The Czech Casualties
Two Czech boys who lost their lives for no real reason at all.
The Boys who are immortalized in time.
Both boys had diaries that were left behind.
Otto Wolf and Petr Ginz had a lot in common, but were in different situations.
If Anne Frank and Moshe Flinker had a brother, or a double, Otto Wolf would be it.
Otto Wolf was born in Mohelnice, Moravia, Czech Republic on June 5, 1927. He was the baby of three children. His older sister Felicitas (also known as Licka or Lici) was born on March 27, 1920 in Lipnik, Czech Republic and his older brother, Kurt was born on February 13, 1915, also born in Lipnik.
The Wolf’s were living in Olomouc where Berthold Wolf, Otto’s father, was a businessman. Felicitas was studying technical design, teaching apprentices about dressmaking and worked as a manager in a clothing store. Kurt was studying to be a doctor at the University of Brno.
On March 15, 1939, the Germans had annexed the Czech Republic, then called Czechoslovakia. The Germans made Slovakia its own county, now making the Czech Republic. The situation made Kurt Wolf feel so uncomfortable that he decided a life in exile would be worth it. He fled to the Soviet Union and stayed there.
The Wolf’s immediately felt the German’s treachery. The anti-Jewish laws, made the Wolf’s move from Olomouc to the town of Tršice, only twenty-two minutes away. Felicitas then went to work as a farmhand to help with her parent’s finances after Berthold lost his job.
Otto’s schooling came to a sudden halt when he was asked to leave school.
In January of 1942, Kurt joined the Czech Army Unit fighting in the Soviet Union. In the summer of 1942, the Wolf’s received their deportation notices. Rather than report for deportation, they decided that they would go into hiding instead.
They went into hiding in the forests in Tršice. What the villagers of Tršice did not know was that a gardener named Jaroslav Zdařil (also known as Slavek in Otto’s diary) had arranged a hiding place for the Wolf’s. He did this mainly because he had love for Felicitas and he wanted to help her family. His job was to provide food, shelter and other supplies for them. They remained with Slavek for almost two years.
When the situation with Slavek got so bad (his inconsistency with food, supplies and other goods, fighting with Felicitas, and his outbursts taken out on the Wolf family ), the Wolf’s found shelter and solace with their former housemaid, Maria Zbořilová (called Mařenka in Otto’s diary). She promised she would help them at any time.
They moved to the attic of Maria’s house on April 13, 1944. They were also aided by a local dentist named Ludmila Tichá. She was so kind to them and provided food and supplies to the family.
They remained with the Zbořils for almost a year. Mr. Zbořil, who had been always hesitant about letting the Wolf’s stay with them, finally demanded them to leave in 1945.
Mrs. Ticha told them that she found a place for them to hide at the Ohera’s house in Zakrov. Mrs. Ticha was aided by a new helper, Andela Chodilová. They left for the Oheras on March 5, 1945. The Oheras were very welcoming and took care of the Wolf family.
On April 18, 1945, there was an unplanned attack in the town of Zákřov. The Vlasov Troops (Russian POW troops fighting for the Germans) were looking for Partisans. Partisans were people who joined the resistance, hid in the forests and attacked the Nazis at every opportunity. Otto’s family were trapped in this situation. Felicitas wrote about it in her brother’s diary. She said that Otto was mistaken for a Partisan and was taken away, along with twenty-three other men.
Otto was taken to Ujezd, where the headquarters was. There, it was revealed that he was a Jew by the local fascist named Hodulik. He was then handed over to the Gestapo. The Gestapo questioned Otto for two days and got nothing out of him. They tortured him relentlessly, apparently breaking his legs, and still, Otto saved his family and the ones who hid them-sparing their lives.
On April 20, 1945, Otto was taken along with eighteen other men who were between the ages of sixteen to fifty, who had been caught in the roundup by the Vlasovites to the forest in Kyjanice where they were shot to death and burned. Though another account of his death was reported by Zdeňka Calábková, the daughter of Oldrich Ohera, who helped hide the Wolf’s. She said this:
“They took the men to Velký Újezd, where they interrogated and tortured them for two days. Local people later told us what happened there. Then they put them in a lorry with petrol and took them to Kyjanice. There was a wooden cabin with a ground floor about two to three meters. It was a storage place for equipment. They threw them in, sprayed everything with petrol and set the cabin on fire. That was how our poor men had ended. The place was guarded until the end of the war when the Russians came. Nobody could come near. They even brought a German priest to consecrate it. And when he saw the atrocities he broke down and wasn’t able to do anything. Poor guys, none of them had his legs unhurt.” Otto was seventeen. Oldrich was also killed.
Kurt, his older brother, also died. He died on March 9, 1943 fighting the Germans in Sokolovo. He was the army’s doctor.
On May 8, 1945, the Czech Republic was liberated. When the remaining Wolf’s came out of their hiding place, they learned of both Otto’s and Kurt’s deaths. This made Ruzena Wolf, Otto’s mother, suffer a terrible stroke that she never fully recovered from. She died in 1952. Berthold Wolf remarried and gave Felicitas a step brother, Thomas Mandl.
During their time in hiding, Otto kept a diary in which he wrote more than a thousand entries detailing what his family ate, their fights, their hiding, situation, and other details pertaining to his family. After his disappearance, Felicitas continued his diary in his absence. Her handwriting, unlike Otto’s, was written in pencil, rather than pen.
