote in Otto’s diary about how they had to leave the Ohera’s and had to go back into hiding in the forests and barns that they found. Otto was taken, tortured and interrogated . He did not reveal his name, or Felicitas’s name or any of the helper’s names. Otto and eighteen other young men were taken to the forests in Kyjanice where they were shot to death and then burned. He was seventeen.
But another account of this was told by Zdeňka Calábková, the daughter of Oldrich Ohera, who helped hide Otto and his family. She said they were put into a wooden cabin and burned, where the men all perished.
Felicitas wrote in her brother’s diary until the end of the war. She documented how worried they were for Otto and how they wished he had been released. The men taken from Trsice were released right away, but the men from Zakrov, including Otto were not.
She imitated the way Otto wrote his diary entries, writing about what time they got up, their meals and their hiding situations. She tried to see Mrs. Ticha several times, but Mrs. Ticha was worried for them. She told Felciitas the Vlasovite troops and Gestapo were everywhere in Trsice and Zakrov.
On May 8, 1945, Trsice and Zakrov were liberated. When they emerged from their hiding place, they were not only told about Otto’s death, but about her brother Kurt’s death as well. Kurt had been shot in action fighting against the Nazis. He died on March 9, 1943 in Sokolovo. He was twenty-eight.
After the war, Felicitas opened a clothing store in Olomouc. She had obtained a trade license. She supported her parents with her work. She also cared for her seriously ill mother until she died in 1952. She had suffered a massive stroke after hearing the news of both of her sons deaths, which she received on the same day.
She married a man named Otto Gratzer. They had known each other since elementary school. When the Communists came to power in 1948, the clothing store was nationalized without compensation. Felcitias continued to work in the store, but not as the owner, but as just an employee. She had to repay the loan she took out to build the store. She slowly became uncomfortable with the new regime. Due to her husband’s background, he could not find a job. After she married her husband, she moved to Ostrava where it was easier for her husband to find a job.
Her father, Berthold, who had then remarried to Hajnalka Mandlova, gave Felicitas a step brother, Thomas. Her father was holding on to Otto’s diaries and tried to get them published, but since the Communists were taking over, it was not successful in getting them published. Berthold died in 1962 at the age of seventy-five. His second wife died in 1984 at the age of eighty-nine.
She became a mother to two daughters, one who is named Eva. After Berthold’s death, Felicitas became the guardian of brother Otto’s diaries.
In 1968, she became so uncomfortable with the communists and decided to move to the United States, changing her last name from Gratzer to Garda, They settled in Miami, Florida. She was forty-eight at the time. She worked exclusively in clothing stores.
She took Otto’s diaries with her and in 1995 at the age of seventy-five, she donated all four volumes of Otto’s diaries. She also donated photos of Otto, her, her parents and Kurt to the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. She stated that she donated his diaries because she could no longer handle the memory of the diaries. His memory haunted her and she needed to be sure that after she was gone, that it was going to be taken care of.
Otto’s death remained very painful for her and she did not bring him up much. Kurt’s death was also painful for her to talk about. The diaries are still at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum today.
You can actually view the diaries online and look at them. You can see how Otto’s and Felicitas’s handwritings are very similar. They both wrote in Czech and in cursive. The only difference between Felicitas’s entries and Otto’s, was the way they were written. Ott wrote in pen, while Felicitas wrote in pencil. Otto’s handwriting is sometimes hard to read, as he wrote with such prestige, as Felicitas wrote with quickness and cursive. The pencil is starting to fade, as it is hard to read her entries. But if you compare the handwriting, you could tell that they were siblings who wrote in a similar fashion.
Felicitas was only able to go back to the Czech Republic after 1989. She visited many times and was able to get dual citizenship.
Felicitas has been described as a tough, positive, kind and confident woman. She never wanted to take her children to the forest where she and Otto hid for three years. She also made sure her family had food and a roof over their heads.
Felicitas died on June 7 2006 at the age of eighty-six.
