The Three Diarists
The three diarists of our time. All Jewish, and all dead. They had survivors in their families. Let’s go through each of them and it’ll be apparent on how they are so much alike in every way.
Moshe Ze’ev Flinker was born on October 9, 1926 in The Hague in Holland. He was one of seven children. He had a younger brother and five sisters. He was a very religious Jewish boy who had a lot of good thoughts when it came to writing. He was a talented linguist, and knew several languages. In 1942, he went into hiding in Belgium, passing as a Non-Jew. He began writing his diary on November 24, 1942. He wrote it in Hebrew, even though he grew up speaking and writing in Dutch. He was writing not to give a detail of his day, but to write his religious plights, of the Jewish people. He wanted to know what was to become of his people, and how could terrible things be happening to them? Where was God, he wanted to know. Would God save them? What was to become of him in the future?
Moshe’s diary continued and he completed it by saying :
“September 6, 1943
Now that I have reached the end of the first notebook of my diary, feelings of thankfulness come over me: first to our Lord, the Lord of Israel, who has protected me and my family in such terrible times, and who has given me the privilege of understanding and knowing His divine guidance and heavenly protection; and second, my thoughts turn to my teacher, my master, and my guide — Mr. Grebel — whose memory has not left me from the moment I left The Hague, and about whom I have written little because I did not feel that my soul was pure enough to speak of this most beloved and dear man.
My Lord, so close art Thou to me and yet so far. I search for Thee constantly, my thoughts go out unto Thee, and my acts as well. My Lord, my Lord, do not abandon me. Hearken to my pleading voice, and have mercy and compassion on me.
Twilight, the hour of the Minha (afternoon) prayer. [Undated]
I am sitting facing the sun. Soon it will set; it is nearing the horizon. It is as red as blood, as if it were a bleeding wound“some unknown reason have become worthless. Trouble never ends … and every time I meet a child of my people I ask myself: “Moshe, what are you doing for him?” I feel responsible for every single pain. I ask myself whether I am still participating in the troubles of my people, or whether I have withdrawn completely from them. Some three or four months ago I would have had no trouble at all in answering these questions, because then I was attached to my brothers with all the fibers of my heart and soul, but now all has changed. From the moment I became empty, I have felt as if all this no longer concerns me. I feel as if I were dead.
The end of my diary, thanks to the Lord.”
His comfortable life in hiding came to a sudden halt in 1944 in April. Someone had tipped off the Gestapo that Jews were hiding in an apartment on 1 Pike Street. There, his sisters Esther Malka, Leah, himself and his mother were all arrested. They were all interrogated and had their photos taken. The photo of Moshe looking angry at the camera, is actually his mug shot and one of the only photos that remain of him. He was then deported to Malines Transit Camp. His father, and his remaining siblings were out of the apartment and when his father went back, the landlord signaled for him not to enter. He waited for his other children who were at the public baths. He immediately found a hiding place for them and they stayed in the hiding place for the remainder of the war. His father was found after two weeks and sent to Malines where he found Moshe, his wife and daughters. They were all deported to Auschwitz, where his mother died immediately. Moshe is said to have died there, but he did not . His sister Leah remembers seeing him across the barbed wire on the other side. She saw him about two or three times and then she never saw him again. He and his father were sent to Echterdingen work camp, where they worked on repairing landstrips. They worked in terrible conditions and not to mention diseases spread quickly among the prisoners. Typhus was deadly and common. Sadly, Moshe caught the disease. Then, in 1945, Moshe and his father were sent to Bergen-Belsen, where they both died there in January of 1945.
All his siblings survived the war and went back to Belgium to rebuild their lives. The landlord kept Moshe’s diary. They took it with them and they all immigrated to Israel. Esther Malka immigrated to the States in the 1950’s.
Moshe has numerous nieces and nephews. His diary was published in 1971.
Otto Wolf is another Jew who went into hiding during the Holocaust.
He was born on June the 5th, 1927 in Moravia, Mohleniece, Czech Republic. He was the baby of three children. His older brother, Kurt was born on February 13, 1915 in Lipnik, Czech Republic and the sister that would ultimately rescue the diaries, Felicitas was born on March 27, 1920 in Lipnik, Czech Republic. They lived in Olomouc for a while. Felicitas was in fashion, being a manager of a clothing store, teaching dressmaking and going to school for technical design. Kurt, was in Brno studying to become a doctor.