Otto, like Moshe Flinker and Anne Frank, was not yet twenty. He would have turned eighteen that June had he survived. There is only one known photo of Otto, him in a suit and tie.
Otto is remembered as a nice and talented boy who wrote poems. Who knows what Otto could have become had he survived.
In 1995, the seventy-five year old Felicitas Wolf donated her brother’s diaries to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She also donated the photos of herself, Otto, Kurt and her parents. He is also mentioned in the book Salvaged Pages by Alexandra Zapruder.
There is now a memorial for the Wolf family in Trsice . There are several memorials for the eighteen men, including Otto who were murdered in
Zakrov.
Both Kurt and Otto were posthumously awarded the Order of the Silver Lion by the Czech government.
Petr Ginz was a gifted boy.
He was born on the first of February 1928 in Prague, Czech Republic. The oldest of two children. His sister, Eva was born a few years later, but they shared the same birth month of February( you’ll read about Eva later).
Petr was half Jewish. His mother was born a Christian but led a Jewish life and his father was Jewish, but Petr grew up in a traditional Jewish home.
Petr was a gifted artist and storyteller. He wrote a novel based on his favorite author Jules Verne. He wrote the novel Around the World in One Second. Another novel he wrote and illustrated himself was called A Visit from Prehistory. He wrote this when he was thirteen. It was about a machine monster named Kadu and the soldiers needed to destroy it. Needless to say, it was an allegory to what was going on around him.
He began a diary, in which he recorded his daily activities. As his younger sister Eva (Chava) said:
“I never saw anything that he wrote that he was frightened or worried. Because everything he wrote in his diary was recording facts, not feelings. He didn’t feel a need to record his feelings, because his feelings he remembered, it was the facts he was afraid to forget.”
Petr was a very curious boy, who loved the sciences and he loved fantasy. He was an amazing artist and illustrator, who wrote many stories and illustrated them all. He was a boy who did very well in school, got good grades and had friends. He loved Prague and found the city magical. He drew Prague and painted pictures of Prague.
The difference between Jewish children and mischlinge (children of a mixed marriage) is that they were sent to concentration camps when they reached the age of fourteen.
In October of 1941, the Terezin Ghetto was established and in October of 1942, Petr was sent to the Terezin Ghetto. Petr brought a notebook and some drawing pencils.
Petr was placed in the ghetto with boys of all ages and he even had some family there. His uncle Milos was deported in 1941, then his son Pavel. In 1943, Milos’ daughter, Hanka was sent to the Terezin Ghetto as well. Petr’s grandmother was sent to Terezin as well, but perished there.
While imprisoned in the Terezin Ghetto, he and a group of boys put together a small underground magazine which they called Vedem (meaning We Lead). Petr was the editor and wrote most and illustrated most, if not all of the Magazine. When he did not have enough materials from the other boys who contributed to this magazine, he wrote under a pen name.
Petr kept a diary while in Terezin. Instead of writing entries on what he did that day, he made “plans” for the month. He would make a list of things he wanted to accomplish within the month. For example, he wrote that he wanted to get to know a brief history of humankind. He also wrote down on books he has read and what books he wanted to read. He was always educating himself, one way or another. He urged Eva (his sister) to do the same. He began to help her with her English, as he said it would be an important language to know and he was right. He thought he should prepare himself for liberation and he urged Eva to do the same.
As Eva wrote in her diary, Petr and her discovered a book on shorthand and began to practice. Petr seemed to be a teacher to Eva, more than a brother. He was always giving her new things to learn and study.
Petr’s plans came to a sudden halt in September of 1944, when he and his cousin Pavel were on the deportation list to Auschwitz-Birkenau. He boarded the train and he was sent to Auschwitz.
Sadly Petr, being in Terezin for as long as he was, was very skinny and did not look like he was able to work. He was sent immediately to die in the gas chamber.
Their father was deported to Terezin in 1945. Eva (who you’ll read about later) and her father were liberated by the Russian army on May 8, 1945.
When they were able to go home, they were met by their mother, who said “And where is Petr?” Petr was gone. They waited and waited for him to come back. The family were finally told of Petr’s fate. Petr was only sixteen when he died, he would have turned seventeen that February.
Petr’s diaries seemed lost until sixty years later they appeared and Eva managed to get possession of them. The family donated a lot of Petr’s drawings and writings to Yad Vashem.
Petr has been gone for so long that his story is starting to fade. But with the help of his sister, and Holocaust Museums, his story will never be out of reach. He would have turned ninety-four today, had he survived.
Petr was a talent that was taken too soon. Who knows what he could have been? He could have been an excellent author, artist or he could have found the cure to COVID or cancer. He was a boy who was serious about education, and he would have done great things academically. He was a smart boy and everyone around him knew this.
His underground magazine that he edited, illustrated and wrote for, was saved by one of the boys who was supposed to be on the transport. He was saved by saying that his father, who was the blacksmith, needed him that very moment. He went back to the barrack, where all the boys, including Petr, were gone. He saved all the issues of Vedem. They are now at Yad Vashem in Israel.
Petr’s Page of Testimony or death certificate is now at Yad Vashem, and you can view it online. Peter is almost mentioned in the book Salvaged Pages by Alexandra Zapruder.
In 2004, his sister Eva (Chava) published his first diary .
Otto and Petr had sisters, both who never met. But their sisters saved their words and one had them published. Felicitas kinda had Otto’s diaries published, but I wished they were published in English, fully.
You can read about Otto and Petr in my new book Among the Many
