The Opinion on Felicitas
Felicitas Garda (nee Wolf) would have turned 102 tomorrow, had she lived to see her 100th birthday. She died on June 7, 2006 at the age of 86. She was the older sister of Otto Wolf and the younger sister of Kurt Wolf. The brothers lost their lives during the Holocaust. No, they did not die in a camp or in a gas chamber. Kurt was shot in action during the Battle of Sokolovo on March 9, 1943 at the age of 28. Otto was shot and burned to death on April 20, 1945 at the age of 17.
Felicitas was the only one of the three of them to survive. As I do my research on the Wolf’s for my book Behind the Words: The Story of the Wolf Siblings, I came upon an article, that was more of an opinion piece on how survivors who don’t speak about their loved ones, made a “drastic mistake.” This made me think of Felicitas right away. As a Holocaust Survivor, she didn’t speak about Otto or Kurt for many, many years.
Felicitas was the only one of her siblings to survive, and she did not feel that she needed to discuss them. She made it look like they never existed, but there were constant things that reminded her of her beloved brothers. For one thing, when she went to the doctors, she would think of her beloved brother, Kurt. When she was given her brother, Otto’s diaries to hold onto, she tried not to look at them as much as she could. The article, which now has been gone for sometime, also states: “Survivors who do not speak about their experiences or their loved ones are just harboring trauma.” As I would say this: Jews who do that, have a reason. Felicitas’s reasons were probably obvious: they both died in horrific ways, and they are not here anymore. She had to rebuild her entire life. Her life, without them. She had gotten married, without her brothers. She gave birth twice, to Eva (Vavrecka) and to Hannah (I’m still trying to see if she got married or anything), again without her brothers being there. It’s a funny thing when you grow up without the ones you love. It seems like there’s a hole in your life, that will never get filled. That’s what survivors felt when they lost their loved ones. Felicitas had a big hole, a hole that was meant for two brothers to always be there. But she did not get that. Instead, she had to rebuild her entire life from scratch, thinking she had no brothers, but their memories always haunted her. With Otto being gone, she had lost the brother that she’d hope she’d save, but she couldn’t.
In Felicitas’s case, loosing both of her brothers, was very traumatic for her.
Otto, who was the youngest, and famous for his diary, which Felicitas saved, she donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC in 1995, when she was 75. She stated that she could no longer handle him. She had been dealing with his memory for more than 50 years. His death marked her for life. His death was horrific and he wasn’t properly buried. The thing that is surprising, he saved her life. He saved his entire family. When he was brutally tortured for not giving the Nazis information on who he was, or where he was from or any details, he was then killed. Otto’s bravery was remembered for years to come. Kurt, on the other hand, despite his Captain’s orders, he decided to advance and fight the dirty Nazis once and for all. He didn’t make it out alive. He was targeted and then blasted out of existence. That simple. But Kurt was dead before Otto was killed. Kurt was killed on the 9th of March, 1943. Otto was killed in April of 1945.
Felicitas kinda passed that generational trauma to her family. People say that when a family is private, there is a reason behind it. I always wondered this with Deanna Durbin’s family. Deanna and Felicitas had a little bit in common, but they suffered in different ways. Felicitas struggled to stay alive and Deanna had struggled to stay afloat in the film industry. Both were married and had children, now almost in their 70’s. The family of the Wolf’s, unresponsive they might be, will probably never understand or grasp the importance of their Mother’s story of survival. It’s a testimony for documentation. It’s evidence that the Holocaust really did happen (despite there being bigoted idiots who think that the Holocaust was a hoax, and that included actress Jeanne Crain’s crazy granddaughter). Her story is part of history of the thousands of Czech Jews who were affected by the Holocaust. The stories of Kurt, Otto and Felicitas are so important and that’s what I try to do, is write down all their stories, so when they are gone (which all of them are now), we can still remember their stories.
Felicitas, as people have said, made a “drastic mistake” by not giving any interviews, or discussing her family on tape or anything. The USHMM didn’t interview her, which is a shame, because it would have been great to have heard her testimony about Kurt or Otto. She barely spoke of them. She tried so hard to “move past them.”
It’s difficult when you have lost two brothers, especially the way that they died. Felicitas’s family do not speak about either of them, which is a shame, because history is being stuffed down, without any indication that they want to keep her memory alive.
As for me, my research is trying to keep them alive.
I don’t think Felicitas made a drastic mistake, but I do think she missed the opportunity for educators, such as myself, to study the family with more precision.
I think Felicitas’s story with Otto and Kurt’s should be told, no matter what history does. They were part of the horrific part of history and if she doesn’t want to tell her story, I’ll do it for her.
