Fred Terna's Notes by Gabe Godin

Frederick Terna

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205-3704

May 17, 1998

FIRST NOTE FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

While writing these notes in May 1998, Daniel Terna, our son, is a pupil in the fifth grade of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School. His mother, Rebecca Shiffman, is the daughter of survivors of the Shoah. I, Frederick Terna, Daniel’s father, am a survivor.

It is close to sixty years since German troops occupied Prague, my hometown. From then on the life of the Jewish community of Prague, that of my family, and also mine was quite restricted and confined. Gradually the entire Jewish community was shipped to a transit camp, Ghetto Theresienstadt and from there to death camps such as Auschwitz and Treblinka. After the war ended in May 1945 a few survivors returned. Our families, our community had perished. I am the only survivor in the Taussig/Terna family.

After the occupation of Prague by German troops Jewish children were expelled from school. My formal education came to an end early in 1939 at age fifteen. Levels of oppression were added from day to day. Marketing was restricted to fewer and fewer hours. Food rations were reduced. We had to wear a yellow star at all times. There was a curfew at 8 o’clock. Several families were forced to move together into one apartment. Anything of value, radios, jewelry, bank accounts, art, were confiscated. Random brutality and terror accompanied each one of these steps; including even physical attacks against old people and children.

October 3rd 1941, I was put into a labor camp named Lipa, in German called Linden bei Deutsch-Brod. Then from Linden in March 1943 I was moved to Ghetto Theresienstadt, from Theresienstadt in 1944 to Auschwitz, and from Auschwitz to a sub-camp of Dachau, Kaufering. I was liberated near Kaufering on April 27th, 1945, after three years, six month, three weeks, and two days in concentration camps. I was one of the shuffling skeletons photographed by liberating allied soldiers. I weighed less than 35 kilos, about 75 lb., and I was near death.

It would take more emotional energy than available to me today to describe events very much alive in my memory. I know from past experience that dwelling on details will evoke feelings within me that will disturb my functioning for a long time. The murderous brutality of the system has been documented, and described by witnesses and historians. Words fail to tell the pain and suffering, and I shall not attempt it here.

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My survival was due to luck. I was, statistically, of the right age, useful as slave labor, old enough to be picked for temporary enslavement, rather than to be sent immediately into the gas. When every tenth was shot I was number nine. On a long train ride in a jammed cattle-car I did not die of thirst. On a long march my boots held out, and I was not shot lagging behind. I was emotionally well prepared by my father for the stress that was to come my way. I know that I owe my emotional survival to my father’s teaching. I was rather young then but I knew at all times what I was, what my tradition stood for, and that my oppressors were doomed criminals.

In the Kaufering camps we were slave labor working twelve-hour shifts building huge factories. We were marched for over an hour to the work site, and back another hour after work. There were hours spent being counted. Before work we got “coffee”, a black brew made from chicory. It was at least a liquid we felt safe to drink. At work, during a break, we got a slice of moldy bread, occasionally a tiny amount of artificial honey. Upon returning to camp there was a long wait for soup, a thin liquid with traces of cabbage, occasionally a slice of potato. It added up to about 600 calories and to an assured death after a few months. Brutal guards driving us to work faster accelerated that death. In the camp we had about five hours of sleep in earth huts, leaky roofs on muddy soil.

It did not take long to understand that group cohesion was a survival mechanism. There was hardly any violence between inmates; systems of mutual protection arose without planning. While we were all nameless inmates each one of us had been a functioning person before, and remained so in the camps. A teacher remained a teacher, a baker a baker, a physician a physician. The Nazis tried to demoralize us, but they failed. There was no soap, and barely enough water to drink. We became smelly, lice- infested, and dirt-encrusted, ghostly apparitions the Nazis felt they had every right to murder. They killed teachers, bakers, and physicians. We lived, and died upholding the values of our communities.

While in the camps we promised to each other that the one who survives would tell what happened to us. I remember every one of them, teacher, baker, and physician, every one of them a person, a life to be remembered, a memory to be observed.

The self-imposed limits of this space allow me to omit detail, and I welcome that condition. While the Shoah was limited in time, and many years have passed since then, it is here for me now. I’m aware of it every second of my life: Inside of me there is a crazed double bass playing an unpredictable tune. Over the years I have learned to play a fiddle above it so that there should be some harmony to my life.

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Frederick Terna

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205-3704

May 17, 1998

FIRST NOTE FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

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brutality of the system has been documented, and described by witnesses and historians. Words fail to tell the pain and suffering, and I shall not attempt it here.

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********Frederick Terna

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205-3704

May 29, 1998

A SECOND SET OF NOTES FORTHE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

These lines are written by Frederick Terna, father of Daniel J. Terna. Today, in May 1998, Daniel is a pupil in the fifth grade of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School.

Jochanan (Jan) Terna, the grandfather of Daniel Jochanan Terna, was born in 1893 in Prague, today the capital of the Czech Republic. He went to school in Prague, eventually attending Charles University there, and graduating as a Doctor of Law. When World War I broke out in 1914 he was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army as a lieutenant. For a short time after the end of World War I he worked and lived in Vienna where he married Lona Herzog, Daniel’s grandmother. I, Frederick Terna, and my younger brother Tommy were born in Vienna. The family soon moved back to Prague where my father worked in the insurance business. While the business provided for the family, my father’s focus was on philosophy and sociology. My most vivid memory of that time is that of my father sitting in his study surrounded by heavy volumes, underlining text, and taking notes.

Early in 1939 Nazi Germany occupied Prague. The oppression of Jews began almost immediately. I shall omit here details of the increasing harshness of this persecution. In December 1941 Daniel’s grandfather was shipped to Terezin, in German called Theresienstadt. It was the second transport of two sent to convert the fortress town of a few thousand into a transit camp for tens of thousands of Jews from Bohemia and Moravia. All members of these first two transports were young men. At age 48 Jochanan Terna was probably the oldest, and as ‘the old man’ had a position of respect. In 1942 he was shipped with a small group to a coal mine in Kladno, not too far from Terezin. Try to visualize a 49-year-old professorial, intellectual Doctor of Law suddenly forced to work in a coal mine. Without adequate food, in abysmally wretched living conditions he became ill with tuberculosis, and was shipped back to Terezin. By then the place was called Ghetto Theresienstadt.

In Terezin he was assigned to a part of barracks that was set aside for tuberculosis patients. There were separate rooms for women, men, and also for children. Instead of the standard triple bunks there were double bunks for those still in reasonable physical condition, but some rooms had single bunks. There were excellent doctors there, but no medication, and only rather primitive medical equipment. The nursing staff was heroic in

their effort to keep their patients comfortable, and in good spirit. There was the same lack of food as in the rest of Terezin. The main reason for the separate area for tuberculosis patients was the effort to keep the rest of the inmates of Terezin from contact with a then incurable, and eventually fatal disease.

As one of the early arrivals in Terezin Daniel’s grandfather was allowed to pick his roommates, twelve men. They were all exceptionally well educated, and experts in many fields, including former scientists, lawyers, physicists, manufacturers, high administrative officials, a judge, and authorities in other fields. Their narrow bunks were made of barely finished planks; their mattresses were burlap sacks filled with straw. There was not enough space to walk between bunks. Their few possessions were stored on a narrow shelf above the head. What little sanitation existed was totally inadequate. Everybody had bed bugs and fleas. When a member of the room would die of tuberculosis or of complications caused by it another well-educated or interesting person would replace him. Their main activity was talk, and more talk, argument, and more argument. They switched freely and comfortably from Czech to German and back again, and would, on occasion, include other foreign language phrases, expecting everyone to understand.

In March 1943, then not quite 20 years old, I was transferred from a labor camp, Linden bei Deutsch-Brod, in Czech called Lipa, to Ghetto Theresienstadt. Quite unexpectedly I found out that my father was there. In Terezin I was assigned to a work group that did internal maintenance work wherever it was needed: digging ditches, building barracks, repairing roofs, etc. My working hours were rather loose and irregular, and that allowed me to spend time with my father, before I had to be back in my barracks at 8 p.m., curfew time. It was a time for long conversations, and for learning.

As often as I could I would listen in on the conversation and arguments in the room. As the one who had gathered the others in the room my father appropriated to himself the role of arbiter and chair. No subject was out of limits though politics and the war often were the focus. There were heated arguments about philosophy, ethics and aesthetics, history and the arts. I was aware of listening to an unusual gathering of sages.

One of the subjects discussed was the question what to do about Germany after the war. The defeat of Germany was an agreed-upon fact, and expected within a foreseeable time. To have the discussion proceed in a structured, and realistic fashion it was decided that each man in the room would represent, and speak for one of the allied nations: USA, England, France, Russia, Canada, etc. and so down the list. The need was perceived to include the then still Nazi-occupied countries such as Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Netherlands, etc. Each man would propose a settlement favorable to the nation he represented. The discussion lasted quite a few days. There were as many suggestions as there were speakers. Proposals included the division of Germany into ten occupied territories, another one asked for the division of Germany into states as they existed early in the 19th century under Napoleon. There was the recommendation to divide Germany into the same 300 or so units following the treaty of Westphalia of 1648. One idea was presented quite facetiously. It was the one that I liked best. Germany was to retain its

borders of 1932 with one strictly enforced condition: All metal, every last scrap was to be collected, and delivered to the Allies. No use of any metal was to be permitted in the future.

The discussion was kept in serious bounds, national feelings, economics, geography, historical experience were all given their due attention. No conclusion was reached. In a small way the room was anticipating a debate in the future United Nations. The man representing the Soviet Union, (he was a fiery communist), insisted that he, the USSR, because of the heavy burden of military casualties, and the damage suffered, should have extra votes. He insisted, as the only socialist representative in the group, that there had to be unanimity in any major decision about Germany. The UN veto was formally proposed in Ghetto Theresienstadt in 1943!

The debate continued into 1944. Some members of my father’s room died of tuberculosis, others were put into transports east to a then unknown destination.

In the fall of 1944 I was put into a transport. When it arrived in Auschwitz I was one of the younger men pulled out to become slave labor. A few weeks later the entire ward of tuberculosis patients of Terezin, their doctors, and their nurses were loaded into freight cars, part of a transport of 1500 men, women, and children. Upon arrival in Auschwitz all were forced into the gas chamber. Daniel’s grandfather was one of them.

********Frederick Terna

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205-3704

May 29, 1998

A SECOND SET OF NOTES FORTHE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

These lines are written by Frederick Terna, father of Daniel J. Terna. Today, in May 1998, Daniel is a pupil in the fifth grade of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School.

In Terezin he was assigned to a part of barracks that was set aside for tuberculosis patients. There were separate rooms for women, men, and also for children. Instead of

the standard triple bunks there were double bunks for those still in reasonable physical condition, but some rooms had single bunks. There were excellent doctors there, but no medication, and only rather primitive medical equipment. The nursing staff was heroic in their effort to keep their patients comfortable, and in good spirit. There was the same lack of food as in the rest of Terezin. The main reason for the separate area for tuberculosis patients was the effort to keep the rest of the inmates of Terezin from contact with a then incurable, and eventually fatal disease.

represented. The discussion lasted quite a few days. There were as many suggestions as there were speakers. Proposals included the division of Germany into ten occupied territories, another one asked for the division of Germany into states as they existed early in the 19th century under Napoleon. There was the recommendation to divide Germany into the same 300 or so units following the treaty of Westphalia of 1648. One idea was presented quite facetiously. It was the one that I liked best. Germany was to retain its borders of 1932 with one strictly enforced condition: All metal, every last scrap was to be collected, and delivered to the Allies. No use of any metal was to be permitted in the future.

The debate continued into 1944. Some members of my father’s room died of tuberculosis, others were put into transports east to a then unknown destination.

Frederick Terna

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205-3704

October 26, 1998

A THIRD SET OF NOTES FORTHE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

These lines are written by Frederick Terna, father of Daniel Terna. Daniel is a pupil in the sixth grade of the Middle School.

Before the war I lived, and went to school in Prague, today the capital of the Czech Republic. After March 15th 1939, and the occupation of Prague by Nazi Germany, the education of Jewish children was prohibited. Attempted circumvention was punished severely by the German authorities. I shall record here some of my recollections about my education and learning during the war.

After the expulsion from public and private schools Jewish parents tried to organize private educational networks for their children. This proved to be a dangerous venture, the Gestapo, the German secret police, quickly stopped these attempts with their usual brutality. Parents provided education, occasionally children were taught in a most informal way by friends or family.

Between the fall of 1938 and the seizure of the “Sudetenland”, and the eventual Nazi occupation of the rest of Bohemia and Prague in 1939, the educational system fell under the influence of Nazi political power and ideology. Jewish teachers were dismissed, and replaced by Nazi sympathizers. Jewish students had to sit in the back of the classroom, the “Judenbankerl”, the Jew’s bench. I was then a student of a “Staatsrealgymnasium”, the equivalent of a lower high school. We were nine Jews in a class of about 35. We made it our task to excel in our studies, to know more that the rest of the class. It did not make us too popular with our new teachers, but made us feel good.

After March 1939, then 15 years old, I, as all other Jewish children, was forbidden to continue school. Since even informal classes proved to be too dangerous my father found friends of his to talk to me. It was the most thorough teaching I ever experienced. Jewish adults had been dismissed from their jobs, were not allowed to continue in their profession, or had their businesses confiscated. Informal teaching was a welcome distraction from their gnawing worries of how to cope with a steadily worsening oppression. Thus I continued learning mathematics from a structural engineer, who gave me practical problems to solve, learned French from a translator, chemistry and biology

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from pharmacist, I learned bookkeeping and commercial law. My father’s hobby was sociology and philosophy. I had always enjoyed reading about history and far-away places. This became a rigorous study of history and geography.

In 1940 my father got me false papers, and arranged for me to work on a huge farm as an assistant to the manager. There I learned about agriculture. This attempt to hide with false papers came to an abrupt end. Since this is an account about learning I shall omit details.

In 1941, then not quite 18 years old, I was taken to my first camp called in German Linden bei Deutsch-Brod. In Czech it was called Lipa. It was a labor camp established on a large estate, and run by the Gestapo of Prague. It was a small camp, about 300 men, mostly former college students, one, “the old man”, was 35 years old. We were slave labor, doing farm and forestry work, road building, and construction. It was hard work with little food, but in a relative way it was a “good” camp. Nobody was killed there, though all inmates eventually wound up in Ghetto Theresienstadt, and from there inevitably were shipped to Auschwitz. We were acutely aware of the fact that our education had stopped. A system developed rather spontaneously: “Teach me what you know, and I’ll teach you what I know”. There were no books to learn from, and we had to depend on memory. We knew that there had been civilizations that functioned on oral history alone, without a written record. We managed to acquire paper and writing utensils. I learned, e.g., differential calculus, some basic English, and music theory. I in turn taught geography, history, and sociology. The main problem was finding time and energy within the camp system.

In March 1943 all inmates of Lipa were shipped to Ghetto Theresienstadt, in Czech called Terezin. Today there are many books about Terezin, well-researched studies, and detailed records about the effort to educate children there.

In an earlier set of notes I mentioned that upon arriving in Terezin I found my father there. To the extent possible he continued to teach me. I was about 20 years old then. We talked about ethics and well ordered society, justice and law, about his ideas, and his philosophy. It was one long discussion lasting nearly one year and a half. My physical survival of the war is a statistical accident; my spiritual survival is due to of my father’s teaching. While in Terezin I attended all lectures I could find time for. I remember quite well the lectures of Rabbi Leo Baeck about ancient philosophy. I sought conversation with people who could teach me something, anything. It was a rare person who would refuse my questions. Many inmates of Terezin had been honored and important in their fields, and they willingly talked about their expertise.

In the fall of 1944 a number of transports shipped most of the remaining inmates of Terezin to Auschwitz. I was in one of them. On arrival in Auschwitz I was one of the few of our transport that were picked for slave labor. All the others were gassed. The

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eastern front line was getting closer, and Auschwitz was being evacuated. There were a few more selections in the “Zigeunerlager”, the part of Auschwitz/Birkenau I was in. Men still in tolerable physical condition were herded into freight cars. After several days, without water or food, and barely enough air to breathe, the train stopped. Survivors of the train ride were herded into an enclosure that was called Kaufering 4, a sub-camp of Dachau.

The Kaufering camps in southern Bavaria were a cluster of camps close to a huge construction site for underground factories. Upon their completion they were to be assembly plants for German fighter planes. We, remnants of Jewish communities from Lithuania to Amsterdam to Saloniki, were the slaves to build them. In the winter of 1944/1945 there was no doubt about the early end of Nazi Germany. Allied armies had pushed deep into German territory, German defeat, and our liberation were a certainty. This did not deter the Nazis from forcing us to work twelve-hour shifts day and night, seven days a week, with one slice of moldy bread, and a bowl of thin cabbage soup a day. Kaufering was the worst camp I experienced. The camp guards were particularly brutal and violent. If they did not kill us, hunger and exhaustion would do it for them in a short time.