In 2012, six years after Felicitas’ death, New Milford High School in Milford, New Jersey, decided they would raise money to place a memorial for not only the Wolf’s but for the people who helped save them. Eva Vavrecka, Felicitas’ daughter met the high schoolers and educators on the trip.
Felicitas Garda loved her family and she loved her brothers, especially Otto.
There is a memorial for the men who were killed in Kyjanice and Otto’s photo and name is on the memorial.
Felicitas left a legacy behind with two daughters, and grandchildren. Otto and Kurt’s lives ended too soon, but she never forgot about her brothers.
Felicitas was interviewed for the book Salvaged Pages in which she did see the first edition but was gone after the second edition came out.
Because of Felicitas, she gave us the story of her family.
(Ruzena Wolf- her mother)
(Berthold Wolf-her father)
(Felicitas’s entry in Otto’s diary, 1945. Contrary to Otto’s writing, she wrote in pencil, rather than in pen, like Otto.)
(In 1997, Otto’s diary was published in Czech.)
(The Memorial for the Wolf Family and the citizens of Trsice, where the family hid for three years- donated by the Milford Highschool in New Jersey- 2012.)
(The Gravesite/ Memorial for the men who were killed in Kyjanice. They were all -with the exception of Otto, were from Zakrov.)
(Two Generations: Felicitas’ daughter, Eva Vavrecka and Zdeňka Calábková together for the ceremony of the memorial for the Wolf family and the townspeople of Trsice.)
(Memorial for Felicitas’ family in Trsice.)
Renee Kann Silver (1931- )
Renee is also a survivor that means so much to me. She was the second survivor I ever reached out to. This woman is one of my dearest friends and I thank God for Peter Feigl for recommending me the book Hidden on the Mountain, where I found Renee in the book .
Renee Ruth Kann was born on February 24, 1931 in the Saarland, Germany. She was the oldest of two. Her sister Edith was born on July 23, 1933.
Renee was four years old when her maid took her to a parade to see Hitler. She did not realize that Hitler would cause many problems for her and her family.
After Hitler came to power, they decided they had to move. One August morning they left Sarreguemines and left for safer shores.
Their mother took one car, their father, grandmother, cousins, and their maid took a truck. On the way, the car that their mother was driving broke down. They left the car, but rode in the truck. The village that they arrived at was called Longeville. They found shelter on the second floor of an elderly widow’s house. The elderly woman they rented this room from did not speak a word of German, she was French.
When Renee was eight years old, she wanted to be a girl scout. She did not realize at that time that some of the girl scout troops had religious affiliations. One troop she joined was called La Guide. They went on hikes, learned songs and went to church. The church was the central point of the village. At church she knelt like everyone else but refused to cross herself like all the other little girls did. It became noticeable to the troop leader that she was not a Catholic. Eventually, Renee was kicked out of the troop, which broke her heart immensely because she really wanted to be a girl scout.
When the war was getting more serious in France, French policemen arrested Renee’s father, because he was German. He was released shortly after his arrest.
In May of 1940, during an air raid, Renee and her sister Edith were taken from the air raid shelter by two policemen and taken home. The whole family were being arrested, including Renee’s eighty-three year old grandmother.
They were being arrested because the French thought they were spies. They were taken to a prison In Bar-Le Duc. They were put where the horses were kept. They slept on straw. Because of Renee’s father being parazlyed on one side of his body, he could not sleep. Renee’s father had a brain injury from fighting in WWI and was paralyzed on one side of his body because of it.
They were driven to a train station. They were put on a passenger train, not cattle cars. They had hardly anything to eat, only some bread and some water. It was because on the train they were considered “Prisionnier De Guerre,” which means in French, “Prisoners of War”.
They were on the train for eight days and eight nights. The train stopped occasionally. They arrived in a town called Oloron Sainte-Marie.
Then they were put on trucks and taken to the concentration camp, Gurs. Gurs is where Peter Feigl also went .
