My Years in Theresienstadt: How One Woman Survived the Holocaust
An early sign of the evil nature established by Hitler and his people. We were separated into barracks for women, men, children and seniors. Somehow my mother was able to convince the authorities that I, at the age of eight, should stay with her. This arrangement was quite unusual. Theresienstadt was a concentration camp but not an extermination camp with gas chambers like Auschwitz.
The perception is that Holocaust Survivors have a number tattooed on their underarm. All adults over sixteen years of age had to perform slave labor. My father was exposed to some heavy road work, including digging ditches. He was an attorney and was not used to this kind of labor. Additionally, witnesses have reported that he was whipped and physically abused.
My father apparently ended up as a nervous wreck when he could not keep up with the work load the Nazis expected of him. He could not handle it and lost half of his body weight. He became sick and was transferred to an infirmary where he spent several weeks. They had great doctors — Jewish inmates — but they did not have the medical supplies and tools nor the food to save my father. He passed away at the young age of forty after spending less than six months in camp.
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The Nazis stated that my father died from pneumonia; they were not going to admit that he died from starvation. It is amazing that the Nazis were not the only ones denying that my father died from starvation. Age, illness and physical strain was the reason for their death. It is in my opinion irresponsible reporting based on all the existing facts, documents and witnesses. An e-mail exchange with the author did not change his opinion.
A Historian or a Survivor? To my knowledge my mother was not physically abused but she was mentally abused on more than one occasion. She was working in a factory with many other women. One day an officer appeared and asked my mother how she was feeling.
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They were horrified that my mother had told the truth. To set an example and to dehumanize the women the officer retuned for the next seven days asking the same question. I did not have to perform slave labor since I was only eight. My mother thought, however, it would be a good idea for me to work since time would pass faster. I always have to remind students that communications were quite different in those days since we did not have television, computers and certainly not smart phones.
I was a messenger carrying documents and messages from one Nazi office to the other for a couple of hours a day. A minister related at one of my presentations to a Rotary Club that I was still a messenger since I was sharing my experiences with other people! On my way back to the barrack I passed a kitchen and found some big sacks of raw potatoes in the back. I took two potatoes and placed one in each of my pockets after making absolutely sure that nobody was watching me.
My mother and I would eat the raw potatoes. I did it a number of times; while technically it was stealing it was our way of surviving another day. When we returned to Denmark my mother told me that she was concerned that it would become habit-forming and that I would turn into a kleptomaniac! Fortunately that was not the case. We needed all the help we could get with food. We received very meager portions: Dinner was basically the same except at times we would get caraway soup and about once a week a special German pasta dish, dumplings.
How were we able to survive on those portions? Very difficult — 40, Jewish inmates out of , passed away from hunger and illnesses such as typhus. I may add that hygiene was very difficult due to conditions in camp including lack of soap; we received a substitute powder. It has, however, not been proven that we used soap made from diseased bodies as has been reported. I am very concerned when non-factual information appears in documents and books; it provides additional ammunition for the increasing number of Holocaust deniers.
We started receiving packages with food, vitamins and clothing from Denmark and Sweden after six months; unfortunately a few weeks too late to save my father. All Jewish inmates in Theresienstdat were entitled to receive packages. The Danes received more food than any other nation due to the tremendous support system and interest in the health of the Danish Jews in Theresienstadt. One day my mother opened a packages and could not understand why it was so heavy.
The Nazi guards had replaced the food with three bricks! How cruel can you be? What else did I do in camp? I played with other children. This included playing soccer on a gravel field. We did not have a real soccer ball but used some old clothes tied together by our mothers. Unfortunately some of my Czech soccer friends were among the 90, inmates out of , deported to extermination camps, such as Auschwitz-Birkenau.
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According to my mother the worst part was the uncertainty. Would we get enough food to live another day? Would we become seriously ill? Would we be deported to an extermination camp? What was going on in the outside world? Unfortunately the starvation and malnutrition impacted my father when he had only been married to my mother for a little less than ten years.
The days in camp went extremely slowly. Where She Came From: Felman, Shoshana and Laub, Dori. Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History. Routledge, Chapman and Hall Inc.
Accessibility links
Women, Modernity and the Holocaust. To Paint Her Life. Charlotte Salomon in the Nazi Era. Harpercollins Publishers, HarperPerennial, Women in German History: From the Emancipation to Sexual Libertion. Berg Publishers Limited, Women Writers and the Holocaust: The Persistence of Youth: Oral Testimonies of the Holocaust. Greenwood Publishing Group, Flying Against the Wind: Houghton Mifflin Co, The World without Human Dimensions.
State Jewish Musuem in Prague, Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust. Fortress of my Youth. University of Wisconsin Press, Different Horrors, Same Hell. Escape through the Balkans: The Autobiography of Irene Grunbaum. University of Nebraska Press, Bison Books Corp, New Voices in the Nation: Women and the Greek Resistance Cornell University Press, Chronicle of A Survivior. A Child's Journey Through the Holocaust. University of Massachusetts Press, The County of Birches. Douglas and McIntyre, Reconstructing the World of a Hungarian-Jewish Family.
Bibliograhpy & Bookstore: Women and the Holocaust
McGill-Queen's University Press, I Am Still Living. Leitner, Isabella and Irving, Leitner. From Auschwitz to Freedom. Hold on to Life, Dear. Making Stories Making Selves: Feminist Reflections on the Holocaust. Ohio State University Press. The Growing Assault of Truth and Memory. The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust From Prejudice to Destruction.
In the Days of Destruction and Revolt. Memoirs of a Survivor. University of Illinois Press, Children of the Flames: Joseph Mengele and the Untold. One by One by One. Wayne State University Press, Sophie Scholl and the White Rose. German Women Recall the Third Reich. Rutgers University Press, Perl, Lila and Blumenthal-Lazan, Mario. Phayer, Michael and Fleisner, Eva. Cries in the Night: Women Who Challenged the Holocaust. Sheed and Ward, Raicus, Ethel and Silberstein Swartz, Sarah.
- Doctor in Love.
- Haunted Liverpool 16.
- Theresienstadt ghetto.
Stories by Yiddish Women Writers. University of Toronto Press, The Political Consequences of Thinking: Gender and Judaism in the Work of Hannah Arendt. State University of New York Press, Rittner, Carole and John K. Women and the Holocaust. To Tell At Last. Stories of Children Rescued from the Holocaust. Rosner, Mina and Rossiter, Margaret L. I Am A Witness. Schaffer, Mollie Weinstein and Cyndee Schaffer. Exile and Destruction - the Fate of Austrian Jews.
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