We were thinking about the future, the need to function after the war. We talked in small groups, learning this or that from each other. I remember a diminutive man from a small town somewhere in Poland, who was a young mathematics teacher. He taught some of us analytic geometry without even a scrap of paper, patiently repeating points on an imaginary graph, connecting them into a line, and going over formulas again and again. He was a true genius, and a dedicated teacher. I learned about glass manufacturing from a man who had owned a factory in Bohemia. I taught as much as my energy would allow.

By then I knew that the need for learning was an acknowledgment of life after concentration camps, that teaching and learning were instruments of survival.

Only a few of us lived to see our liberation. Looking back over the many years of the war, the years spent in concentration camps, I know that learning made us look towards the future, even though we were not aware of it at first. Learning gave us strength to look beyond the horror of the moment to a new life.

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Frederick Terna 321 Washington Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11205-3704

October 26, 1998

A THIRD SET OF NOTES FORTHE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

These lines are written by Frederick Terna, father of Daniel Terna. Daniel is a pupil in the sixth grade of the Middle School.

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me practical problems to solve, learned French from a translator, chemistry and biology from pharmacist, I learned bookkeeping and commercial law. My father’s hobby was sociology and philosophy. I had always enjoyed reading about history and far-away places. This became a rigorous study of history and geography.

In the fall of 1944 a number of transports shipped most of the remaining inmates of

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Documents\SHOAH\ARCHIV03.DOC

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Terezin to Auschwitz. I was in one of them. On arrival in Auschwitz I was one of the few of our transport that were picked for slave labor. All the others were gassed. The eastern front line was getting closer, and Auschwitz was being evacuated. There were a few more selections in the “Zigeunerlager”, the part of Auschwitz/Birkenau I was in. Men still in tolerable physical condition were herded into freight cars. After several days, without water or food, and barely enough air to breathe, the train stopped. Survivors of the train ride were herded into an enclosure that was called Kaufering 4, a sub-camp of Dachau.

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Frederick Terna

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205-3704

718 636-1955

FAX 718 638 1727

November 2, 1998

A FOURTH SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

These lines are written by Frederick Terna, father of Daniel Terna. Daniel is a pupil in the sixth grade of the Middle School.

Tommy Terna, Daniel’s uncle, was born in 1926. He lived, and went to school in Prague, today the capital of the Czech Republic. Tommy was my younger brother. We were born about three years apart. Our family was part of the Jewish community, less than 25,000 in a city of nearly one million.

Prague Jews had a long and illustrious history, and we were well aware of it. While growing up there during the late 1920’s and the 1930’s Prague Jewish families were largely middle-class, rather intellectual, art and culture oriented, comfortable, but not wealthy, and only few were poor. Up to 1938 Prague Jews were contributing to the cultural life of the city quite out of proportion to their numbers. Anti-Semitism, to the extent that it manifested itself in the Czech lands, was much lower than in other Slavic countries to the east, the residue of centuries of church and government vilification, and persecution. In the newly established Czechoslovakia of 1918, and until 1938, except for noisy, and largely ineffectual anti-Jewish political groups, there was no significant friction between the Jews of Prague, and the rest of the citizenry. I don’t recall a single expression of anti-Semitic sentiment or behavior in those years.

Tommy grew up in an atmosphere of tolerance, good will, and middle class values, not too different from that of children of the Herschel School today. In 1932 our mother suddenly died of pneumonia, a disease often fatal in those days. Both Tommy and I did not quite grasp the magnitude of our loss. Tommy was six years old then, and I nine. For a short time there were nannies taking care of us, but since our father did not re-marry, and could not give us the day-to-day care he wanted for us, we were living in “room and board” with a family of friends, in a good, and caring home. My father, our grandparents, and we lived in close proximity, and so did other relatives.

Less that a year later, in 1933, Hitler came to power in Germany.

Tommy’s life and mine too, was similar to that of a child today. There were differences, but they were mostly technical. In the early 1930’s there was no television, there were no refrigerators, none of the many appliances and gadgets we take for granted. We had a telephone, we had a radio. There was no hot running water. A gas water heater in the bathroom heated water. The kitchen had a huge coal-fired stove that allowed for a large cooking surface. The same firebox also heated two ovens, and a large kettle for hot water. All rooms were heated by stoves, some using coal, some coke, and some used “briquettes”, compressed coal powder in the shape of small bricks. These were used in huge ceramic ovens. At all times there was household help living with us.

We lived in a large apartment. While our mother was alive, the home was a “1920’s Modern” one. The building we lived in was in a, then, new section of the city. Large areas around us were open fields and gardens. Today that part of the city is built up, and is considered to be close to the old core of Prague. We were allowed to play in the street, and in the adjacent fields. There was no traffic, now and then a car would pass by, more likely it would be a horse-drawn wagon. I don’t recall even one parked car. All year round we played with other children on the street, and, most likely, none of them were Jews. We may have been the only Jewish family in the building.

After 1933 we lived very close to the center of the city. From our grandparents home, from an alcove, using opera glasses, we could watch almost all parades, entering or leaving Wenceslaus Square, then as now the center of the “New Town”. (It was settled in the 14th century!). In their home, and also in other places of the family, the furnishings were Victorian, massive, and somewhat somber. There were heavy curtains and drapes, Persian carpets on intricately patterned floorboards. All this was somewhat intimidating for youngsters of our age, and did not lend itself easily to romping and raucous play. It did however radiate an aura of security, of solid values. As children we were not aware how well to do our condition was. Within this comfortable ambiance our food, and our clothing were quite simple, we were made aware of the less fortunate world around us. There were comparatively few toys; we had scooters, and only much later bicycles, an obvious and deliberate policy not to spoil us. Books, however, were around us in large numbers. There was a large library in our home. There was no closed shelf; we could read whatever interested us. My father’s policy was that we would get bored with subjects we did not understand. Any book we wanted to read would soon be bought. Music was part of our life. When about 12 years old we were allowed to go to the opera, and to go to see plays. Prague had several repertory stages, performing plays in Czech, and in German. Shakespeare, Moliere, Lope de Vega, Shaw or Schiller, and other classics plays would be presented sooner or later. We had to read the plays before seeing them performed.

In our home Czech and German was spoken with equal facility. (Yiddish had ceased to be a working language many generations ago.) Both parents and grandparents too, were fluent in several languages. My father was fluent in seven languages, and he certainly would not brag about that. It was rather common, and there were people around us who spoke more of them.

The age difference between Tommy and me, nearly three years allowed us to develop in somewhat different directions. We played together; we had different sets of friends, different interests.

Both Tommy and I attended public schools, and we went to different schools. Tommy’s school was a Czech speaking school, where French was the second language, mine was a bi-lingual one, with Czech and German instruction given equal weight. School started at 7:30 or 8:00 and generally ended at 1 P.M. Saturday was a shorter school day, ending at noon. This presented a problem for Jewish families. There were hardly any Jewish day schools, and they were in the eastern part of Czechoslovakia. The instruction there was in Yiddish, and in the mold of cheders, and rather inadequate. Because of the strict separation of religious and public education, religious institutions, in our case yeshivas, were educating future rabbis. We both walked to school, and back. It took me about half an hour. No thought was given to escort. It was safe for a child - or an adult - day, or night, to walk in the city. Once we knew our way, we walked alone. After homework we played, usually outside. There was a large park minutes away, and we would meet our friends there. Ball games, -soccer was a first choice-, and, depending on age, counting and hiding, cowboys and Indians, these were our outdoor activities. In winter we went skating or sledding. The Vltava River would freeze, and eventually the ice would get strong enough to skate on. Up to age 12, except for opera nights, bedtime was 8. P.M.

Summer vacation was spent in the country. While mother was alive we owned an old farmhouse. After the farmhouse was sold we went to summer camps. They were rather similar to summer camps here in this country. We probably would feel quite at home at Camp Ramah of today. There was travel to “distant” places. Distant meant about 100 miles away. Travel outside the country was a rare occurrence. Almost all travel was by train. During winter vacation we went skiing in mountains of northern Bohemia.

Almost all Sundays were spent with father. In good and warm weather there was a wide variety of possible activities. There were favorite ones, such as taking a paddle steamer up the Vltava river for about ten miles, have a picnic in the area, go swimming in the river, and return with another paddle-steamer. There were smaller steamers going a shorter distance to a large garden and restaurant with a bandstand where a military brass band performed. Often such outings were in a group of family and friends. The grownups would sit around a large table have coffee and cake, and talk and talk. We children were looking forward to get “grenadine”, club soda with strawberry syrup. There were elegant palaces, there were castles to visit within a short train ride, and there were hikes in the country, the zoo. When it was too cold we could go to the movies. Some movie houses would show animated cartoons only. That was where we saw color pictures long before feature films were shot in color. We loved Disney’s “Silly Symphonies”. The oldest part of Prague was always there as a sightseeing attraction. Walking and relating buildings to their past was a lesson in history, was a course about architectural styles from the Middle Ages to modern times.

On March 15th, 1939 all this came to an abrupt end with the occupation of Prague by Nazi Germany. Both Tommy and I were forbidden to continue in school, as were all other Jewish children. Tommy was 13 years old then. The oppression and persecution of Jews began right away, edict after edict repressing, confiscating, and limiting Jewish life with brutal force. It affected all of us, including children. It made us grow up quite rapidly in directions we had not anticipated. For a time I lived with false documents on a farm north of the city, and did not communicate directly with the family, and merely knew about Tommy’s activities. Tommy became a resourceful provider of food. This was quite dangerous at time; he had become a businessman circumventing the multitude of restrictions imposed.

Tommy had shown some of his business acumen right after school ended for him. Some time before that father had bought him a simple camera. Not too much later Tommy came home with a Leica, then perhaps the best and most expensive camera available. Father was upset, and wanted to know where the camera came from. Tommy gave him a precise accounting. He had made photos of objects for a collector, got paid well, and bought a better camera. He found a laboratory where he could rent time and equipment to process film, and print photos. After subsequent jobs he bought better and better cameras, and, finally, bought the Leica.

This led to Tommy’s apprenticeship in one of the best photo studios of Prague, “Photo Stehlik”. That studio was owned by a man who had recognized Karel Stehlik’s unusual gift as a portrait photographer, set Stehlik up as a business, and had the skill to keep Stehlik functioning. Stehlik was an alcoholic. Since the owner was a Jew he was thrown out by a German who insisted that Stehlik turn over to him a certain amount every month, but otherwise did not wish to run the business. There was Tommy, not yet 14 years old, sitting alone in the lab and a problem on his hand. The previous lab technician had left for a better job. Tommy knew of another boy from his earlier camera transactions, which too had been expelled from school, and was willing to help out. The main problem was Stehlik, and his drinking. The two kids soon had Stehlik under their thumb, were strict taskmasters, handled the business, and made sure that Stehlik had just enough money to buy a little wine. They would buy his food, pay his rent, buy him a new shirt, rather than let him go, and use the shirt money for a bottle of wine.

Tommy’s job in “Photo Stehlik” lasted through most of 1940, and part of 1941. By then I was living with false papers on a farm north of Prague. Late in summer 1941 I was betrayed, and had to return home in great haste. Shortly thereafter I was put into my first camp, Lipa. There was no time to talk with Tommy.

Father had been deported to Terezin in December 1941. When I arrived in Terezin in March 1943, father told me about Tommy’s life in 1941 and 1942. While still in Prague Tommy managed family matters in a situation that would have overwhelmed adults. Taking considerable risks, his energy, his skills, and his optimism kept a number of older folks functioning.

Working in “Photo Stehlik” included being outside the house, and without the yellow star. “Photo Stehlik” attracted German soldiers as customers. The two boys had bought welltailored army jackets to allow the soldiers to be shown well dressed on their photos. While the soldiers were in front of the camera, one of the boys detained them long enough so that the other one had time to photo documents in their regular uniform jackets. Father did not know where this information was forwarded.

Tommy and grandmother were deported to Terezin early in 1942. The three were housed in different barracks, but Tommy and father could meet and talk.

After only a short time in Terezin Tommy and grandmother were put into a transport to a then unknown destination. After the war I found out that the transport went to Treblinka, one of the death camps in occupied Poland. There were no survivors. Tommy was 16 years old.

A postscript added in July 2014.

On May 10, 2014, Zdenka Novakova, then close to ninety old, died in Miletin, Czech Republic. This information came from Jan Capoun, greatgrandson of Zdenka Novakova, known to Tommy as Zdenka Herboltova.

Tommy and Zdenka were teen-age friends.

In November 2013 Jan Capoun had e-mailed me photos of my father and Tommy which the Capouns had found at www.holocaust.cz.

In his recent e-mail Jan Capoun remembers his great-grandmother talking about Tommy, or Tomas, as Zdenka remembered him. Throughout her life Zdenka talked about Tommy, he was a part of her youth. Alas, except for a short time before being taken to my first camp, Lipa, I did not have a chance to find out more about Tommy. While I was living with false papers in 1940 and into 1941 in Lobkovice in Bohemia my contact with my family in Prague was minimal. Tommy was a young fourteen-year-old. For me he was the kid-brother. He and Zdenka were teen-agers in love.

Zdenka kept Tommy’s memory alive in Bohemia for seventyfive years.

Copy of e-mail mentioned above received from Jan Capoun on Novembwer 21, 2013:

Good evening, Mr. Terna,

I am writing you in the matter of an old friendship that existed between my grandgrandmother and your brother Tomáš. They were very close during 1942 and when they took separate ways in June, my grandgrandmother lost track of him and never found out that he died. She was too scared to search for him after the war.

I have found your brother among the victims of the Holocaust (www.holocaust.cz) along with his close relatives my grandgrandmother told me about - you were missing, and my grandgrandmother was thrilled by the fact that you managed to survive and live in the States. She is very interested in contacting you through the phone, supposing you still speak Czech (her English and German is not good). In case of your interest, her name is Nováková (borned and known by your brother as Heřboltová) and her number is +420493693401. She can as well call you and she already tried, but you don't seem to answer the number I've found on your web.

I enclose photos of your brother, father, grandmother (from the internet) and a harmonica, which my grandgrandmother was given by your brother as a rememberance.

Sincerely yours

4 Attachments

Preview attachment Harmonica.JPG

Harmonica.JPG

Frederick Terna

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205-3704

718 636-1955

FAX 718 638 1727

November 2, 1998

A FOURTH SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

These lines are written by Frederick Terna, father of Daniel Terna. Daniel is a pupil in the sixth grade of the Middle School.

Less that a year later, in 1933, Hitler came to power in Germany.

The age difference between Tommy and me, nearly three years allowed us to develop in somewhat different directions. We played together; we had different sets of friends, different interests.

elegant palaces, there were castles to visit within a short train ride, and there were hikes in the country, the zoo. When it was too cold we could go to the movies. Some movie houses would show animated cartoons only. That was where we saw color pictures long before feature films were shot in color. We loved Disney’s “Silly Symphonies”. The oldest part of Prague was always there as a sightseeing attraction. Walking and relating buildings to their past was a lesson in history, was a course about architectural styles from the Middle Ages to modern times.

The Tommy I remember is an inquisitive, enterprising, courageous, inventive, fearless, and lovable 14-year-old, yet at the same time a textbook teen-ager. He graciously tolerated me, and the grown-ups around him. To me he is still my kid brother, still 14 years old. At times I wonder what his life would have been like, if he had survived the Shoah. Today he would have been over 72 years old. In my heart he is still 14. Father had been deported to Terezin in December 1941. When I arrived in Terezin in March 1943, father told me about Tommy’s life in 1941 and 1942. While still in Prague Tommy managed family matters in a situation that would have overwhelmed adults. Taking considerable risks, his energy, his skills, and his optimism kept a number of older folks functioning.

Tommy and grandmother were deported to Terezin early in 1942. The three were housed in different barracks, but Tommy and father could meet and talk.

A postscript added in July 2014.

Tommy and Zdenka were teen-age friends.

In November 2013 Jan Capoun had e-mailed me photos of my father and Tommy which the Capouns had found at www.holocaust.cz.

Zdenka kept Tommy’s memory alive in Bohemia for seventyfive years.

Copy of e-mail mentioned above received from Jan Capoun on Novembwer 21, 2013:

Good evening, Mr. Terna,

I enclose photos of your brother, father, grandmother (from the internet) and a harmonica, which my grandgrandmother was given by your brother as a rememberance.