In Gurs, the conditions were terrible. Hardly any food, no sanitation and no running water. When they got there, her father and their cousin Leon were on one side of the camp and her mother, Renee, Edith, and their grandmother were put on another side of the camp. Renee suffered greatly. They got bed bugs, lice and fleas and there were rats. Renee never saw the rats, but her mother did. They all slept on straw mattresses. The conditions were unbearable for anyone to live.
Gurs was not intended to house thousands of people from all over the world, it was intended to house the soldiers from the Spanish Civil War.
In June of 1940, they were released from Gurs. They got a truck to take them to the nearest railroad station. Her father bought train tickets and they headed to Villeurbanne in Lyon. Her grandmother and her cousins went to Marseilles, which had a port to get them to the United States. Her Uncle who lived in Pittsburgh, PA said he would pay for the grandmother and his niece and nephew’s way to the United States, since they already had the necessary papers.
She and her sister went back to school, but little by little they saw the damage that the Vichy government was causing. There was fascism and antisemitism.
In June of 1942, Renee was supposed to get an award, but due to her being Jewish, the school announced she would not get this award because of her being Jewish. She went home and told her mother about this. Her mother did not tell her father. If her father got really upset, he had epileptic seizures.
Her mother had made arrangements for her kids to be hidden. She met a woman named Madame Dreyfus, who lived in another part of town. Madame Dreyfus was part of OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants ) (Children’s Aid Society) that originally was established in the 1930’s to help Jewish children in Russia.
Her mother told Renee and Edith that Madame Dreyfus was going to take them to the mountains the very next day. She said that they were going to the Massif Central. Renee, being an excellent geographer, knew exactly where that was. The next day, Renee’s mother packed her and her sister a knapsack filled with essentials and met Madame Dreyfus at one of the railroad stations. They said good-bye to their mother and they left for the mountains.
On the train Edith and Renee played Cat’s Cradle and they were informed that it would be best not to say where they came from or their religion.
They traveled from Lyon to Saint-Etienne and then they took a small train from there to Le-Chambon Sur Lignon . Le Chambon was a protestant village, whose inhabitants were very religious and risked everything, including their own lives to save and rescue Jewish children.
When they arrived, a family came to pick up Edith, but there was no one to pick Renee up yet. The next day, Monsieur Fourneir who was driving a mule drawn cart came to pick Renee up. They left the town of Le Chambon until they arrived practically in the middle of nowhere. The Fourneir’s had a son, named Marcel who was nineteen.
While she was staying there, other girls that were Renee’s age came to stay with the Fourniers. Mr. Fournier went into town and told Renee the news he had heard. He told her “Don’t expect to find your parents.”
This prompted Renee to leave. She packed a little bag and told the Fourniers she was on her way to see her sister, who lived not too far from where she was staying. When she got to her sister’s place, she told the family housing her that she had to get back to Lyon. The family did not question Renee. They went to the station and Renee had just enough money to buy the tickets. They got on the train and headed back to Lyon. When they arrived they took a street car to where their parents were renting an apartment. They got to the door and rang the doorbell. There was no answer.
This frightened Renee and she thought that her parents were just out running errands. She told her sister that they would wait for their parents in the park. They waited for about an hour and they went back to the apartment to try again. They rang the doorbell again, no answer, but their neighbor who was blind recognized their voices. Their neighbor had also heard what had happened to their parents. He heard that Monsieur Caussidiere had come to take them away. He and his wife were the concierges of the local municipal theater. There was a pool, a clinic and a theater. They did the cleaning for all of these facilities. They also lived on the premises. They had a daughter who was named Renee also. Renee Caussidiere and Renee Kann were best friends.
There was to be a roundup that happened at their apartment and Monsieur Cassidiere knew that he should warn Renee’s mother and father. He told them there was one safe place for them, that they should come with him. They stayed with the Caussidere’s.
Meanwhile, Renee and Edith went over to the Caussidere’s apartment and knocked on their window. Mrs. Caussidiere came out and told Renee to go back to her apartment that she would send her mother over.