When the Nazis came to town, Kurt jumped ship and headed to Russia, which he felt was safer there. He then joined the Czech Army as their doctor, which really came in handy. Felicitas and Otto were trapped, or so they thought.
Otto begins his diary on June 22, 1942. He wrote:
“June 22, 1942. Monday, first week.
“We depart Tršice at 2 P.M. en route to Olomouc. We are being moved out. Josef Lón takes us, because Mrs. Zdařilová could not get anyone else. Farewells are tough, and we are all quite upset. We make good time, and get to Olomouc around 4 P.M. Before we left Tršice, I turned in our apartment key at the district office, and also got identification papers for Licka [Felicitas, Otto’s sister]. We get off in Olomouc-Hodolany and tell Lón that we are going to see a doctor and some friends. We enter an apartment building. Just to make it look legitimate, Dad asks where Mr. Hanzlík lives. We rip the stars from our clothes right away. Around 4:30 P.M., we leave Olomouc-Hodolany to go back to Tršice. Lón had turned in the packages at the school, and we go on foot. We march tirelessly until 11:45 P.M. — we only take about an hour of rest en route. We go through Veliký Týnec around 7 P.M. Anyway, we reach the forest around midnight. Slávek had already been here with the backpacks, but because we are so late, he had gone back with them and then they carted the sewing machine and the box with stuff that has been prepared to the house of Zdařil the painter. We don’t sleep much — we just lie there. We feel like we’d been whipped.”
He was aided by a gardener named Jaroslav Zdařil, also known as Slavek in Otto’s diary. It is not certain why he was called Slavek, either Otto came up with that name, or that was what he was known by? Otto wrote about what time his family got up in the morning and what they did during the day. They hid in Slavek’s barn for almost two years. But when the relationship got so toxic between the family and Slavek, they knew they had to find a more secure hiding place. They were aided by a local dentist named Mrs. Ludmila Tichá, and Maria Zbořilová, their former maid, who said she would help them at any time. On April 13, 1944, the family moved to the attic of the Zboril’s house. They remained with the Zboril’s for almost a year. Mr. Zboril who always had been hesitant about them being there, demanded they leave. They were then aided by a woman named Andela Chodilová, and they hid in the house of the Oheras in Zakrov. They seemed safe for the time being, but then there was an attack on the town of Zakrov. On April 17, 1945, Otto was mistaken for a partisan. As Felicitas wrote in his diary what had happened:
“At 6 A.M., they [the Vlasov troops] ask us all for personal identification. They confront our Otošek [diminutive for Otto] first. He is at a loss for words, and finally says that he is visiting the Oheras and that he is from Telč. The Vlasovite commander does not believe him, though, and simply says: “You’re coming with me.” Otto rises to his feet resolutely and goes, although his face is as white as paper. “The rest of us feel like knives are being driven into our hearts. They demand identification from Papa, too, but he says that he has special dispensation and besides is sixty-one already, so finally they leave him alone. “They don’t even bother Mommy and me. […] After a search, they line up all their prisoners. There are about fifteen of them, including Mr. Ohera, our Otošek, Michlík, Hodulík, the two Závodník boys, and some others we don’t know. Papa is the last to glimpse them as the Vlasovites lead them, double file, toward Újezd where they have their headquarters. We are all half-dead with anxiety about what will happen next. […] Papa decides that whatever happens, we cannot afford to stay here and must go off to the forest, though unfortunately without our beloved Otošek. We take nothing with us except a piece of bread and some shmaltz. […] We are all so crushed by events that none of us has eaten anything since yesterday, and we all feel emotionally exhausted. Each of us tries to hide sadness, pain, and tears from the others. Papa laments and weeps terribly, and we have our hands full keeping him calm. Just before I returned from the Oheras’ in the afternoon, he had gone off to cut some branches so we have something to lie on in our hideout: a job that used to be Otík’s [diminutive for Otto]. It made him“so sad that he had to return to Mommy. He was so weak that he could not talk or even breathe. Mommy immediately gave him some medicine to calm him down. The weather is changeable and somewhat cold. We go to sleep at seven without having eaten anything.”