Sincerely yours

4 Attachments

Preview attachment Harmonica.JPG Harmonica.JPG

Frederick Terna

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205-3704

718 636-1955

FAX 718 638 1727

December 3, 1998

A FIFTH SET OF NOTES FORTHE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

These lines are written by Frederick Terna, father of Daniel Terna. Daniel is a pupil in the sixth grade of the Middle School.

Jenny Taussig, Daniel’s great-grandmother was born as Jenny Lederer in 1875 in Teplice, then also known as Teplitz in Northern Bohemia. Teplice is part of the Czech Republic today. When she was quite young her parents moved to Prague, and opened a store selling fashion accessories in vogue then. In 1911, a few years before World War I she became the second wife of Adolf Taussig, Daniel’s great-grandfather. His first wife Helen Spiegel had died in childbirth, an occurrence much more frequent early in the century than today. Early in World War I Jenny Taussig became a nurse in an army hospital, but advanced rapidly into administrative positions. In her bedroom she displayed several framed citations, some with medals, signed by members of the Imperial Habsburg household, in appreciation for her work on behalf of disabled soldiers. In the new Czechoslovak Republic of 1918 - 1938 such tributes by the former opponents were not appreciated, and that, probably, was the reason that she kept them in her bedroom. Today I’m puzzled how, in the pre-1918 Austro-Hungarian monarchy, a woman, a Jewish woman, was allowed to function at a level that merited an official recognition of her accomplishments.

My earliest memories of Jenny Taussig, going back to the early 1930’s, are those of an active and energetic person. Her husband’s position, and income, allowed her the life style of a moderately well to do middle class woman of Central Europe. She had received a thorough education, something rather unusual for a young Jewish woman of that time. Official anti-Jewish legislation, covering many aspects of Jewish life had been revoked in Bohemia in 1867, a mere eight years before her birth. Unofficial, social, and economic anti-Jewish strictures remained in full force for another half-century. Some of it lingered in the Czechoslovakia of 1918 - 1938.

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In the manner of European homes and families we were given little information about the family’s social standing, income, or affiliation with organizations. I have only the sketchiest notion about my grandmother’s memberships. The one item I’m sure of is her position as president of a big sisterhood, though this is probably only one of several groups she belonged to. She knew by heart the telephone numbers of almost all members, and she was teased about it by her friends, and also by the family. Her memory was probably visual. I say this because I know that she could play a composition of music on the piano that was new to her, and she did not have to refer to the printed notes again.

Other than taking care of their families, a good part of grandmother, and her circle’s time was taken up by community work: visiting the sick, helping poor newly-weds to set up a home, - the entire range of shared responsibility for the old, the poor, and the sick of the, comparatively, small Jewish community of Prague. All this was done in a low key, quietly, and without self-admiration. This is what gave meaning to their days.

Music was an important part of her life. There were two pianos in the largest room of her home. Before radio, or phonographs, most orchestral pieces of music, and especially operas, were transcribed for two pianos. Along one of the walls of the room were bookcases with narrowly spaced shelves where sheet music was kept. Wednesdays were music nights. Friends would meet in her home, carrying their instruments, violins, oboes, flutes, or clarinets. They would spell each other playing chamber music, talk, have coffee and cake, argue about phrasing and interpretation, talk some more, have more cake, and play some more. When someone would object to the way a passage was performed, that person would be asked to go and play it along his or her guidelines. I remember those evenings with much joy. We children were allowed to listen until it was time for us to go home, and to go to bed. It is, perhaps, this early exposure that made chamber music a part of my life in later years.

Grandmother had a subscription to the opera, and she had the same seats year in and out. In ways, which I don’t remember, she was quite involved in the efforts of the opera house. Actors, singers, and “theater people” were frequent visitors to her home.

Grandmother was loved by all. There was one exception: Haschile, the schnorrer. He had a name but the entire world called him Haschile, and he referred to himself as Haschile in the third person. A schnorrer is not a beggar. A schnorrer allows you to give tzedakah in style. He knows that we know that one third of the world’ existence is guaranteed by tzedakah. If ignored, Haschile would remind you of that fact with much eloquence, quoting from Psalms, Isiah, or Ezekiel. Grandmother loathed Haschile. We, the children, were much amused by that. She would cross the street, change direction, do anything to avoid him. I think that grandmother was afraid of him. Haschile was dressed with dramatic shabbiness, unkempt, with a thin seedy beard, rotting teeth, unwashed, with a cloud of garlic smell around him. At appropriate occasions during the year he would ring

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the doorbell. He must have had a way of sneaking by the concierge, and that was not an easy feat. There were standing rules for the maid to tell Haschile at the door that Mrs. Taussig was not in. That rarely worked. Haschile knew her routine. The maid then would be told to give him a crown, about five times the amount a beggar would receive, and to ask him to leave. Haschile would explode with a wail, claiming to be no ordinary beggar, that his rate for Mrs. Taussig was five crowns. Haschile would get his five crowns every time.

On March 15th 1939 German troops marched into Prague, and the persecution of the Jewish community of Prague began. On September 1, 1939, grandfather died. It was the day WW II started. On the day of his funeral so many people crowded around the cemetery entrance that the street was blocked for a time, and mounted police came to redirect traffic. Grandfather is the only one in my immediate family to have a tomb, a stone, and a known burial place. It is 12-8-2 on the Olsany New Jewish Cemetery. Franz Kafka is buried in the same cemetery.

A few months after her husband’s death the energetic, take-charge-of-life Jenny Taussig suddenly became a helpless, frightened old lady. Did she sense what was going to happen to the community?

A short time later I went into hiding with false papers, was betrayed, and wound up in my first concentration camp. Others, including my father when I met him in Terezin in 1943, told what follows to me:

After my father was shipped to Terezin late in 1941 my brother Tommy and grandmother Taussig remained in Prague until early in 1942, when they were put into a transport to Terezin. There grandmother Taussig, within that frightful transition, suddenly snapped back to her forceful, and efficient former self. She was nominated to supervise the distribution of food for the women’s barracks. Her judgment, probity, integrity, and her record from earlier years made her an obvious choice.

From Terezin, a few months later, still in 1942, Jenny Taussig, and my brother Tommy were put into a transport to the east. After the war I learned that the transport’s destination was Treblinka. Upon arriving there all were marched into the gas chamber. There were no survivors from that transport.

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Frederick Terna

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205-3704

718 636-1955

FAX 718 638 1727

December 3, 1998

A FIFTH SET OF NOTES FORTHE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

D:\My Documents\SHOAH\ARCHIV05.DOC

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These lines are written by Frederick Terna, father of Daniel Terna. Daniel is a pupil in the sixth grade of the Middle School.

in the Czechoslovakia of 1918 - 1938.

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D:\My Documents\SHOAH\ARCHIV05.DOC

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Documents\SHOAH\ARCHIV05.DOC

D:\My

A few months after her husband’s death the energetic, take-charge-of-life Jenny Taussig suddenly became a helpless, frightened old lady. Did she sense what was going to happen to the community?

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Documents\SHOAH\ARCHIV05.DOC

D:\My

Frederick Terna

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205-3704

718 636-1955

FAX 718 638 1727

January 3, 1999

A SIXTH SET OF NOTES FORTHE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

Today Daniel Terna is a pupil in the sixth grade of the Middle School. I, Frederick Terna, am a survivor, and the father of Daniel. I’m recording here some of my memories and thoughts about the Shoah.

Cecilie Horner was the grandmother of my former wife, Stella Horner, who was the daughter of Kurt Horner. Stella died early in the 1980’s. Some of the events dating back to the early part of this century were told to me by the sons, and also by other relatives of Cecilie Horner. Family reminiscences tend to be colored by strong feelings, by complicated interpretations, and a wide range of self-deceptions. The sources of such influences may go back generations. It is difficult for me to give an impartial account of Cecilie Horner’s family. I’m aware of this dilemma, and I hope to show them in the best possible light. None of the Horners I want to mention here are alive today, and, alas, cannot correct or amplify this narrative. They belonged to one of the of the Jewish communities of Moravia that had been allowed out of the ghettos late in the 18th century, granted, at least on paper, equal citizenship in the latter part of the 19th century, and achieved a small measure of economic and political security in the early years of the 20th century. Most of them eventually perished during the Shoah.

Cecilie Horner was born around 1860. Her family came from a town named Prerov, also known as Prerau in Moravia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Today Prerov is in the eastern part of the Czech Republic. I don’t know where her husband came from, and I don’t remember his first name. They had six sons, Kurt, Erwin, Felix, Victor, and two other sons whose names I cannot recall. All of them were born in the last decades of the 19th century. The Horners owned a store that sold, and distributed coal by the bucket, and sold bottled kerosene for lamps. Cecilie’s husband died while their sons were small children. With much skill, and incredible energy she decided to fend for herself and her children, to have the coal business support her family.

By the time World War I started Cecilie Horner had moved to Vienna, and continued her coal and kerosene business there, though on a larger scale. The business was now called “Cecilie Horner und Soehne, Kohlengrosshandel”, i.e. Cecilie Horner and Sons, Wholesale Coal Dealers.

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One of her sons, Felix Horner, had studied to become an electrical engineer, another one; Erwin Horner became a physician, surgeon. Kurt Horner, father of Stella Horner, and my late father-in-law, became the manager of the family business, Victor Horner became a business developer, one Horner became a lawyer, and I don’t recall the field of the sixth son. The level of education achieved by the sons illustrates the energy, and also the power of their mother. She imbued her sons with a will to succeed. The price they had to pay for this was the emotional submission to their mother well into adulthood. She ruled her sons with an iron will. It made her the rival of her daughters-in-law. The sons would heed their mother’s wishes before considering the needs of their own families or spouses. I recall Kurt’s wife Adele, my late mother-in-law, being afraid of her mother-in-law, though Cecilie Horner by then was a frail, and very old lady. I may want to expand further down a little about four of the six sons.

In Vienna, from 1918 to 1938, during years of political and economic turmoil, and also the years of the depression, Cecilie Horner & Sons expanded the business, owned parts of coal mines, had oil drilling rights and mining leases for several tracts in Lower Austria. The smallest quantity of a coal sale was a truckload.

The Horners lived the style of comfortable middle-class business people, spent their vacations in spas or on the shore of the Adriatic Sea, they had servants and nannies, they had cars that were chauffeured by men in leather uniforms. Their homes in a fashionable district in Vienna were large, and lavishly furnished.

Cecilie Horner, as well as Kurt and Victor, and two of her other sons, all born in Moravia, had retained her citizenship of the, then, Czechoslovakia.

On March 12th 1938 Nazi Germany marched into Austria, the so-called “Anschluss”. Cecilie Horner, her sons Kurt and Victor, two other sons, and their families fled to Czechoslovakia, and went to live in Prague. They left most of their possessions in Austria.

I shall write a separate set of notes about Kurt Horner and his wife Adele, their son Fritz, and their daughters Eva and Stella.

Let me digress first about two other sons, Felix and Erwin who survived the war here in the USA.

In the first decade of the 20th century Felix Horner married Gisella, (I don’t know her maiden name), and they had two children, Harry and Edith. Harry was born 1910 in Holic in Moravia. He was a sunny and vivacious young man with many gifts. He had studied architecture, but he became first a student, and later an actor in the theater of Max Reinhardt, a well known, innovative, and distinguished stage director and producer. In 1933, when Max Reinhardt was expelled from Germany by the Nazi regime Harry Horner accompanied him to the USA, and moved with Reinhardt to Los Angeles. Harry

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remained there, becoming among his other achievements a stage designer. At one time he designed the sets and costumes for Mozart’s The Magic Flute for the Metropolitan Opera here in New York. He received two Oscars for designing movies whose names I cannot recall right now. Oscars seem to run in the family: One of Harry’s sons, James Horner, is a composer. He has written the music for many currently successful movies, e.g. The Titanic. He received an Oscar recently.

In the years following our arrival in this country, meeting Harry here in New York or in Los Angeles was invariably a happy occasion. There was charm and wit, old-fashioned courtesy and empathy. Though spending the major part of his life in the Hollywood film business Harry remained a “Mensch”.

After the occupation of Austria in 1938, and before the beginning of World War II in September 1939, Harry, by then a citizen of the USA, succeeded in obtaining US immigration visas for his parents, Felix and Gisella, his sister Edith, and also for his uncle Erwin and family. The remaining family, particularly Kurt Horner and family were in Czechoslovakia, and did not feel that they could emigrate and leave their mother Cecilie behind, or impose a long voyage on her frail body. There were also other, older relatives who needed support. None of them lived in areas then under direct Nazi rule. There were few precedents by which to judge potential developments. Those who remained in Europe acted within the experience of preceding centuries. The last time a large number of Jews had become a victim was in 1648, when the Cossack Hejtman Bohdan Chmielnicky and his troops went on murderous rampage. But that was three hundred years earlier, and in the Ukraine, far to the east of Central Europe.

Felix Horner had the usual difficulties of immigrants to this country, and to adjusting to a new life here. He worked as design engineer, but probably using only a small part of his talents and skills. He died a number of years ago, so did his wife Gisella, and his daughter Edith. Harry too died a few years ago. There are children and grandchildren of the families of Harry and Edith, and I don’t know how many, I lost touch with that part of my former wife’s family. Erwin Horner, the other son of Cecilie Horner, was a renowned surgeon in Vienna before 1938. He managed to obtain the necessary licenses to practice medicine here in New York. He was rather bitter about the procedure. He had to pass license boards run by examiners who had been his students in Vienna. The medical establishment here did not like competition. He too died good many years ago, as did his wife who was a gynecologist.

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offensive. The daughter of Uncle Felix was married to a businessman who had become quite wealthy during the war as a supplier of fabrics. He and his family lived in a big house in Scarsdale, owning many acres of land surrounding the house, and left undeveloped so as to provide a protective buffer. The other uncle, Erwin, was a medical doctor, living in a huge apartment on West End Avenue. He did not look like a pauper. The one question we were not asked after our arrival here was whether we needed any help. We would have refused it, but we expected to hear that question. It put a crimp into our relationship with Stella’s family. We had to listen, however, to the tales of struggle and deprivation they had to endure upon arriving here, and about the hardships suffered during the war. We understood, and kept our thoughts to ourselves.

What they did not want to hear were the details of the fate of the rest of the family. I don’t know how and where Cecilie Horner died. I had met Stella briefly in 1941 in Prague, before I was shipped to my first camp. Stella was my girl friend. I was seventeen years old then. On perhaps two occasions when I came to her home I saw three old ladies there, and I certainly don’t remember which one of them was Cecilie Horner, which one was Stella’s maternal grand-mother, which one her grand-aunt. I don’t know in detail what happened to the two other brothers. Starting in October 1941 transports to the east began. In 1943, when I arrived in Terezin, Victor Horner and his wife were still there. Sometime in 1944 they were shipped to Auschwitz.

By 1944 most Jews of Bohemia and Moravia, men, women, children, the old and the young had been gassed, starved, kicked to death, shot, burned, - murdered with ruthless brutality.

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One of the victims was Cecilie Horner. Frederick Terna

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205-3704

718 636-1955

FAX 718 638 1727

January 3, 1999

A SIXTH SET OF NOTES FORTHE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

By the time World War I started Cecilie Horner had moved to Vienna, and continued her coal and kerosene business there, though on a larger scale. The business was now called

1 1

Cecilie Horner, as well as Kurt and Victor, and two of her other sons, all born in Moravia, had retained her citizenship of the, then, Czechoslovakia.

I shall write a separate set of notes about Kurt Horner and his wife Adele, their son Fritz, and their daughters Eva and Stella.

Let me digress first about two other sons, Felix and Erwin who survived the war here in the USA.

In the first decade of the 20th century Felix Horner married Gisella, (I don’t know her

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“Cecilie Horner und Soehne, Kohlengrosshandel”, i.e. Cecilie Horner and Sons, Wholesale Coal Dealers.

maiden name), and they had two children, Harry and Edith. Harry was born 1910 in Holic in Moravia. He was a sunny and vivacious young man with many gifts. He had studied architecture, but he became first a student, and later an actor in the theater of Max Reinhardt, a well known, innovative, and distinguished stage director and producer. In 1933, when Max Reinhardt was expelled from Germany by the Nazi regime Harry Horner accompanied him to the USA, and moved with Reinhardt to Los Angeles. Harry remained there, becoming among his other achievements a stage designer. At one time he designed the sets and costumes for Mozart’s The Magic Flute for the Metropolitan Opera here in New York. He received two Oscars for designing movies whose names I cannot recall right now. Oscars seem to run in the family: One of Harry’s sons, James Horner, is a composer. He has written the music for many currently successful movies, e.g. The Titanic. He received an Oscar recently.