They did see their mother and their mother explained the situation and took them back to see Madame Dreyfus. Madame Dreyfus took them back to Le Chambon. Edith went back to the Chaputs (the family she was staying with before) and Renee went to a boarding house, the Pension Royer. It was run by two women, who housed a whole group of girls who were Renee’s age. Renee felt more comfortable at that home. There were books and she got along well with all who lived there. When the police were on their way, they were alerted by telephone and the girls would be sent on errands to get them out of the house. On one such occasion they were not alerted and the police arrived. The girls were introduced as the women’s nieces and nothing bad happened.
In September, both girls received word that it was safe to go home. Madame Dreyfus came and took the girls home.
Their parents had gotten someone to smuggle their family to Switzerland (also where Peter Feigl ended up) . They had false papers and ID cards, with a new name and a new identity. They left with hardly anything. All of them had to learn their new names.
Eventually this smuggler did not hold up his end of the bargain. They ended up taking a small rickety bus and a car to Switzerland. The driver said that they will see three lights, to go to the one in the middle, where someone is waiting for them. While walking towards the lights, they were met by farmers who told them that they were lucky, the border patrol had just left.
They were given some food. They settled in a little empty house down the road from the farmers.
The farmers gave them breakfast and lunch. Renee and her family had to take a bus to Geneva where they could take a train to Basel. They took the bus to central Geneva where they waited for the right moment to get on a train. They arrived in Basel very late at night. They arrived at a hotel.
Soon after they arrived, the police arrived and arrested Renee and her family. They sent them to prison and interrogated her parents right away. The police wanted to put them in the Swiss version of a concentration camp. These concentration camps were not like the German camps, they were holding camps to limit refugees. But Renee’s mother pleaded with them and told them Renee’s father had connections in Switzerland. They were able to stay at the hotel for the time being. They were still in jeopardy of being sent to a Swiss concentration camp. They found out there was a refugee organization and they helped the Kanns. They helped with food and clothes. Renee’s father knew a lawyer in Switzerland.
During this time, Renee got very sick and nobody could figure out what it was, until one doctor said she had contagious jaundice.
She was put into a children’s hospital, and soon enough her sister, Edith joined her in the children’s hospital. Their parents were not allowed to visit them.
Meanwhile, her parents were negotiating with the Swiss police to not put them into a concentration camp while their daughters were sick. Their mother found a small apartment in Basel. Within a few weeks, the girls got better and the pedricitian who vouched for them stated that these girls could not go into a concentration camp, but could remain at the apartment. Renee’s parents had to report to the Swiss police station every Saturday to tell them that they were still there and not going to do something illegal. They remained in Switzerland until the war ended.
When the war was over, the Kann’s left Switzerland, they went back to Sarreguemines, which had been completely destroyed by war.
In 1947, the Kanns emigrated to the United States. In the 1950’s Renee married a man named Arthur (Art) SIlver. He died in January of 2010. Renee has a son named Marc and three grandchildren, Samantha, Bryan and Jonathan.
Fast Forward to 2010 in April, after I interviewed Peter Feigl. He recommended a book called Hidden on the Mountain. Inside, were many stories of children who were hidden in Le Chambon. I came upon a girl sitting at a desk with her sister. This was Renee’s chapter. I found her address, wrote to her and I got a call back! I interviewed her for almost an hour. She was my pen pal when I was going to college and in March of 2013, we finally met for the first time in New York, where she lives. We kept in contact all throughout my college career. She was a constant support of whatever I did regarding the Holocaust.
She tells me about her family every once in a while and she wrote a small document about all the cats she had over the years, and she still owns cats! She is a cat lady for sure! In 2012, Renee published her memoir in a book called And Yet I Still Loved France. I have a signed copy!
(Me and Renee at Applebee’s in New York City, March 13, 2013)
(Renee and I, March 13th 2013)
(Renee and her sister, Edith. Renee is the taller one)
(Renee has been back to Le-Chambon many times. She is still amazed how these people were willing to risk their own lives to save hers.)