Otto was taken to Ujezd, the headquarters. The troops did not realize they had a Jew, until he was denounced by one of the men who was taken away, Hodulik. The Troops then hand Otto over to the Gestapo, the German police. The thing about Otto, is that he hated the Germans and he was not about to betray his loved ones. He would rather die for them than hurt them. The men from Trsice came back within a few hours, but the men from Zakrov, including Otto, did not. They remained. Sadly, Otto and the eighteen other young men, who were tortured, were taken to the forest in Kyjanice, where they were shot to death and then burned. But another story is told by Zdeňka Calábková, the daughter of Oldrich Ohera, who helped hide them, rembers 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’s life was destroyed.
His sister and parents hid in the forests until the end of the war. When they were liberated, they were told of Otto’s fate, as well as Kurt’s. Kurt was shot in action on March 9, 1943. Otto was the last child to die. Felicitas survived and so did her parents.
Felicitas who had turned twenty-five began to rebuild her life. Otto’s diaries were saved by Felicitas and she kept them with her. The Wolf’s moved back to Olomouc where they lived in an apartment.
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. Her father became a cantor in the Jewish community and died in 1962.
She married a man named Otto Gratzer. They already knew each other from primary school.
When the Communists came to power in 1948, the clothing store was nationalized without compensation. Felicitas continued to work, but slowly became uncomfortable with the new regime. After she married her husband, she moved to Ostrava where it was easier for her husband to find a job.
She gave birth 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, she donated all four volumes of Otto’s diaries, as well as photos of Otto, her, her parents and Kurt to the new United States Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, stating that she could no longer handle 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. She was seventy-five when she donated the diaries. The diaries are still at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum today.
Felicitas died on June 7 2006 at the age of eighty-six.
Felicitas Garda loved her family and she loved her brothers, especially Otto. She kept him alive for so many years and now they all are together.
There is a memorial for the men in Zakrov, 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.
Otto’s diaries are still at the USHMM in DC and you can view them online.
Anne Frank is the most iconic Holocaust victim there is. She was born on June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany. Yes, she was German. In 1933, when Adolf Hitler rose to power, Otto Frank, her father, got them out of the country and fled to Amsterdam, Holland, where she grew up. She learned the language and had Dutch friends and neighbors. In July of 1942, she went into hiding from the Nazis. She was hiding above her father’s business. When she was 13 she got her diary and began writing in it right away.
Not only was she in hiding, but The Van Pels and the Mr. Pfeffer. There were 8 of them total sharing one place. Crowded and trying to be careful of their every move, Anne felt trapped and crowded in the hiding place. She wrote in her diary and had dreams of being a famous writer.
On August 4, 1944, the 8 people were discovered and arrested.
They were sent to Westerbork Transit Camp and then on September 3, 1944, they were put on the last train to Auschwitz. Anne survived the first night in Auscwhitz. She seemed to be beating all the odds by surviving. But in November of 1944, she was put on yet another train. This time she was taken to Bergen-Belsen (the same place where Moshe Flinker died). She was scared to death and barely made the journey. Anne and Margot caught Typhus very quickly while they were there. Anne also got to talk to her childhood best friend, Hannah Goslar (now Pick) for the last time.
Anne died on March 12, 1945 at the age of 15.
Her father was the only sole survivor. He came back to the hiding place. His friend and rescuer, Miep Gies, handed Otto his daughter’s diary and said he had a job to do. He had faith that his daughters would come back to him. He looked endlessly at centers, at the list of names, hoping his daughter’s names would be there. But it took two sisters who saw Anne and Margot die, to tell him that both Margot and Anne were gone.
He published the diary in 1947. It was published in English in 1952, followed by a hit Broadway show and an Oscar winning movie.
The book has been translated into several different languages and it is the most banned book ever. The book describes her developing body, her feelings on every subject, particularly sex and romance.
The Anne Frank House, where they were hiding, is one of the most visited places in all of the world. There are centers and organizations that bare Anne’s name. The Anne Frank Center in New York and in England do everything they can to educate young people about the story of Anne.
Anne is buried in Bergen-Belsen in an unmarked grave but there is a grave there for her and Margot, which people go and visit.
There are countless Jewish teens and children who are just like Anne Frank. They were either in hiding, had diaries or both. But a lot of them died and their diaries were discovered and published or donated into archives or museums.
Anne, Moshe and Otto had so much in common. They all had sisters, had loving parents, were in hiding, but all ended. Moshe and Anne died in the same place, a few months after one another and Otto died from bullets and fire.
Anne, Moshe and Otto will always be important. Remember their names.