3 3

One of the reasons Stella and I decided to come to this country were the uncles Felix and Erwin, the only surviving relatives of her family. Because of the quota system of the old McCurran/Walter immigration law we had to wait until 1952 to arrive here legally. Soon after our arrival here the relationship with the family became strained. We were told quite directly not to talk about the past, but to concentrate on our new life here. Stella and I had, even then, an insight into the set of symptoms of denial, repression, and other responses to survivors. It hurt, but we understood. We too had gone through similar phases of not wanting to talk about our experiences. One item, however, rankled, and was offensive. The daughter of Uncle Felix was married to a businessman who had become quite wealthy during the war as a supplier of fabrics. He and his family lived in a big house in Scarsdale, owning many acres of land surrounding the house, and left undeveloped so as to provide a protective buffer. The other uncle, Erwin, was a medical doctor, living in a huge apartment on West End Avenue. He did not look like a pauper. The one question we were not asked after our arrival here was whether we needed any help. We would have refused it, but we expected to hear that question. It put a crimp into our relationship with Stella’s family. We had to listen, however, to the tales of struggle and deprivation they had to endure upon arriving here, and about the hardships suffered during the war. We understood, and kept our thoughts to ourselves.

By 1944 most Jews of Bohemia and Moravia, men, women, children, the old and the young had been gassed, starved, kicked to death, shot, burned, - murdered with ruthless brutality.

One of the victims was Cecilie Horner.

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Frederick Terna Rebecca L. Shiffman

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205-3704 (718) 636-1955

FAX (718) 638-1727

January 22, 1999

A SEVENTH SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

Today, Daniel Terna, our son, is a pupil in the sixth grade of the Middle School. Rebecca Shiffman, Daniel’s mother, is the daughter of survivors of the Shoah. I, Frederick Terna, Daniel’s father, am a survivor.

Kurt Horner, my former father-in-law, was the father of Stella Horner, my former wife. Stella was a survivor of the Shoah. She died early in the 1980’s.

In my preceding, sixth, set of notes about the sons of Cecilie Horner I mentioned that I would write separately about Kurt Horner and his family. Kurt Horner was probably born in Prerov, in German called Prerau, in Moravia, in the last decade of the 19th century. Soon after the end of World War I he married Adele, born Seidel, who came from the same general area. They had three children. Eva was born about 1920, Stella, born in 1922, and Frederick, or Fritz, born about 1926. All three children were born in Vienna.

In the preceding set of notes I mentioned how Cecilie Horner had moved her family to Vienna, and how they successfully expanded their business, and became wholesale coal dealers. Kurt Horner was the son who managed the business, while the other sons pursued careers in their own fields. Upon the occupation of Austria by Germany in February 1938 the Horners escaped into Czechoslovakia. The Germans confiscated their properties, homes, assets, anything of fixed value in Austria. Two of the six sons, and their families, managed to emigrate to the USA before the beginning of World War II. All the others eventually were caught by the Nazi occupation.

I first met the family of Kurt Horner late in 1940 in Prague. Stella Horner was my girl friend, we were both about seventeen years old then. The war had been in its second year. Nazi oppression of the Jewish community had become more severe from day to day. Kurt Horner was under considerable stress, as were other heads of Jewish families to solve dayto-day problems within a brutal system that tried to crush all aspects of Jewish life. Nazi chicanery, constantly changing edicts, random, and unexplained new regulations, were designed to terrorize individuals, and the community, to make Jewish life unbearable. At times Jewish men, women, and even children were seized on the street, or in their homes,

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imprisoned, beaten, tortured, and often executed. Fear of what the next day would bring, more trepidation, and dread were the only assured certainty.

Today, more than half a century after the events, I’m aware of my inadequacy to describe in detail occurrences, people and characters, their feelings and attitudes I observed in the 1940’s as a teen-ager. I hope that I can do justice to the memory of the Horners.

Kurt Horner was a short, balding man, quite rotund then, with a self-assured look reflecting physically the image he had of himself. He knew the ways of the world, the order of importance of what came first, and what had to wait. He virtually oozed authority that was beyond questioning. He exhibited love and kindness to his children, and also to his wife. That love did not include insight into their individual emotional needs. If reminded of this lack he probably would have been quite puzzled. Such cognizance was outside his field of consciousness.

Kurt Horner had spent his adult life as a manager of an enterprise that was initiated by his mother. He was a take-charge person, ready to solve problems as they arose. He had accomplished this by intelligence, hard work, and an intuitive insight into the world, and the people around him. Until shortly before my first meeting him he was dominated by his mother’s ideas, and her power over her sons. Though Cecilie Horner, his mother, was an old lady by then, her needs, and her ideas ruled the family. World events interfered grimly, and were at odds with emotional obligations, the need of the son to prove his devotion to his mother.

Kurt Horner was well trained to do a fine job as a businessman, but probably not much more. I don’t recall having seen him reading a book, or discussing other than quite mundane matters. Ideas, reasoned doctrines, metaphysical considerations were outside his field of interests. His forte was business, but modified by compassion, and thoughtful care for the tangible, practical needs of those around him. Adele, his wife, had a peripheral place in the family, not much different from that of a child. She was in terror of her mother-in-law, and, I would say, with good reason. None of Cecilie Horner’s daughters-in-law could ever do anything right in her eyes. Their positions were doomed from the day of their wedding. None of them brought forth six sons, none of them had built a small business into a major enterprise, failures all of them, barely good enough to produce a grandchild here or there.

Today, looking back to the life of Adele Horner I feel sad for more than one reason. Adele was depressed, and she did not know it, neither did anybody else in the family. While they lived years and years in Vienna, they may not even have been aware of the term depression. Moreover, Adele may have inherited her predilection to depression from her mother, who was known to have “strange dark moods”. This was family hearsay. When I met Adele’s mother briefly in their home in Prague I saw only an old lady, somewhat absentminded, but not much different from other old folks. Was the tendency to depression handed down from one generation to the next? Adele’s daughters Eva and Stella both suffered from bi-polar depression. Both Eva and Stella survived the Shoah;

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both were hospitalized many times. Eva committed suicide, and Stella made numerous attempts to do the same. I may want to talk about them further down.

Why did Kurt Horner, a matter-of-fact, and practical man pick the ineffectual, delicate Adele? There were the usual criteria: A bride from a good family, from the same social setting, the same general community, it may have been arranged the old-fashioned way. Picking Adele assured the continued power of Cecilie Horner over the home of her son, where she continued to live. Poor Adele.

In 1941 my contact with the Horners was brief, and intermittent. I was in hiding with false papers north of Prague, and only on a few occasions dared to get in touch with Stella. While in hiding I was betrayed, had to return to my family, and was shipped to my first camp, Lipa, on October 3, 1941. That ended my contact with the Horners until 1943. In March 1943 I was transferred from Lipa to Ghetto Theresienstadt. In the summer of 1943 the Horners, Kurt, Adele, and their children, Eva, Stella, and Fritz arrived in a transport from Prague. I saw the Horners nearly every day in Theresienstadt until I was shipped to Auschwitz in the fall of 1944.

The story of the constantly changing chronicle of Ghetto Theresienstadt, in Czech Terezin, from December 1941 to its liberation in May 1945 has been well researched, and recorded in many books. There exist fine accounts of every facet of life there. It would be preposterous here to attempt even an outline.

In Theresienstadt Kurt Horner, and Fritz Horner were housed in different barracks, Adele and her daughters were housed in a women’s barrack. That is where we met, usually after work, until it was time for the men to leave so as to be back in their barracks before curfew at 8 p.m. Adele and Eva were working in a shop that was slicing mica into thin sheets. Mica was used in electrical devices as insulation. Stella worked on an assembly line packaging spare parts of military equipment. Fritz was employed in the “gardens”, an area between the fortification walls, raising vegetables for the Nazis. I don’t remember Kurt Horner’s job.

It was mostly small talk that was exchanged; this was not a family that discussed larger subjects. One of the subjects that was not discussed before me was the fate of the older generation. I don’t know when Cecilie Horner and Adele’s mother were deported. They probably were put into transports that went east directly from Prague. Adele Horner was as helpless as I remembered her in 1941, asking at every turn what she had to do next, shaking her head in amazement. She did, however, take care of her own physical grooming. Kurt Horner found ways to find extra food to supplement the totally inadequate rations in Theresienstadt. In his accustomed way he provided that extra ingredient to make life a little easier. He was rather quiet, uncommunicative, obviously troubled by the prospect of transports east to an uncertain future. It was Eva, the firstborn, who tried to assume a leading role, seeking to become a substitute wife, a substitute mother, indeed to become a substitute Cecilie Horner. She was displaying the traits of a person who feels the need to manage everything lest chaos overtakes life. It was not a

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role appreciated by the rest of the family. In later years I wondered whether her behavior then was an early manifestation of her manic depression.

Fritz Horner, still a somewhat gawky teen-ager made fun of her, her father tolerated her conduct, her mother did not understand what was going on, and Stella tried to find an excuse to go anywhere else, usually in my company, so as not to be hectored.

Except for occasional irrational actions by the Nazi commanders life in Terezin was survivable for a reasonably healthy person. By 1944 it was obvious to just about everybody that Germany would collapse within a foreseeable time. Transports east had stopped since the ones connected with the visit of the International Red Cross. There was little that changed from late spring 1944. The threat of being shipped east remained, but that was a potential threat, and not an expected one. The Russian front-line had advanced deep into Poland, in the west the Allied armies were at the Rhine River. Life in Terezin remained tense and uncertain, hunger and disease, the irrational and unpredictable actions by the Germans continued, but these were constant ingredients. Then, suddenly, in October 1944 transports were resumed on a large scale. Except for a small group of very prominent persons, the Danish prisoners, and some technical personnel, everybody was shipped east. All transports went to Auschwitz. These were the last transports to Auschwitz. Tens of thousands were driven into the gas chambers. Shortly thereafter, with the Russians approaching, Auschwitz was closed, and all inmates still alive, selected to be slave labor were shipped to other concentration camps inside Germany. I was one of these.

Arriving in Auschwitz Eva and Stella Horner were sent to one side to become slave labor in a different concentration camp. Both survived the Shoah.

Kurt Horner, his wife Adele and his son Fritz perished in the gas chambers.

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Frederick Terna Rebecca L. Shiffman

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205-3704 (718) 636-1955

FAX (718) 638-1727

January 22, 1999

A SEVENTH SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

Kurt Horner, my former father-in-law, was the father of Stella Horner, my former wife. Stella was a survivor of the Shoah. She died early in the 1980’s.

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chicanery, constantly changing edicts, random, and unexplained new regulations, were designed to terrorize individuals, and the community, to make Jewish life unbearable. At times Jewish men, women, and even children were seized on the street, or in their homes, imprisoned, beaten, tortured, and often executed. Fear of what the next day would bring, more trepidation, and dread were the only assured certainty.

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term depression. Moreover, Adele may have inherited her predilection to depression from her mother, who was known to have “strange dark moods”. This was family hearsay. When I met Adele’s mother briefly in their home in Prague I saw only an old lady, somewhat absentminded, but not much different from other old folks. Was the tendency to depression handed down from one generation to the next? Adele’s daughters Eva and Stella both suffered from bi-polar depression. Both Eva and Stella survived the Shoah; both were hospitalized many times. Eva committed suicide, and Stella made numerous attempts to do the same. I may want to talk about them further down.

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as helpless as I remembered her in 1941, asking at every turn what she had to do next, shaking her head in amazement. She did, however, take care of her own physical grooming. Kurt Horner found ways to find extra food to supplement the totally inadequate rations in Theresienstadt. In his accustomed way he provided that extra ingredient to make life a little easier. He was rather quiet, uncommunicative, obviously troubled by the prospect of transports east to an uncertain future. It was Eva, the firstborn, who tried to assume a leading role, seeking to become a substitute wife, a substitute mother, indeed to become a substitute Cecilie Horner. She was displaying the traits of a person who feels the need to manage everything lest chaos overtakes life. It was not a role appreciated by the rest of the family. In later years I wondered whether her behavior then was an early manifestation of her manic depression.

Arriving in Auschwitz Eva and Stella Horner were sent to one side to become slave labor in a different concentration camp. Both survived the Shoah.

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Kurt Horner, his wife Adele and his son Fritz perished in the gas chambers.

Frederick Terna

Rebecca L. Shiffman

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205-3704

(718) 636-1055

FAX (718) 628-1727

May 9, 1999

(Slight additions and changes made in November 2000)

AN EIGHTH SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

Today, Daniel Terna, our son, is a pupil in the sixth grade of the Middle School. Rebecca Shiffman, Daniel’s Mother, is the daughter of survivors of the Shoah. I, Frederick Terna, Daniel’s father, am a survivor.

Since writing this eighth set of notes in May 1999 I found additional data. These are included here, as are minor changes in the text.

The following account tells the story of the Herzog family before, and after World War II. Lona Taussig, my mother, was born as Lona Herzog in 1898 in Vienna.

All the members of my mother’s family survived the Shoah. The Herzogs were Viennese Jews. Today they are scattered around the globe. Some of them deny their Jewish ancestry, deny the impact of the Shoah on their lives. That influence is quite visible to me. It is an influence on their children, today the third generation of survivors.

The 1930’s were a turbulent time in Austria. Anti-Semitic doctrines received official sanction. In February 1938 Nazi Germany marched into Austria. Austria and Germany became one country. The Viennese rejoiced, enthusiastically welcomed Hitler, and immediately started persecuting Jews. There was a short window of time when it was, at least theoretically, possible to leave the country before the full force of anti-Jewish laws crushed the Jewish community. The Herzogs had to run for their lives.

Some of them are fleeing to this day. More about that continued running away later.

In seven earlier accounts for the Shoah Archive I did not mention the family of my mother. After my mother’s death in 1932 communication between my parent’s families nearly ceased. The Herzogs blamed the Taussig/Terna family for the separation of my mother from her family, for moving to Prague from Vienna where the rest of the Herzog

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family lived. After 1932 the Herzog family nearly disappeared from my life. I was nine years old then.

After the war I realized that the Herzogs were the only survivors of my family. I found the address of one of them, and that led to all the others. They were ready and willing to re-establish family ties. I was not ready then to relate events of the immediately preceding years, and they certainly did not want find out.

Otto Herzog and his wife Anna:

Family lore has it that the family of my grandfather Otto Herzog was the third generation of Herzogs living in Vienna. They were grain merchants and dealers in precious stones. It seems that they were quite wealthy. Otto Herzog and his family lived in a rather elegant house on 49 Friedlgasse in Doebling, one of the affluent districts of Vienna. I remember the house, its elaborate entrance, with a wide circular staircase to the upper floors. Large rooms with Victorian furniture were still there when I visited Vienna as a small child.

Was the Family of Otto Herzog related to some of the famous Rabbis Herzog, and thus to the later president Herzog of Israel? I don’t know.

Otto Herzog, son of Wilhelm Herzog and Rosa, born Kahn, was born in 1871 in Vienna. In 1896 he married Anna Rachel Seidl who was born in 1866 in Joachimsthal, a town in northern Bohemia, now known as Jachymov. They had met in Karlsbad, a famous spa in Bohemia. They had six children, three daughters and three sons.

• Lilly was born in 1897

• Lona, my mother, in 1898

• Stella in 1900

• Harry in 1902

• Eugen in 1905, and

• Alfons, the youngest, on September 1, 1907.

We have a copy of Alfonce’s (thus spelled) birth certicicate, “Geburts-Zeugnis of the Matrikelamt der Isr. Kultusgemeinde in Wien, Grund Nummer 01214274 M according “hiemit bestaetigt dass laut Geburts-Protokolles der israelitischen Kultusgemeinde in Wien, Lit.IV, Nr.1895” Alfonce … was born, etc.

This copy of the birth certificate makes me belief that all siblings were thus registered, Alfonce being the youngest one.

I shall write a separate segment about each one of these aunts and uncles, and about their descendents.

Otto Herzog was born January 16, 1871 (the wedding document to Anna Rachel Seidl says “aus Wien”, i.e. from Vienna, rather than born in Vienna.) Otto Herzog died before World War I. While writing these lines I don’t know the date, or the cause of his death.

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Grandfather Herzog is a hazy shadow in the family’s memory. No stories and no anecdotes about him survived. There is no photo that endured into our days. Late in 1945, after finding, and a few years later meeting my aunts and uncles his name did not come up for discussion. When I asked about him they had no recollection of him. When Otto Herzog died, all, except for his daughter Lilly, were children. I remain baffled and mystified about Grandfather Herzog.