(The photo that started it all for me- Renee and her sister.)
Irene Fogel Weiss (1930-)
Irene’s story of survival is one that should be told. Her story of survival is
very inspiring and she is such a strong woman.
She was born Irene Fogel on November 21, 1930 in Botragy, Czech Republic.
She was the fourth of six children. Her siblings were, Moshe, Edit,
Reuven, Gershon and Serena.
Her father, Meyer had a lumber business and her mother Leah stayed at home, raising the children.
When the Nazis split the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Botragy came under
Hungarian rule. She grew up speaking Yiddish, and then she spoke
Hungarian.
Under Hungarian rule, they did the same thing that the Germans were
doing in Germany, excluding Jews and making their lives a living hell.
According to Irene, the village stayed pretty much the same, but the
surrounding villages began to change their attitudes towards their Jewish
neighbors.
Her father kept his job but only for a little while, but as restrictions
escalated, someone else claimed his business and he was jobless.
In 1942, her father was rounded up along with other Jewish men to do
forced labor. He was able to go home after six months.
Luckily, for her mother, she had a very large vegetable garden and farm.
She would barter the food with the neighbors to make ends meet.
Irene and her father were on a train one day and were targeted by some
young hooligans. They thought it would be fun if they threw her father off the train. No one on the train stood up for Irene or her father. Luckily, their stop was the next stop and they got off. Needless to say he
never rode the train again.
In 1944, the Hungarian Nazis began to round up the Jews and deport them.
Irene and her family were rounded up and taken to the Munkas Ghetto. In
the ghetto, there was overcrowding, disease and very little food. It was
ordered that all girls under the age of sixteen must have their heads
shaved or their families will be punished. Irene went and had her
beautiful hair shaved.
In May of 1944, Irene and her family were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
When they arrived, their mother, older brother, and younger siblings were
taken immediately to the gas chambers.
Irene was standing there, holding her sister Edit’s hand and Edit was also
sent to the gas chamber. There was an iconic photo taken of the arrival
to Auschwitz, and to the left, is a girl in a coat with a scarf on around her
head standing there looking lost. That is Irene. She was lost figuring out
what to do, trying to find her parents amongst the crowd. Her older sister
Serena was sent in the direction of the young adults. where Irene shortly
joined her.
Irene’s head was already shorn, and her clothes were taken from her and
she was given a prisoner’s striped uniform. She and Serena were taken to the woman’s barracks, where they luckily found two aunts, Rose and Piri. They were selected to work in “Canada”.
“Canada” was the place where prisoners were forced to sort through the
Jews belongings and do inventory on it. “Canada” was located next to the
crematorium, so sadly, they witnessed all the Jews deaths there.
Irene’s aunt found out through someone that Irene’s father, who was
forced to be a sonderkommando, a person who WAS forced to remove
dead Jews from the gas chambers, put them into the fire and then dispose
of their ashes, that when he could no longer do this job, he was shot.
Irene, Serena, Rose and Piri worked in “Canada” for eight months until
January of 1945 when the Nazis forced them on a death march. They
arrived at Ravensbruck, a camp in Germany. They were not there for long
until the Nazis moved them to another camp. This time they were moved
to Neustadt-Glewe. This camp was a subcamp of Ravensbruck.
Irene’s aunt Piri became very sick and was murdered there.
When they were doing roll call, Irene and Serena who were so weak and exhausted,that the Nazis decided they would put Serena in a group of Jews whowould be sent to the gas chambers. Irene did not want to be left alone, so she volunteered to go in the same group as her sister. They waited in a room and waited for the trucks to come, but the trucks never arrived.
The Russian army was heading closer to the camps, and the Nazis fled
the camp. Many of the prisoners decided they would leave the camp,
since there were no guards or anyone holding them back. Irene, Serena
and their aunt Rose found shelter in an empty house nearby.