History and literature alone allow me to feel the atmosphere when Otto Herzog was a young man. The political and spiritual climate in Vienna shaped his family. Gay Vienna is a fantasy invented by promoters of operettas. Starting with the Crusades, official and unofficial restrictions, frequent expulsion, social discrimination, ill will and hostility at every turn were the lot of Jews living in Vienna. For Otto Herzog it was the Vienna when Georg von Schoenerer and most other Austrian politicians, among them Karl Lueger, a mayor of Vienna, changed the underlying Christian hatred of Jews, used, and developed political and racial anti-Semitism. It was in the fabric of Jew-hating Vienna where a young Adolf Hitler learned and absorbed his ideology. The articulation of Nazi persecution, brutality, and murder, the oratory that later was translated into action was developed in Vienna. There was also the Vienna of intellectual ferment, of innovation, and the premonition of imperial decline. It was also, at the same time, the Vienna of great authors, musicians, artist, philosophers and scientists. Many of these, were Jews. They were the ones that gave Vienna its cultural flavor, its place in the world. After World War II Vienna became a cultural backwater, a museum about past glory. The best they had for us was a Waldheim.

According to the laws of the Austro-Hungarian Empire there had to be a male executor of a deceased father of a family with minors; the mother had no legal standing. Also, according to the then existing laws, all family assets had to be put into government securities as a trust account for the children. In 1918 at the end of World War I when the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed these securities became worthless, and the family was pauperized overnight. The executor of the assets may not have had the skill to administer such matters. He was, perhaps, dishonest. More than 50 years later I heard Harry Herzog rage about this man. There was a break with other relatives of Otto Herzog. I speculate whether this alienation was one of the ingredients that made two of the sons convert to Catholicism as adults. Anna Herzog and her children had to fend for themselves without family support.

With amazing energy Anna Herzog and her daughter Lilly, who was then about 20 years old, managed to take care of the rest of the children. They developed a jewelry business in post-war Vienna in the midst of a general economic collapse. There was barely enough money to feed five growing children; there were no means to provide for the traditional higher education. A Dutch relief organization was willing to take the three boys to Holland to provide them with food and shelter so that they could recover from the effects of four years of wartime Vienna. Anna Herzog accepted the offer. She may not have known that the organization was under the direction of the Catholic Church working out of Holland. I don’t know how long the three boys stayed in Holland, nor do I know details about that experience.

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Decades later I learned that the three sons had acquired a thorough training as mechanical engineers in Vienna without going to a formal school. They became mechanical troubleshooters, but all three eventually became successful businessmen.

Was Otto Herzog’s home a traditional Jewish household? As mentioned above there is no information about him. All his children received a Jewish education. Two of his daughters, Lilly and Stella became Zionists. Their families found a haven in Israel, then still Palestine. My mother, Lona, knew Hebrew. She tried to teach me the Alef Bet at a very early age. Two sons, Harry and Alfons stopped being Jews later in life. More about that below. Eugen’s stance, later, as an adult, was a personal form of acknowledgment of his tradition. He was not a practicing Jew. Translated into our time and into this country he probably would have sent a yearly contribution to the UJA.

Grandmother Anna Rachel Herzog:

After the war, when I met Grandmother Herzog she was eighty-one, and a sweet old lady. This certainly was not the Anna Herzog who had managed to raise six children through decades of adversity. I do not have an insight into her personality or her inner life. My information about her as an active caretaker of her family comes largely by way of her children. What I know about her tells me about her energy, her down-to-earth stance, but little more. She had no time for the pleasures of cultural pursuits, and neither did any one of her children while they were growing up.

Grandmother Herzog, with Lilly at her side, ruled the family with a strong hand. Her word was law. The cohesion of the family was her first injunction. Every one had to do his or her best to contribute. This demand, a necessity in the years immediately following 1918, became a burden as time went on. Any attempt to shape a life independent of the rest of the family created conflict, was the source of discord, of strife. The theme of the Herzog family, their “Leitmotif”, was the mandate to keep the family together, but that included also the hidden and unrecognized ingredient, the struggle to escape from that demand. The reverberation of that dictate makes itself felt even today, long after the six siblings have passed away.

Every one of the three brothers remained unmarried until they were close to 50 years old. In 1947, at a meeting of some family members in Utrecht in Holland, Lilly tried to discourage two of them, Alfons and Eugen from marriage to the women of their choice. They had not asked Lilly or Grandmother Herzog for permission. The result was resentment, and pointed remarks about Lilly’s poor choice of her own husband. Lilly found the chutzpah to question my marriage to my first wife, Stella Horner, implying that her advice would have prevented me from a mistake. This admonition was given at the time when Lilly’s son Otto was secretly married without his parent’s approval.

I shall set down more about Grandmother Herzog’s life after liberation when writing about her sons Alfons and Harry.

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Lilly and Josef Kupferstein:

Lilly Herzog, the oldest, felt that she had to direct her younger siblings. This continued well into the time when all of them were adults. The result was bitterness, opposition, and quarrels. I think that a good part of the conversion of Harry and Alfons to Catholicism was their striking back at Lilly’s Zionism.

After World War I Lilly married Josef Kupferstein. My memory of him is quite vague. He was less than a devoted husband, was not liked by the family, and was referred to by the others as ‘that louse’. In 1922 Lilly and Josef had a son who was named Otto after his grandfather. Soon after the inclusion of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938 they managed to leave Vienna and find their way to Haifa, then Palestine. I don’t know when Joseph Kupferstein died. The last time I saw Lilly was in1983 on a visit to Israel. By then she lived in an old age home on the Carmel, she was quite frail, and nearly blind.

During the war their son Otto Kupferstein was an employee of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. After the war his parents sent him to a hotel school in Switzerland. There he met Eva Kylberg, a student at the same school. Eva came from a Swedish Protestant family. Otto and Eva were married without informing his parents. The anger and commotion caused by this decision reverberated long after the fact. Otto had committed the cardinal offence of the Herzog family, making a decision without the prior approval of his mother. To me it is yet another instance of breaking away from the oppressive demand for family cohesion.

Otto and Eva moved to Sweden, and made their home there. More dissent was to follow. Otto Kupferstein changed his name to Otto Herzog. I don’t know whether he officially remained a Jew. My contact with him was quite limited. There was a summer in 1935 in Vienna when both of us were children. Later, in the summer of 1947, we met during a meeting of a part of the family in Utrecht, in Holland, and, much later, in the 1960’s there was a visit of Otto to New York. He gave the impression of a cold person, deliberately keeping a distance, selfish, and somewhat haughty. It was difficult to be the son of his mother Lilly. Family patterns shaped him, and so did history. Family matters were not discussed, nor the impact of flight, of dislocation, and, of course, not the Shoah.

Otto and Eva have two daughters, Cecilia and Ann. Ann was named after her great grandmother Anna Herzog. Ann, the fourth generation of Herzogs I’m writing about here, is married. She has two children. They are now the fifth generation of Herzogs. These children, in turn, are of an age to start their own families. In 1998 Cecilia came to visit us here in New York. She is in her late 40’s, unmarried, a physiotherapist. She too changed her name, this time from Herzog to Kylberg, her mother’s maiden name. Is this another instance of running away from the Herzog family?

Otto, a successful manager of hotels, is retired now, and lives a comfortable life. The family owns a summer place on Gotland, an island in the middle of the Baltic Sea, about 100 miles southeast of Stockholm. According to his daughter Cecily his relationship to his wife Eva deteriorated over the years, today they are barely willing to communicate.

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Otto suffered for many years from a chronic intestinal irritation resistant to all medication. Seen from this distance, and also viewed as such by Cecily and her sister Ann, his ailment has all the hallmarks of emotional origins.

Is Otto a victim of the built-in family conflict of the Herzogs, of cohesion versus independence? He cut himself loose from his people, his past, his parents, and his wife. He is a survivor. The Shoah shaped his life in unpredicted ways, and it did the same to his children. I don’t think that any one of them is aware of this.

Note added on May 6th, 2014:

I received an e-mail from Cecilia, (signed Cecilia Herzog, not Kylberg, the name she had used the last time we had been n touch.) that Otto Herzog, son of Lilly and Joseph Kupferstein, died on May 5th in Sweden. No other details were given. Otto was one year older than I, probably born in 1922 in Vienna.

Lona Taussig:

A different set of notes records details of my family. Here I want to mention memories relevant to my mother’s standing in the Herzog family.

My mother Lona was the rebel in the family. I’m not sure what caused this reputation. I explain it as a rebellion against the pressure to conform. She met my father who then was working in Vienna. They were married in Vienna. I was born there in 1923, my brother Tommy in 1926. Soon thereafter our family moved to Prague, about 200 miles away. Lilly and Grandmother Herzog saw this move as disloyalty, a betrayal of the mandate to face the world as one united family. Communication stopped. There were no letters, no telephone calls, and no visits; my parents were no longer welcome at the Herzogs in Vienna. My mother never saw her mother again. When my mother died rather suddenly of pneumonia in 1932 Lilly came to Prague, went to attend the funeral, and returned immediately home to Vienna. The only one who dared to be in touch with us was Harry. There was an intellectual closeness between Harry and my father. Harry came to visit us in Prague once. In 1935 he invited me to spend some of my summer vacation in Vienna.

Stella

Early in the 1920’s Stella Herzog married Max Ehrenfest. In 1939 they succeeded in their flight from Vienna to Rumania. There, in the port of Constanza, they boarded an illegal ship that brought them to Haifa. Their daughter Ruth, born in 1925, had left late in 1938 with a transport of children for Holland. Upon the occupation of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany Ruth went into hiding. Eventually she was smuggled out of occupied Holland into Spain, and in 1944 boarded a ship in Cadiz, and, finally a legal immigrant, was allowed to join her parents in Haifa.

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and Max Ehrenfest:

While in Vienna in 1935 as part of my summer vacation I stayed in their apartment, but I spent most of the day with my Uncle Harry or in Grandmother Herzog’s home. I remember the Ehrenfests as a warm and friendly family. When I met them on a very brief visit to Vienna in 1968 they were quite eager to know details about the Terna/Taussig family.

In the 1930’s Max Ehrenfest was an employee of the social security system of Austria. In 1934 after a civil war in Austria, and the subsequent dictatorship of Dollfuss he was dismissed from his job. Laws enacted after the reestablishment of Austria after 1945 allowed him to claim a pension as if he had remained on the job all these years and that included assumed promotions. This pension persuaded him to move from Israel back to Vienna.

In 1947, in Haifa, their daughter Ruth married Werner Juda Meron. Werner was born in Dresden in 1922. I don’t know the circumstances of his move to Israel. In 1942 he had enlisted in the British Navy, and served with a submarine unit in Suez and later in Port Said. After the war he taught English at the Technion in Haifa, he also wrote some textbooks. Starting in 1956 he worked as a translator of technical literature in Vienna.

Ruth and Werner Meron have two children: Michal and Giora Meron.

Michal Meron is an artist, now living in Tel Aviv. She is now married to Alon Baker who had two children from a previous marriage, Gilad and Maya. Michal had two children from her earlier marriage, Eytan and Dovrat. Michal and Alon have two children, Kinneret and Nevo, and they adopted Nir Dwir as their seventh child. They have an art gallery in Old Jaffo. Michal paints in a naïve style. Almost all of her work is based on the Tanach. Her latest work is the visual representation of all parashiot. They are a vivacious couple, enterprising, and good company. They are the first generation of descendents of Grandfather Otto Herzog free of the cloud of family history, where the Shoah is a part of the history of the Jewish people, rather than immediate family experience. They do not show the much-too-frequent survivor’s guilt, they are not running away.

Giora Meron was born in 1955 in Haifa. He married Sonja Schwartz in Vienna in 1983. Both are medical doctors, and they live in Vienna. They have two children, David and Naomi. My only contact with them is by e-mail and FAX.

Eugen Herzog:

During the war Eugen and Alfons shared a similar fate. I shall write separately about Alfons further below.

After the Anschluss, i.e. the merger of Austria and Germany, late in 1938 Alfons and Eugen found a way to go to Holland. They had learned Dutch as children in Holland. It seems that the Catholic organization that had cared for them as youngsters after World

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War I provided false identity papers for them. This allowed them to cross into Yugoslavia, and from there they made their way to Amsterdam. In Holland they concocted a scheme for Grandmother Herzog to join them. War broke out in September 1939, and before long Nazi Germany occupied Holland. They got another set of false papers, and lived the underground life in the Dutch countryside. Grandmother Herzog was hidden in a Catholic convent pretending to be a nun. She was close to eighty years old then. Imagination fails me to picture her in that role.

While still in Vienna Harry, Alfons, and also Eugen were Social Democrats, i.e. moderate Socialists. None of them remained a Socialist after the war. During or soon after the war Alfons converted to Catholicism, and so did Harry who was then in New Zealand. (I shall talk about Harry later.) The subject of their conversion did not come up in conversation with me. My guess is that the seeds were planted while they were in Holland after 1918. Catholic relief organizations were probably eager to add conversion of Jewish children to physical rehabilitation. What was done by force in earlier centuries in our time is practiced by deception. I wonder to what extent Alfons’ conversion was his assertion of independence from the family. Gratitude for sheltering and protecting him during the Shoah may have been another cause.

While in hiding during Nazi occupation of Holland, Alfons and Eugen were laborers for an orphan home. With a lot of understatement and self-effacing modesty they admitted to having helped downed Allied pilots, hiding them, and then helping them to escape. They were in the area of Arnhem in the fall of 1944 when the assault of British glider and parachute units failed to capture a bridge across the Rhine. After the war they received citations, medals, and all sorts of honors for their quite dangerous involvement. From other people in Arnhem I later learned that they were well known for their exploits.

In 1953 Eugen married Emmy Steinweg, a widow of a victim of the Shoah. I had met her earlier, and found her to be a positive, optimistic and friendly person. Her family had lived in Munster in Westphalia. Eventually Eugen and Emmy went to live there. They opened a business for tobacconist’s supplies. I don’t know details of Emmy’s life before her marriage. At that time it was still rather difficult to talk about the years of persecution.

During the early1960’s Eugen and Emmy came to visit New York. It was a happy reunion. The conversation was about daily activities, the past was not mentioned. Eugen died in 1973. Emmy is still alive, writing holiday greetings in a shaky hand.

Alfons Herzog:

After the war Alfons lived in Utrecht, in Holland, in an old traditional family home. The house looked and felt very much like brownstones here in Brooklyn, except that the front was entirely built of bricks. Grandmother Herzog found her home there. This was the sweet old lady I met when invited by Alfons to spend a few weeks in his home. She was still in good physical shape, but her mind was getting confused, her time and space were becoming indistinct. There was a live-in lady to see after her needs.

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Alfons had started to manufacture aluminum pots and pans. Once a year he went to visit every one of his customers. In the summer of 1947 he asked me to be his driver while he went to see buyers from Zeeland in the south to Friesland in the north of the Netherlands. Because of that I know most small towns in Holland.

It was also a get-together of a part of the family. Grandmother Herzog, Lilly, her son Otto, my first wife Stella Horner, I, Alfons, Eugen, and also Emmy and Gerdie, both not yet married, were there. Except for Lilly’s attempt to push everybody around it was a happy occasion.

Later in 1947 Alfons married Gerdie. Gerdie’s family lived near Arnhem. I don’t know about Gerdie’s background, and I did not feel that I could ask questions. Talking about the past had set limits in the family. I only assume that she was a Catholic, though I have no proof. Gerdie was a remarkable person, generous, polite, and thoughtful, always ready for a friendly smile. She too was active in the rescue of Royal Air Force pilots during the war. That may have been the occasion of their first meeting.

Observing and listening to Alfons I tried to understand his conversion to Catholicism. There were no obviously visible signs, I don’t recall any church attendance by him, I don’t remember seeing a cross in his home. I know that both he and Gerdie were regular and frequent visitors to Israel. There were no books in his home to hint at a stance, a spiritual inclination, indeed there were no books at all there. To me this is a puzzling phenomenon in the life of a person with a Jewish background. Could this be yet another sign of running away from a book-centered people?

There was a pause of more than twenty years before I came to see Gerdie and Alfons again. Stella Horner and I moved from Paris to New York, Alfons and Gerdie moved to Wellington in New Zealand.

Harry Herzog, who is the last of the six siblings I have to write about, invited Alfons and Gerdie to join him in Wellington. Harry was married and had become quite successful, and, at a time when Holland was only slowly recovering from the war, Wellington was a thriving community. Alfons and Gerdie opened a car repair shop there. They had a child, but the youngster died, presumably of diphtheria, when nine years old.

Before leaving for New Zealand a decision had to be made where and how to care of Grandmother Herzog. She was frail and disoriented, she needed full-time attention. At first she went to live with Lilly in Haifa. While I don’t know more than the fact of Grandmother Herzog’s leaving Israel and going to live with Harry in Wellington there are ample reasons explaining the move. It was soon after Israel’s declaration of independence, and the attack of Arab armies. Lilly did not have the resources to take proper care of her mother. At that time Harry was relatively well to do, and had all the space needed. In Wellington, Grandmother Herzog lived with Alfons and Gerdie. Here I have to speculate again: There were three children in Harry’s home, and there were times when Harry’s wife was hospitalized because of manic depression.

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A conflict arose between Alfons and Harry over the care for their mother. This discord became quite serious. Much later I heard only Harry’s version. Years after that, when I asked Alfons at one of my visits he did not want to discuss the sequence of events, the memory of it was still too painful. I shall mention more about this when talking about Harry.

Because of his break with Harry Alfons and Gerdie went back to Holland. They bought a small hotel in Arnhem on the embankment of the Rhine. Alfons had stopped running.

Alfons as well as Harry suffered from severe asthma. This made me wonder and reflect. Other members of the Herzog family were free of asthma or comparative symptoms. To the extent that asthma has a psychosomatic ingredient why is it that the two members of the family that converted to Catholicism were affected? Otto Herzog, Lilly’s son in Sweden, who turned away from his Jewish past, has an ailment that manifests physical characteristics that point at psychological origins. I sense the enduring aftermath of the Shoah.

After more than 20 years I went to visit Gerdie and Alfons in Arnhem in 1968. Their hotel was a little jewel, overlooking the river. Gerdie cooked, Alfons was host, bartender, entertainer, and master of ceremonies. While there I marveled at their skill as innkeepers. Many, perhaps the greater part of their patrons, were former paratroopers and pilots, whom they had helped during the war, and who came to visit the places where many of their comrades had died. The hotel had a clear view of the bridge and the area that had been the objective of their assault. Alfons and Gerdie had the skill to create the atmosphere for a happy reunion of comrades who had survived the assault on Arnhem. Both hosts and guests were active participants in an action, which, if successful, could have brought the war to an earlier end. These were good reminiscences.

After my visit in 1968 I went to see them whenever I went to Europe, the last time when our son Daniel was a little child. Gerdie and Alfons had closed the hotel, they were getting too old to run it, and many of their regular guests were too old to make the trip back to Arnhem.

Among my aunts and uncles it was Alfons with whom I spent most of the time after the war. I visited him several times, each visit lasting several days. There was a happy and warm exchange of feelings, friendly teasing and repartee. All of these dealt with the moment or with plans for the next day. His feelings about the past were well shielded. I tried to read between the lines, but I did so in vain. His diffidence was my only clue about the strong presence and impact past events had on his frame of mind.

Alfons died several years ago. After Alphons’ death Gerdie, within the limits of age, was doing well. She traveled, visited relatives in Vienna, and in Israel. Gerdie died, 74 years old, March 16, 2000.

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Harry Herzog:

Harry was my favorite uncle. In 1935, when he invited me to spend part of my summer vacation in Vienna I knew that I was going to have a great time. Harry taught me to sail, taught me to swim; he was my fun uncle. For a short time I may have been the child he did not have until much later in his life. Harry was vivacious, he was enterprising, quite athletic, and always ready to suggest some interesting activity, to go bicycling or flying a kite. He was a happy guide. There was good conversation, he instructed, he informed and educated, and I did not notice it.

Among the six siblings Harry was the one that was intellectually most gifted. I don’t know how he felt about the family structure. In the 1930’s Harry, Eugen, and Alfons, all three grown men, though more than 30years old, were living in the home of their mother. Today it is easy to criticize the configuration. The political, the economic, and also the emotional ingredients may escape me. Grandmother Herzog was still quite vigorous then, her will and her decisions made themselves felt.

Before 1932 Harry came to visit us in Prague while my mother was still alive. All I remember is his being present. He must have come without letting his family know. There was correspondence between Harry and my father. Harry understood why my family moved from Vienna to Prague.

We may have to speculate about Harry’s exposure to the destructiveness of the Nazis in Vienna before 1938, to their violence, to their demeaning behavior against Jews. He certainly was quite aware of it, and if he was not an immediate personal victim, his circles, and his friends certainly were early targets.

The “Anschluss” of Austria to Germany early in 1938 endangered all Jews in Vienna. There were far too few countries willing to accept refugees, particularly foreigners without money. My father succeeded in getting a passport and travel papers for Harry so that he could go to England. I was not told about this except in most general terms. I assume that these were forged documents. I don’t remember the exact date of Harry passing through Prague. History and logic tell me that it must have been between the Anschluss in February 1938 and the annexation of the “Sudetenland” by Germany in the fall of the same year. Harry surprised my father by his superb knowledge of English. It was free of any accent; he had acquired the most correct upper class Oxford pronunciation. This, in my opinion today, was a mistake. He took a plane, a direct flight from Prague to London. Upon arriving in England he was immediately suspected to be a Nazi spy, and arrested.

It took a while before he could clear himself from the accusation. He decided that he would do better in Australia, and he went there. From Australia he continued to New Zealand. I don’t know the dates or even the years of these moves.

In New Zealand Harry married Elsie, who was born in Wellington. Eventually they had a daughter, named Ann after her Grandmother, and two sons, John and Robert. In the

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years before leaving Vienna Harry had been involved with the production of the forerunners of plastics, namely Bakelite. In Wellington he started the manufacture of small plastic items, enlarged the scope of his activity, and eventually became source of a whole range of plastic items. Today his firm is run by his sons, and is one of the major manufacturers of plastics in New Zealand.

After the war, while I lived in Paris, there were only a few letters from Harry with very little information about himself or his family. In 1947 or perhaps 1948 Harry was to come to Paris on a business trip. I was happy, and most eager to see my favorite uncle again. Waiting for him at the Gare des Invalides I saw him coming up the stairs, and he was smiling faintly. His exterior appearance was largely the same, he, however, had become a perfect Victorian gentleman, reserved, soft-spoken, with very, very proper, and formal manners. There was a veil around him, a barrier that kept emotions from flowing out or flowing in. It took me a good while to accept and to understand the change.

Harry had come to attend an exhibition of plastic extrusion machinery. I accompanied him as translator, though that was hardly necessary since the sales personnel spoke English. Later I found out that Harry spoke perfect French but wanted to hear the small talk of the vendors. He felt that machinery he had developed was years ahead of the models on sale.

Harry suggested in Paris that we, my wife Stella Horner and I, move to New Zealand. He could secure our immigration there in spite of New Zealand’s barriers to immigrants from continental Europe. He would help us in every way possible. During Harry’s visit in Paris he and I had a modicum of conversation about religion. It was that little exchange that caused me to turn down his offer. Well before Harry’s visit we had decided to go to the USA where Stella Horner had two uncles. I knew about the muffled anti-Jewish sentiment in New Zealand, and I wanted to live in a country where I could express myself without looking over my shoulder.

The subject of religion came up more than once. Harry seemed to have the need to explain his conversion to Catholicism. It took a lot of empathy on my part to keep the discussion on a detached footing. Harry’s statements about Jewish life and tradition were appalling. I know how well informed his siblings were; two of them were active Zionists. He repeated worn hackneyed images, catechism phrases. Harry was a textbook example of a person living on mutually incompatible levels, doing so comfortably, and without awareness. The Catholicism he expressed was so primitive that it surprised me. He certainly was not the devout believer who went to mass and confession week after week. I wonder whether he went to church at all. My conclusion was that his Catholicism was a notification that he did not want to be affected by his Jewish origin, that he wanted to distance himself from the turmoil of his past. The decision not to join Harry in New Zealand was an easy one.

Another element of Harry’s conversion and also that of Alfons makes me ponder. Why did both choose to join another minority group within their new countries, why did they pick Catholicism?

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After our arrival here in New York Harry came a few times on business trips. There was little information forthcoming other than events of his children growing up. One of the themes that did come up was his conflict with Alfons about Grandmother Herzog. It was the same old Herzog story of one of the siblings trying to tell the other how to live, and how to take care of each other. Harry claimed to be the elder, and Alfons claimed to know the needs of their mother. It was he, Alfons, who knew her best, who had provided for her needs all these years. This is Harry’s side of the story. Alfons, when this came up in conversation, was much too hurt to elaborate. Harry and Alfons never made up. There seemed to have been even a conflict where to bury Grandmother Herzog. I don’t know the site, and I suspect that this eventually nice, sweet old Jewish lady is buried in a Catholic cemetery in far-away New Zealand. An unanticipated conclusion of a life disrupted by the Shoah, but after much tribulation she lived into old age, to a natural death.

Once, and once only, Harry’s his wife Elsie came along for the trip. We went to see her in the hotel where they stayed. Elsie looked, and acted very much like a friendly schoolteacher, indeed she had been a music teacher before her marriage. Her soft voice, her gentle demeanor seemed to befit Harry’s Victorian comportment. With a slight change of apparel they would have been welcome to join company at five-o-clock tea anywhere in the British Empire of the 19th century. What a change for a nice Jewish boy from Vienna!

Harry died in his sleep in 1986. Elsie and I keep in touch by mail.

In letter after letter Elsie asked me for more details of Harry’s life as a young man. Harry had kept his past to himself, stressing the present. It seems that he wasn’t subtle at all in his refusal to disclose details about his life before his arrival in New Zealand. It caused a rift between him and Elsie, and the outright hostility of his children. After Harry’s death John and Robert came to accept the idea that they would have to live without that information. Ann, however, was seething, feeling that her mother knew more than she was willing to tell. Elsie was pleading with me to tell her more so that her relationship with her children could be repaired. Now there were even grandchildren asking questions about their grandfather.

I decided to try to answer her questions. My letter was hedged at every turn by an acknowledgment that my reasoning could be wrong, that I was appraising a life of another person, that some of it was armchair analysis, that even some of the data were open to questions. The letter was an outline of Harry’s life described in the preceding paragraphs, his history before his arrival in New Zealand. It said that it was rather obvious that he did not want his family to know about his Jewish family, the fate of some of his family during the Shoah, that he wanted to shield them from a potential persecution as descendents of a Jewish father.

Harry wanted to get away from his past, a past that was the cause of early insecurity, hunger, and deprivation, persecution. He distanced himself from a war that was to

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destroy all the good parts of his memories. He wanted to shed his Jewish past, his Socialist past, Vienna, Austria, Europe. He went as far away as possible. Yet when he took all these steps there was still Harry with all the weight of the past on his shoulders.

His inner needs put up barricades he did not want scale. His survivor’s guilt disrupted his family life but his family had no clue to his reasoning. I’m rather sure that neither he, nor his family, was aware of the term survivor’s guilt. They did not know that there was help available to gain some understanding, that their anguish was one of the consequences of the Shoah. I hope that my letter helped Elsie. It was too late for Harry, but not too late for his children and grandchildren.

With the exception of my brother Tommy all the descendents of Grandfather Herzog survived the Shoah. Those who allowed their past to become part of their life found ways to live with that past. Of the three who tried to distance themselves, two, Alfons and Harry suffered from severe asthma, and Otto, in Sweden, has an ailment that seems to be a psychosomatic one. Otto’s marriage is a marginal one. Harry’s family was, and to some degree is conflicted to this day. Those members of the Herzog family who went to Israel, their children, grandchildren, and also the fourth generation found ways to live with their past.

Added in 2002. (I made this addition part of the notes above.)

Otto Herzog was born January 16, 1871

Son of Wilhelm Herzog and Rosa, nee Kohn

(As per Jewish Community, Vienna, archives consulted in May 2008, Otto Herzog died August 10, 1913 “an Lungenkrankheit”.)

(Wilhelm Herzog could be Otto’s Father. There is however, the record that a Wilhelm Herzog, born July 1, 1869 was a witness at the wedding of Otto and Anna on March 22, 1896. It could be that the name Wilhelm was given to the son after the death of a father named Wilhelm.)

Anna Herzog was born March 31, 1866 in Joachimsthal (Jachymov) in Bohemia, Daughter of Josef Seidl and Marie, nee Schonfelder

They were married March 22, 1896 in Vienna, (Matrikelamt der Israelitischen Cultusgemeinde Wien, Leopoldsstadt, Litera F., Nr. 250)

Added in 2003:

This information comes from a recent newspaper article: After the start of WWII in the British Isles all German and Austrian nationals were detained. This included also Jewish refugees to England. In 1940 there was a transport of detainees to Australia on the HMT. Dunera. The Dunera arrived in Melbourne September 6, 1940. Recently there was a reunion of this group in Australia. Question: Was Harry Herzog one of the Dunera group?

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(See note below about this, made in May 2008)

Added in 2006:

Checking with the Sidney Jewish Museum a Ms. Tinny Lenthen wrote in her e-mail of 05/28/06: Hermann Herzog arrived in Sidney on the Dunera according to a list in the back of the book ”The Dunera Affair: A documentary resource book”.

Added in August 2006:

Daniel visiting Ruth and Werner Meron in Vienna, asked them about Harry’s first name on his “Geburtsschein”, his birth certificate. All that Daniel brought back were the birth dates of:

Harry Herzog : 10.3.1903 I assume this to be March 10, 1903

Alfons Herzog: 1.9.1907

Stella Herzog : 1.10.1900

Added in May 2008:

September1st, 1907

October 1st, 1900

While in Vienna invited by “A Letter to the Stars” we went to the archives of the Jewish Community in the Seitenstaettergasse.

The six siblings, children of Otto and Anna Herzog are listed as having been born in Cirkusgasse No 15, Vienna 2 (Leopoldsstadt)

Specifically, Harry is listed as Harry Herzog in the birth register, not as Hermann. This seems to indicate that the Hermann Herzog listed as one of the “Dunera boys” is a different person. Reason: why would Harry use a German first name while on a British ship?

A Wilhelm Herzog, born March 22, 1869, together with Carl Engler were witnesses at the wedding of Otto Herzog and Anna Seidl on March 22, 1896. There also appears the name of Emerich Herzog somewhere in the record. I forgot to make a note of where and why.

The dates of birth seem to indicate that Otto and Wilhelm Herzog were brothers. I asked Giora Meron to check to find data about Otto Herzog’s father.

.Adding on July 9th 2014: I received an e-mail from David Fogle of the Heschel Shoah Archive:

Don't know if you received this form from your wordpress blog Fred, so I'm forwarding.

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I hope you're having a good summer.

- David

-David

Fogle

dfogle@nylifespring.com

212-362-0299

Fax-362-0293

Begin forwarded message:

From: Tyler Herzog <donotreply@wordpress.com>

Subject: [Fred Terna's Memories] Contact

Date: July 5, 2014 4:19:16 PM PDT

To: junk2@shakespear.com

Reply-To: "Tyler Herzog" <tyler.h@lantech.co.nz>

Name: Tyler Herzog

Email: tyler.h@lantech.co.nz

Message: Hello Fred,

My name is Tyler Herzog, I am the 2nd son of John and Marion Herzog born in New Zealand in 1987, I'm not sure if you are still in contact with this blog but I wanted to just say thank you for 'The Herzog Family' writeup.

John discovered it and shared it with myself and my older brother Kiel just last month while we were visiting him in Australia. You writeup has answered questions I've asked John throughout my adult life and it has given myself and my brother information we would of never had.

As terrible as the past was, and as much as Harry didnt want his family to know of his life before NZ its nice to know where we come from. Its a shame I never got to meet Harry, everyone speaks so highly of him. I recently inherited a chess set that belonged to him from John, its something I admired all my childhood and I will cherish it until passing it on

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to my children.

Growing up, we were very close (and still are) to Johns older brother Robert and his children. Robert is one of the men I respect most in my life, my mother Marion always says that he inherited the most of Harry's traits.

Hope this gets to you, Thank you again.

Tyler Herzog

Time: July 5, 2014 at 7:19 pm

IP Address: 122.59.253.154

Contact Form URL: http://fredterna.wordpress.com/75-2/ Sent by an unverified visitor to your site.

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Frederick Terna 321 Washington Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11205

January 28, 2000

A NINTH SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

While writing these notes in January 2000, Daniel Terna, our son, is a pupil in the seventh grade of the Middle School. Daniel’s mother, Rebecca Shiffman, is the daughter of survivors of the Shoah. I, Frederick Terna, Daniel’s father, am a survivor.

Frequently, when talking to groups of students, I’m questioned about resistance by inmates of Ghettos and concentration camps. My earlier notes for the Shoah Archive gathered memories about family members rather than dwelling on general themes. Among the voluminous books about the Shoah most libraries contain many wellresearched volumes about the subject of resistance; it would be quite superfluous for me to add here accounts to which I was not a witness. I shall digress here from my previous focus on individuals, and give voice to some general thoughts about resistance. I shall then record some events as I remember them.