When the war ended, the three of them looked for relatives. They found
Uncle Joseph Mermelstien, and they found other aunts and uncles, but
unfortunately out of Irene’s immediate family, Irene and Serena were the
only ones who survived.
Irene and Serena lived with their relatives in the Sudetenland. Irene
attended a Czech school and Serena found work in a factory. Aunt Rose
came down with tuberculosis and had to remain at home.
With the help of relatives and the help of HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid
Society), Serena and Irene immigrated to the United States, where they
ended up in New York.
She met Martin Weiss and they married in 1949. They moved to northern
Virginia in 1953, where Irene decided she wanted to teach. She got a
degree in education and taught in the Fairfax County school system for
thirteen years. During that time, she made time to become a mother.
Irene has three children, six grandchildren, and three great grandchildren.
She also began talking about her time in Auschwitz and became a
Survivor volunteer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC. She has spoken to many college and high school students about her experiences and wants to make sure that nothing like this happens again.
Irene has done many interviews for the United States Holocaust Museum
in Washington DC. She has done their First Person Program, a program in
which Holocaust survivors are interviewed in person or as of right now, virtually.
Irene is a woman that is an inspiration to all. Even with all the chaos that
is going on right now, especially with the political messes and a
pandemic, her voice is louder than it has ever been. The world needs her voice and her story now more than ever.
(America! Serena and Irene arriving to the United States, with the help of HIAS)
(Irene standing in front of the famous photo of the selection process at Auschwitz, where she is pointing to herself. She is the girl in the long coat with the scarf over her head. The scarf she wore made her look older, which ultimately saved her life.)
Peter Feigl (1929- )
Peter Feigl means so much to me. He was the first Holcoaust survivor I ever spoke to.
Klaus Peter Feigl was born on the first of March 1929 in Berlin, Germany. His father, Ernst Feigl was a mechanical engineer and his mother, Agnes was a stay at home mom.
When the Nazis began to rise to power, the Feigls moved. They moved to Prague in 1936 and then to Vienna, Austria in 1937. When Peter was eight years old, his parents had him baptized as a Catholic, hoping that would protect Peter from the anit-Jewish decrees and laws. He went to church, took catechism classes, became an altar boy and even had a first communion.
But when the Nazis invaded Austria, the Feigls fled to Belgium, leaving everything they owned behind. As Peter said he had to leave behind his toy soldiers and his toy trains. His loss was not as great as his parents, who left everything they had behind.
They settled in Belgium and were safe for the meantime, but when the Nazis invaded Belgium, Peter, his mother and his grandmother headed to France for safety.
When he, his mother and grandmother arrived in France, they were immediately placed in a concentration camp called Gurs. The conditions in Gurs were terrible.
Diseases, overcrowding, no sanitation or running water were some of the awful conditions in the camp. They spent six weeks in the camp before they were finally released.
When they were released, they lived in a town called Ausch, the unoccupied part of France. Peter’s father had been arrested and placed in a French internment camp. Due to his bad health, he was released and was able to join his family. Peter’s grandmother was able to emigrate to the United States.
In July of 1942, Peter’s mother managed to have Peter sent to a summer camp run by Catholic charities in Condom, France. After he was sent to the camp, his parents were arrested and sent to a camp called Le Vernet, which prompted Peter to begin a diary. On the inside he wrote:
“This diary is written for my parents and hopes it will reach them both in good health.”
He wrote in his diary, often addressing it to his parents. He was assisted by a woman named Mrs.Cavailhon, who ran the summer camp. He was scheduled to leave for America, but those plans fell through.
In January of 1943, he was sent to the town of Le Chambon Sur Lignon in the mountains in France. This town was a protestant village, where Andre Trocmé was the Pastor. The town had been sheltering and hiding Jewish children. They were defying Nazis. They lived by the Bible and according to Peter, he said that they took the commandments literally and lived their lives by that. They saw Jews as the people of the Bible.
Peter was sent to the Les Grillons home. This home was run by the American Quakers and Daniel Trocmé, who happened to be the cousin of Andre Trocme, the Pastor.