Before continuing I want to include here the significant part of a letter that I wrote in 1974 while attending a lecture on the Shoah. Since the recipient of the letter is still alive I’m omitting his name. His answer was heartfelt, kind, and led to further discussion.

Dear … …

From time to time you have voiced notions which could be summarized as “They should have taken a few with them”, and “They saw what was coming, and they sat on their money”. Painfully I have come to understand such expressions as reactions of people who lived outside continental Europe or who grew up after 1945. It is, perhaps, a necessary safety valve based on a life-sustaining rejection of the facts.

Before, and during the war, while events were unfolding, my family, my community, and probably all other communities were discussing again and again what to do, how to stay alive, how to choose right from wrong, remembering and observing our traditions. Alas, most participants cannot speak for themselves.

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On November 20th, when discussing the writings of Bruno Bettelheim you quote Bettelheim disapproving of Anne Frank’s father for teaching his children philosophy rather than self-defense. You endorsed that view, and added that Mr. Frank should have secured arms for his family. It was then that I decided to write this letter.

If Mr. Frank had followed the suggestion to “take a few with them” the death of the entire family would have been inevitable, the death of many around them probable. Mr. Frank survived. It could have been Anne; it could have been both, perhaps the entire group. Mr. Frank acted within our tradition of accepting personal risks rather than adding to the danger facing the entire community.

To “take a few along” meant inevitable reprisals, execution of the entire group, including old people, women, children, certainly one’s entire family. It was a step not taken lightly. To “take a few along” would have been a reckless indulgence. We were well aware of that option. One of our considerations was that we would not adopt the values of our oppressors. We would, for instance, not kill at random, pick off a guard, perhaps an illiterate recruit from Transsylvania or Bosnia.

…

One of the dictionary definitions of resistance applicable here could be paraphrased as “opposing a force”. That wording encompasses a wide range, from the heroic uprising in the Bialystok Ghetto to the demanding endeavor of an old person to maintain personal cleanliness in appalling circumstances, without soap, or even enough water. Today we have perfect hindsight, we know the history of Jewish communities in Europe during Nazi rule in some detail. These events were lived then from one day to the next without information, without communication with other communities.

Any statement about the Shoah, and thus also about resistance must be very precise about the date and also the place. What was a true statement about Ghetto Theresienstadt in 1942 could be quite wrong in 1943. Events in Lithuania in 1943 were thoroughly different from those in 1943 in occupied France.

From the earliest days of Nazi occupation of my hometown Prague news and access to information were rigidly controlled. Information needed by the Jewish community was by word of mouth, and edicts handed down by the local Gestapo, the Nazi secret police. These decrees were enforced with extraordinary brutality. Any transgression by an individual brought harsh punishment on the community. At regular intervals posters were mounted throughout the city giving names, and describing the mode of execution of non-Jews who had acted against the German occupation. Resistance was in the air, and a serious concern for the occupiers.

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If the definition of resistance is the opposition to force, then Jewish resistance began by choosing to be a viable member of the community, by maintaining the ethical precepts under a rule that assaulted every aspect of our lives. After the war the phrase “Spiritual Resistance” was coined. It includes the continued teaching of Jewish children under the threat of severe punishment, the performing of music, writing, painting and lecturing in Ghettos and concentration camps. At the other end of the definition of opposition to force is the armed active resistance to Nazi rule. There is also the middle ground of harming the German war effort. Jewish resistance took many forms, but it had one modifier, our knowledge that reprisals would affect the entire community. The Nazis publicized in great detail the fate of the Czech village of Lidice in Bohemia. In 1942, as a reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the top Nazi in Bohemia, all males of Lidice were executed, all women and children sent to concentration camps, Lidice was leveled. None of the inhabitants of Lidice were Jews.

A general remark: Spiritual Resistance was activity ignored or tolerated by the Nazis. Since the individuals involved were known, and slated for death within a short time anyway, no special action was taken. Active resistance to the Nazis required anonymity. This included e.g. partisans in the forests. Active resistances in ghettos or concentration camps were doomed efforts. Location and membership were known. Effective armed resistance or economic sabotage requires anonymity. I shall expand on that when talking about Kaufering farther down.

The phrase “they went to their death like sheep to slaughter” forgets that while we were in trains to death camps we did not know where we were going. Plans for the “Endloesung”, the “Final Solution”, were a closely guarded secret by the Nazis. Armed Jewish resistance was attempted when it was quite clear that death of all Jews in a particular location was imminent. Yet, there were no survivors of the Bialystok Ghetto uprising. Even before being shipped to death camps sabotage on a smaller scale was routine. Opposition to Nazi rule was achieved in subtle ways.

The prevention of sabotage and rebellion was of prime concern to the Nazis. It was their fear, their obsession. Any action by inmates was first viewed in that light. The Nazis spent large amounts of energy and resources on deterrence and control.

In March of 1939 when Nazi Germany occupied the remnant of Bohemia I was 15 years old. In an earlier note I recorded details about the immediate repression of the Jewish community. I don’t know whether resistance was contemplated by anybody at that time. There was total conviction that, eventually, Germany would go down in defeat. Jewish resistance began by the evasion of orders. As mentioned in a different set of notes my education continued in a carefully planned manner. Every effort was made to circumvent anti-Jewish decrees, and to soften their impact. There were about 25,000 Jews in Prague, a highly visible group in a city of about one million.

From early in 1940 to the summer of 1941 I lived with false documents on a farm in Lobkovice, a village north of Prague. While there I was careful not to get into a situation

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where I could be found out. There were no Jews in the area I was aware of. The Czech population was quietly co-operating with the German rule. There were collaborators in the village who were willing to betray anybody for small favors from the Nazis. One of them suspected the validity of my documents, and I had to return to Prague in haste. Soon after that, on October 3rd 1941, then just about 18 years old, I was put into a labor camp in Lipa, in German called Linden bei Deutsch-Brod, a place in the highlands between Bohemia and Moravia. It was run by the Gestapo and by Nazi storm troopers. We were a group of a few hundred young Jews, almost all around twenty years old, slave labor working on a huge farm, in the forest, building roads. There was a wire fence around the camp. Escape would have been quite easy, yet no one tried. A chalk line around the camp would have done as well. The Nazis had the names and addresses of our families, and any attempt to escape would have endangered them. The “Wansee Konferenz”, the secret meeting of the highest officials of the German Reich where the systematic murder of all Jews under German rule was planned occurred in January 1942, months after we were shipped to Lipa. We, of course, did not know about that meeting, not then, nor anytime during the war. With perfect hindsight of today we should have done many things differently in Lipa. Resistance: There were very few areas where we could do anything serious. Damaging tools or equipment could have had lethal consequences, and we knew that. Sabotage was done in a very individual way. It was not done on a major scale so as not to endanger other inmates. In another set of notes I mentioned how we continued studying, teaching each other. It included clandestine performances, lecturing to small groups; it included a choir of eight voices. We were hungry, tired, and dirty, but our minds were soaring.

In March 1943 all the inmates of Lipa were shipped to Terezin, Ghetto Theresienstadt.

The fervor of the discerning life of Ghetto Terezin comes to mind when the expression Spiritual Resistance is invoked, that passion for life while surrounded by affliction and terror. I was fortunate to have been able to attend many lectures, to be able to listen to performances, to have met many fine artists there. Teaching and schools were not allowed, but there were literally hundreds of lectures presented by some of the finest minds of Central Europe. I remember well the various lectures of Rabbi Leo Baeck about philosophy. Operas were performed in concert form sung by some of the great voices of the time. Instead of an orchestra an old piano on wooden horses had to serve. The list of such activities is too long for these brief lines. If armed resistance was contemplated, and planned in Terezin then I was not aware of such projects. In the workshops, set up by the Nazis as part of their war effort, slow and shoddy work was prevalent, tempered by sensible awareness of limits.

In the fall of 1944 along with thousands of other Terezin inmates I was shipped to Auschwitz. Upon arriving there and filing by Doctor Mengele a few able-bodied young men and I were waved aside as slave labor; all the others were driven into the gas chamber. We remained in Auschwitz for a limited time. Auschwitz was being evacuated; the Russian army was drawing near. While in Auschwitz flight and resistance was contemplated; yet recognized as fantasy. Before long we were driven into railway cattle

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cars. After a long and difficult journey we, the survivors of that trip, found ourselves in Kaufering #4, a sub-camp of Dachau.

Kaufering was the worst camp I experienced. Other notes record more detail about Kaufering. It was Kaufering that gave us the anonymity to sabotage the German war effort. We were in thin pajama striped uniforms, and looked much alike. The work was on a huge construction site building aircraft factories. There were two 12-hour shifts. There were a few possibilities of resistance. This may have shown itself as no more than the claim not to understand commands in German, making it necessary for the Nazis to assign more guards to each task. Each additional guard meant one man less fighting against the Allies. The best opportunities for sabotage arose during the night shift, and in particular during air raid alarms, when all lights were turned off, and the guards went into shelters while we had to remain outside. While I was on a work detail unloading cement from a train, during darkness I would take a fist-full of sand and toss it into oil boxes lubricating axles of boxcars. It would take some time but eventually the axles would get pitted, seize, or run hot and cause a fire. We jammed railway signal switches. Someone knew how to tamper electrical fuse boxes. These small actions did not end the war one minute earlier but they gave us the satisfaction of active involvement.

We were liberated in April 1945. Executions, death marches, beating, starvation, exhaustion, and epidemics killed almost all concentration camp inmates who had managed to survive into 1945. I was one of the very few alive, barely alive, when liberated April 27th, 1945.

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Frederick Terna

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205

April 10, 2000

A TENTH SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

The text below was written well before our son, Daniel Terna, was born. Today Daniel is a pupil in the seventh grade of the Middle School. Daniel’s mother, Rebecca Shiffman, is the daughter of survivors of the Shoah. I, Frederick Terna, Daniel’s father, am a survivor.

These are notes for comments I made as part of the commemoration of Yom Hashoah, April 19, 1982 at Temple Shaaray Tefila, 79th Street at 2nd Avenue, New York City:

Some of you know me as a member of this Congregation. Today, however, I am speaking to you as a survivor. This allows me to fulfill a small part of the promise we made to each other in Auschwitz, in Dachau, and in so many other places, as there are fewer and fewer of us: “If you should live through this, go and tell the world.”

For more than a generation the world did not want to know or to be reminded, and we, the survivors, hurting and isolated, complied, and kept silent.

Today, when we are searching to give substance to that sentence, ‘Six million Jews were murdered’, we are numbed by that number, and so we let the words ‘six million’ stand in place of the unbearable attempt to look at the life and at the death of each individual killed. Even today, 37 years later, I cannot bring myself to find the words to tell about how all those around me died.

Rather than talk about ‘Six Million’ I would rather remember particular individuals. I will tell you about two people who were part of the Jewish community of Prague, the city in which I grew up: Jenny Taussig, my grandmother, and Erwin Boehm, a friend.

In 1942 Jenny Taussig was put to death in a gas chamber in Treblinka. I'm aware of the horrors imposed upon her during the last two years of her life, but when I think of her I remember her for her kindness and love, the authority of her wisdom, and the details of her daily life. She knew by heart all the telephone numbers of her sisterhood, and those of many friends. She gently guided my brother and me to the love of chamber music and opera. She told me stories about her own grandmother who was born in the 1830's.

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Erwin Boehm was killed in February 1945 in Kaufering, a subcamp of Dachau. What I remember about Erwin is his wild sense of humor, his wit, and his energy. He was an ardent Zionist. He was handsome, and he knew it - he was something of a ladies' man. A few weeks before his death, then starved and nearly a skeleton, he recited to us a poem he had written in his head in which he was explaining to an imaginary girlfriend why hi was not looking his best.

I am here because of a series of improbable statistical accidents. When every tenth person was shot I was number nine. Arriving in Auschwitz, still young and physically fit, I was not herded into a gas chamber, but selected for slave labor. On a long march luckily my shoes did not fall apart, so I did not lag behind to be shot. On a long train ride in a jam-packed cattle car I somehow did not die of thirst. These are just a few examples of the randomness of survival. Yet all these lucky circumstances would have been of little help if my father had not taught me ethics, philosophy and history. I was well prepared emotionally and intellectually to deal with whatever came my way. I knew what was right and what was wrong, and I was totally certain that evil would not prevail, that the Nazis were doomed, that liberation was a certainty.

I was not quite 18 years old when these events started for me on October 3rd, 1941. Three years, six months, thee weeks and two days later, on April 27th, 1945 I was liberated in Bavaria, mostly skin and bones, and near death. Several months later, barely able to walk, I returned to my hometown, Prague, only to find out that I was the only survivor in my entire family.

When I tried to get back some of the family possessions, the response I got was: “How come you didn’t die like all the others?”

Only about one tenth of the Jewish community of Prague had survived the concentration camps. It is as if only the front section of this sanctuary had survived, among them not one child, not one single adult over middle age, and even that small battered remnant was largely ignored when they returned to their former home town. Liberation did not guarantee survival. Many could not heal from their wounds. A frightful number committed suicide.

I am sure that you know about some of the atrocities committed by the Nazis. These are too painful for me to talk to you about. I would rather talk about how we reacted to the conditions imposed upon us. We, Jews under Nazi rule, were like any other community of Jews at any other given time in history: some were wise, some foolish, there were women and men, young and old, scoundrels and heroes. No matter how difficult the oppression, events were constantly discussed, option weighed, the morals and politics of any situation evaluated. Resistance, open and hidden, was planned with care whenever possible. This was not a demoralized mob waiting to be slaughtered.

Crime and unethical behavior was negligible. We well knew that human values were survival values, and that destructive behavior at the expense of others inevitably brought

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death to those who had betrayed the moral code. Even after liberation, when vengeance was possible, we did not return to kill our former oppressors, we had not been corrupted into imitating their ideology. We Jews are not murderers.

It is up to us, the survivors, to ‘go and tell what happened’. A few of us have become writers. Some of us have become scientists or artists, or articulate and visible in other fields. The world does not see, however, that much larger group, now close to old age, still battered and bruised and hurting, transplanted to different countries and cultures, with memories that still haunt them.

We have no tombstones for our unburied dead, and so it has become fashionable to commission memorials in stone and in bronze, symbolically or explicitly saying “Six Million”. These monuments make me vaguely uncomfortable, they seem inadequate, denying the individuality of those who perished. It is not a substitute for the concern for the living. Communities must search out those survivors, now mostly old, who need love, care, and attention.

I want to end by speaking to the youngest among you. You may well forget the details of what is said here today, but I want you to remember one thing, and to remember it well: In 1982, when you were in your teens, you met a survivor, and you talked to him. I want you to remember this for sixty years, and then tell your grandchildren. It will then be one hundred years from the time in which one third of our people perished. Let your deeds and your remembering be the memorial for them.

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Frederick Terna

Rebecca Shiffman

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205-3704

(718) 636-1955

FAX: (718) 638-1727

September 17, 2000

AN ELEVENTH SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

Today, Daniel Terna, our son, is a pupil in the eighth grade of the Middle School. Rebecca Shiffman, Daniel’s mother, is the daughter of survivors of the Shoah, I, Frederick Terna, Daniel’s father, am a survivor.

Memory, the subject of this eleventh set of notes, is the source of the preceding ten narratives, and should, perhaps, have been the first set rather than appearing at this late date. I’m well aware of that personal angle, and I shall return to it below.

We are admonished to remember and to observe. The voluminous literature about Jewish historiography, the confluence of memory and documentation into history attempts to illustrate how we reflect on the past.

Today there are thousands of personal memories of survivors of the Shoah recorded on tapes; there is detailed evidence of events and places, there are uncounted volumes of documentation. Whatever details I could contribute are held in various archives. Here I want to reflect on the way I remember, rather than on particulars. I shall therefore omit here my description of events during the Shoah.

My earliest memory dates to about 1926, and encompasses nearly three-quarters of the past century. Memory about the Shoah, however, includes only a small part, the years 1939–1945 of my life under Nazi rule. I know of no way of organizing this past. Chronology may be of some help, but the bulk of my remarks have to be random ones.

Memory is a selective process. Total memory would require the full recall of every past instant lived or observed, of emotions experienced; auspiciously this is quite impossible. We choose to remember segments, not the totality of events. In my case, and most fortunately, only a small part of the 3½ years of concentration camps is in the foreground at any given time. Today we know enough about the many facets of memory. Often we choose to close off some areas. Self-deception, denial, evasion are ingredients.