He wrote a few entries before his entries came to a sudden halt on February 1, 1943. He said that Daniel had seen him write in it and had confiscated it, for Daniel said that if it got into the hands of the Nazis it could be detriemntal as there were names, address and places in it.
Peter spent ten months in Le Chambon. He was given a new name and a new identity.
After he left Le Chambon, he was sent to a school called Collège Champollion, which was in Figeac, France. People there knew of Peter’s Jewishness, but his false papers made him pass as a non-Jew.
He began another diary in January of 1944. He was not adjusting well to the school, as he was getting into fights with the other students and getting into trouble at school. He recorded his daily activities, like what movies he went to see, books he read and other activities he did.
In May of 1944, the school arranged for Peter to go to neutral Switzerland. He and a few other boys traveled by foot. He described his journey in his diary.
Because of his false identity card and papers, Peter was welcomed to Switzerland. He had his baptismal certificate in the lining of his jacket. He took it out and showed it to the Swiss authorities. His father had given him the name of a business associate who lived in Switzerland. The Swiss authorities got in touch with the associate. The associate and his wife took Peter in. He lived there until 1945. Peter was then told by the Red Cross that his family members in America had been looking for him and the process of getting a visa to the United States. In 1946, he was able to become a citizen of the United States. He was now seventeen. He lived with his grandmother, aunt and uncle in New York. His grandmother had not seen him since he was eleven. She still treated him like a child. She wanted him in bed by 9:30 and did not want him to date American girls, for Peter said,“They had intentions.” Peter joked that he was looking for those girls. He said the only way to get away from his grandmother was to join the Air Force.
In July of 1946, he enlisted in the Air Force, where he served for three years. After the Air Force, he had a career in international sales of aircraft and related services in the private sector and spent over five years as a Senior Negotiator in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He kept his second diary, but thought he lost his first one, until 1987.
In 1987, he was contacted by a man named David Diamant, who had told him he had published the first diary, not realizing that Peter had survived.
David found out that Peter had survived due to the documentary Weapons of the Spirit that Peter was featured in. When Peter inquired how David got the diary, David said he picked it up at a flea market. Peter ended up spending over a hundred dollars for it, but he got it back.
Peter now had both diaries until the 1990s, when he donated them to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
In 1954, Peter married Leonie Warschauer and they were married for sixty-four years until her death in October of 2018.
They had two daughters together, Joyce (Crowne) and Michele (MacKinnon). Peter has two grandsons, Charles and Alexander.
Peter later found out that both of his parents were murdered at Auschwitz in 1942.
I found Peter in April of 2010, when I was a senior at Nolan Catholic High School. I went to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum with my dad for my birthday and got a journal. Inside, there were diarists like Peter Feigl, Otto Wolf and Elisabeth Kaufmann. I looked at Peter’s section and on the side it said “GIft of Peter Feigl.” I found his address. At the time he was living in Florida. I printed out a photo of him and I wrote him a letter. I did not think I would hear anything back, but I did. He called and I conducted an interview with him, which I still have. I talked to him for almost an hour and we kept in contact. When I was involved at the Dallas Holocaust Musuem in Dallas, he was the first person I told. He was so thrilled and asked me about what I was doing at the museum. I told him I worked in survivor relations, which was right up his alley. I also did inventory and other little jobs for the Museum. I was still a senior in high school.
I am so eternally grateful to Peter and what he’s doing. He still talks at museums and schools about his Holocaust experience. He recently did the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s First Person- a series in which Holocaust survivors tell their stories. Peter has done the program before, but this time, it was done virtually.
Peter now lives in Maryland, closer to his daughters.
(Peter, 1945)
(Sweet Peter! Peter in France, 1942)
(Peter looking sharp, ready to greet guest at the USHMM- 2018)
(Peter with friends)
(Peter with his wife Lennie)
These people, though I didn’t know Felicitas, are amazing, and they’re still going strong!