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Talking about the past while in concentration camps was one way of maintaining continuity. This was both a personal and also a group effort to counteract the oppression we were experiencing. We probably were not aware of the positive impact of this shortterm review at first. When an inmate was killed those who knew him talked about his family and his background. Over time, while events were unfolding there was an overload of feelings. All of us knew well that we could be the next ones to die, individually or, perhaps, even the entire group. After some time the overwhelming quantity of impacts was blurred, and only the most traumatic occurrences found their place in the immediately accessible memory.

There was one constant refrain: The one that survives must tell the story.

It was only years later that some of these events were open to reaction or to reflection.

After liberation I was hospitalized for several months; first in Bavaria, and later in Prague. At that time the Czech population had only a vague awareness of the destruction of the Jewish community. We were reminded how lucky we were that we had survived, that we should not talk about our immediate past, that it should be forgotten, that we should resume our lives. It was the beginning of a long silence.

This silence was not restricted to Prague; it pervaded the rest of the world. We survivors did not have to talk to each other about our experience during the war, we knew. Memory was pushed into the background. There are many explanations for this prolonged silence, and a different answer would have to be sought for each country or group. A critical review of the reasons given is outside the area of this set of notes.

Later researchers used the apt phrase “conspiracy of silence”.

The task of starting a new life took all the energy available. Many, too many survivors did not have the strength to cope with the loss of their families, their community, and the new rejection. The suicide rate of survivors after liberation was frightful.

Gradually we found a way to fit ourselves into a niche to earn a living. The Shoah was there, but hidden and barely acknowledged. I lived in Paris from 1946 to 1951, and since 1952 in New York. I don’t recall others talking about the Shoah until the 1960’s. There were only a few books on the subject.

The silence around me did not stop me from thinking about the past. There was the larger picture with many questions. What was the scope of the destruction? When and where did members of my family perish? Why did the structure of society allow a criminal system take over? Can I trust any system of governance to respect human rights? What is it that made a largely Christian community commit mass murder? Where did the concept of an all-powerful, omniscient, benevolent creator fit into this recent history? There were legions of such questions, and many are as pertinent today as they were decades ago.

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Over the years, and unceasingly, more and more painful memories surfaced. Some of them as nightmares, some of them in the course of daily life, triggered by a word, an odor, an image, anything. Soon after liberation I realized that my memories would be part of me, that I could not shut them out at will. Since memory would be present I had to find ways to include it in my daily routine. Somewhere in one of my earlier notes for the Archives I described this as my Shoah memory being a continuous, unpredictable, and uncontrolled crazy bass playing in the background while I have learned to play the fiddle above it so there should be some harmony to my life.

As the years go by new details come to the surface. Rather than receding into the past memory opens up. Painful images rise into consciousness. In these notes I have carefully avoided the graphic report of each place and event. The pain, horror, the gruesome and gory particulars have been reported in many places. I do not wish to repeat here what is vividly part of me. Putting this memory into words is upsetting, and I feel that I can omit here my corroboration.

The weight of the promise we gave to each other to let the world know about the Shoah, about those who perished has been lightened by the many writers, official reports, the effort of the Second, and now even the Third Generation. My contributions were, and are, lectures, participation in several commemorative organizations, and, in a small way, my notes for the Shoah Archives of this school.

I find it difficult to read reports, to read fiction about the subject. I avoid movies about the Shoah, though I understand that some of them are very deserving, and should be seen. When reading or viewing images about the Shoah in my mind there runs a different text, and the resonance is painful and disturbing. It then may take a long time to get back to an earlier equilibrium.

The promise we gave to each other to let the world remember the Shoah has been kept.

Today, more than fifty-five years after liberation I consider myself to be a happy person. I was fortunate to have learned to live with my memories. I have a lovely and wise wife, an exciting and promising teen-age son, enough food to eat, clothes to wear, a roof over my head, and a vibrant community around me.

I have made it.

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Frederick Terna Rebecca Shiffman

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205-3704

(718) 636-1955

FAX: (718) 638-1727

December 2, 2000

A TWELFTH SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

A few days ago a book arrived in the mail. It included a letter from my aunt Emmy, six pages written in a somewhat shaky and old-fashioned script. Emmy Herzog is ninetyseven years old today, and lives in Munster, in Westphalia. Emmy authored the book last year; it is written in German.

In an earlier note about the Herzog family I mentioned Emmy Steinweg marrying my Uncle Eugene after the war. I did not know about her life before or during World War II; I only knew that her first husband had perished in a concentration camp.

Emmy’s letter mentions how old age had imposed limits on her, yet her optimism and her zest for life pervades every sentence. Emmy had outlived her friends and her family, and she was lonely. She mourned the loss of her second husband, my Uncle Eugene, but all these years had suppressed memories of her life with Leo. I’m translating here a few words from her book: “In 1999, while away from home, sitting on balcony and looking at a beautiful landscape the idea came to me to set to words memories that had oppressed me all these years. Now that I have started, my courage is abandoning me; I see the horrors again. Tears come to my eyes, but I have the firm intention to continue writing.” Back home she sat down in her garden and started on her task. In her letter she tells about her effort to satisfy her need to recollect not only happy memories but also the painful ones. A neighbor noticed her writing day after day, came over, questioned, read a few pages, and insisted that she consider publishing her history. Then follow in fine detail and in moving sentences the many steps leading to publication. There was her reluctance to publish at all, her fear about rejection, of being laughed at. The book was finished in December 1999, and published in May 2000; its title is “Leben mit Leo”, Life with Leo.

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Conjecture rather than verifiable information about Emmy’s family leads me to wonder about her background. Before World War I., before 1914, her family had left Poland and moved to Germany, eventually settling in Munster in Westphalia. Why did they leave Poland? In 1933 when Hitler came to power in Germany they had all the official documentation proving that they and their ancestors were Catholics. Random remarks heard after the war make me question that background. It included the statement that because of their papers Emmy’s brother had to serve in the German army. Emmy spoke Polish, and she understood Yiddish. Both of her husbands were Jews. I assume that both of her marriage ceremonies were civil ones since Emmy’s documents listed her as a Catholic. In 1940, after the German occupation of the Netherlands, Emmy was registered as a single woman using her named Bogatzki, her maiden name.

The book starts in 1924, in Munster, in Westphalia, when Emmy went to a dance, and met there a young Jewish man, Leo Steinweg, who was a professional motorcycle racer for BMW, even then a major manufacturer of motorcycles in Germany. Leo and Emmy were married, and eventually opened in Munster a business selling and servicing motorcycles. Their business thrived until 1933 when Hitler came to power. Leo immediately lost his driver’s license, and thus was not allowed to participate in motorcycle races. Within a short time their business was confiscated. Former friends avoided them. Their other possessions were confiscated, and Leo was not allowed to work. Somehow they managed to earn a living, believing that the Nazi regime would come to an end soon. In August 1938 a well-connected person informed them that within a few days a major action against Jews living in the area was to happen, and that Leo should at once leave Germany. By then Leo had a large letter J stamped on each page of his passport, and he was listed as Leo Israel Steinweg.

Leo crossed the border into the Netherlands, stating that he was on a short business trip. Since he had but a small satchel of clothing he was allowed in. By then the Netherlands had issued an order that no refugees from Germany were to be allowed into the country. Leo found himself to be an illegal resident in the country of his refuge. He was not allowed to work or to rent a place. Emmy soon afterward left Munster to join Leo in Utrecht. Emmy was not identified as a Jew, and could travel. The lot of a refugee was a difficult one. They were not allowed to earn a living, and had to depend on handouts from private organizations. While their life was a difficult one they were not in physical danger. Emmy and Leo managed to get a visa to emigrate to Brazil. While waiting for their ship, with all documents and tickets in their pocket, Germany invaded the Netherlands.

Close to two hundred pages record the years from 1924 to the end of World War II, most of them as vivid conversation between Emmy and Leo, and also with people who had an impact on their life. In the connecting text Emmy describes the circumstances of these dialogues, as well as her feelings about people and events. She mentions how she remembers the exact words of nearly three-quarters of a century ago. Her style resembles that of a novel for young women, conversation between young newlyweds, about early struggles that should lead to a happy future. Her account has some of the

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feeling of a diary. It is the contrast between Emmy’s style and reality that gives the book its impact.

Her book tells of the small details of love and hope, of care and intimacy, of crying and embraces, of fear and horror, all this while in hiding in Utrecht in the Netherlands. It tells of the search for scraps of food, for a warm coat, for new underwear, about the hundreds of stratagems developed to stay alive. In diary style meals and unexpected treats supplied by Dutch friends are mentioned, acts of kindness by strangers are acknowledged. First in hiding in one house they were warned about a scheduled raid, and Dutch friends found another place for them on the top floor of a small house. While it was safe at first, the tenants on the floor below them were forced to relinquish their home to make space for a Nazi sympathizer. From that moment on Leo and Emmy had to be on their guard twentyfour hour a day. Leo had to walk in his stocking feet; he could not flush the toilet while alone at home. Whenever the doorbell rang he climbed from their balcony into a hiding place on the roof until he was assured that it was safe to come down. During winter that was a cold, icy and slippery hideout.

They were betrayed, and their hiding place was discovered. In 1942 Leo was apprehended, and shipped to Auschwitz. From there he was shipped to another concentration camp, Flossenburg, and he perished there early in 1945. Emmy was taken to the headquarters of the Gestapo, the German secret police, but managed to avoid deportation. Emmy remained in Utrecht, and was liberated there.

Reading Emmy’s book fills me with admiration for her. She had the strength to recall a very painful part of her past, and to record it in minute detail. After reading a few pages I had to stop for a while before continuing. My memories and feelings were roused; emotions, close to the surface most of the time, made me pace myself with care.

Our injunction to remember and to observe was acknowledged and accomplished by Emmy Herzog when she was 96 years old. She too will be remembered, and so will be the life and death of Leo Steinweg.

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Frederick Terna Rebecca Shiffman

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205-3704

(718) 636-1955

FAX: (718) 638-1727

September 23, 2001

A THIRTEENTH SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

Daniel Terna, our son, graduated from the Middle School this June of 2001. We want to continue our involvment with the Heschel School. Rebecca Shiffman, Daniel‘s mother is the daughter of survivors of the Shoah, I, Frederick Terna, Daniel’s father, am a survivor. This set of notes is the text of my discourse at the Kane Street Synagogue in Brooklyn on Slichot, this year the evening of Saturday, September 8th, 2001. A lively discussion followed, but I didn’t record that part.

"I’m going to talk about forgiveness. It is important this time of the year; it is important to me. It is a matter we all confront both as offenders and as victims.

These days forgiveness is frontpage news.

Russian officers asked for forgiveness from villagers in Chechnya. The president of Poland asked for forgiveness from Jews who were murdered in Jedwabne. Not too long ago, at Auschwitz, Pope John-Paul II asked for forgiveness in the name of Christians, though not in the name of the Catholic Church. In South Africa a council of forgiveness was created to resolve latent hostility between groups. We could add to this group any day reading the newspaper.

When Rabbi Weintraub had asked me whether I wanted to speak this evening I readily agreed. Rather than talking about Art in Jewish life as I had done in past years I wanted to dwell on forgiveness, but only on forgiveness between people. I also wanted to explore whether there is a specifically Jewish forgiveness.

To find sources, and to be able to order the subject into a coherent and systematic whole, I would check the Encyclopedia Judaica, and the Internet. One of the search engines I used, Googol, under ‘Forgiveness’ had 750,000 entries. I then limited my search to ‘Forgiveness, Jews’, and there were 75,000 entries. There are 7,000 entries for ‘Forgiveness and Talmud’. Finally, I checked Amazon.com for books on ‘Forgiveness’, and found 285 titles on sale there. I realized then that I was in a lot of trouble.

Is there a good definition for forgiveness? The dictionary says ‘to pardon an offense or offender’. Additional information may be needed.

An adequate outline may well require the combined qualifications of a theologian, a historian, a sociologist, and a psychologist, but I’m a painter.

Some large categories of offenders and the offended are obvious.

1. First comes the demand to resolve the relationship of persons or groups with God.

2. Second is the interaction between two persons, and

3. Third are transactions between individuals and groups and

4. Fourth are conflicts between groups.

It may be sensible to keep as a separate category forgiveness within a family or in a close relationship.

Finally there is the quest of one person to live with conflicting feelings and values, to forgive oneself.

I shall not speak about forgiveness from God, the center of our attention throughout the High Holidays. I also shall omit talking about close relationships or about troubled individuals where the competence of a psychologist or psychiatrist is needed.

At the very beginning of my attempt to talk about forgiveness I realized that I would have to speak in general terms, and limit myself to a few random samples and observations. At most I could look into one case or another, rather than being able to conclude with a well thought out guide to forgiveness. At the conclusion of my talk I may leave you with sources for discussion, perhaps with some food for thought.

One necessary element inherent in all instances of forgiveness is the harm, the transgression, and the iniquity that has to be addressed. Where there is no hurt, no offense given, where no transgression incurred, forgiveness is not needed. A logical step should follow, and a question should be asked: Why do these wrongs and offences occur? An answer would lead us in no time to the inquiry into the nature of human beings, to questions of the origin of sin, questions of theodicy, questions of eschatology. While I’m sorely tempted to reflect on this matter today I must stay away from that subject. Whatever our ideas about forgiveness may be, however, at some level psychology, theology, and cultural patterns will reverberate.

Following Rambam’s Hilchot ha T’shuvah, and many other commentators, this is our basic model of how forgiveness is earned: If I have wronged you I have to set things right, repair the offense, resolve not to repeat the transgression ever again, apologize, and then ask you for your forgiveness. This, our general rule, here is defining conflict resolution between two persons who can communicate.

A moment of hesitation: Rambam’s formulation seems simple, but it contains complex issues.

A grid could be drawn, an array. In a horizontal row the offended, the victims would be listed: one known person, several known persons, one dead person, several dead people, and a large group that perished. In a vertical column the offenders would be listed: one known perpetrator, an unknown perpetrator, several of them, several unknown ones, a large group, and an organized entity. The list of categories I picked is arbitrary, and also incomplete. As arrayed here there are five groups of victims, and six of perpetrators. The result is a grid of thirty cells, and each cell may require a different variation of forgiveness. I mention this tabulation to show the complexity of the idea. Moreover, our set of answers would be based on Jewish precepts. Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, or Hindus or any other group may impose different injunctions.

Before continuing I have to ask you for your forgiveness for my temerity, my chutzpah, of tackling a subject far from my competence. This illustrates one facet of forgiveness: one person asking several others present for acquittal.

It is a case of “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread”. The quote is from Alexander Pope, from his “An Essay in Criticism”. If I had omitted here the source of the quote I would have offended the authorship of Alexander Pope. Unfortunately, he died in 1744. How can an offender ask forgiveness from a person who is dead or unidentifiable?

Returning now to some of the examples mentioned at the beginning, and placing them into the grid: The Russian officer, a member of the military which destroyed villages in Chechnya, is a living member of a group of offenders asking living members of victims for forgiveness. This is a valid, genuine, and also practical request for forgiveness that may lead to a change in behavior by the culprits.

The current president of Poland, not a perpetrator himself, is asking the dead Jews of Jedwabne for forgiveness. Does he speak for his compatriots? His statement enraged many of them, and that included the local clergy. Why did he feel the need for his declaration? Here a living non-perpetrator pleads with dead victims. Neither the offenders nor the victims were present. I’m puzzled.

Pope Paul John II, at Auschwitz, not too long ago, asked for forgiveness in the name of Christians. When speaking for Christians is he identifying here also with Southern Baptists, with Lutherans, with Protestants of Northern Ireland, or even the KKK? He did not ask for forgiveness in the name of the Catholic Church, and also not for all the edicts of Church Councils of the last sixteen centuries, and also not for all the still authoritative declarations about Jews from the Church Fathers to the present. Pope Paul’s warm and fuzzy sentiment is in marked contrast with the precision of canonic legal precepts, that finely detailed and razor-sharp clarity of ecclesiastic positions. Did John Paul II meet the minimum requirements for forgiveness? He used the customary phrases, but omitted the steps that should precede the asking for forgiveness.

Christian forgiveness works in a feudal system, and as a hierarchy. King, Emperor or Pope, every one of them is claiming to have a mandate from heaven, being God’s representative on earth, and being empowered to forgive a subordinate. This continues all

the way down the ladder to the lowest one in the social structure. A higher rank may forgive a lower one. For one of lower rank to demand forgiveness from one higher up is a grave transgression.

Where does the Jewish concept of forgiveness come from? At the very beginning of our text the creation of the first couple is followed shortly by their disobedience and their punishment. At first, divine forgiveness is withheld. Then Cain slays Abel, and God forgives Cain. As the Tanach continues, after the covenant with the forefathers, and because of their merit, the Israelites are forgiven again and again for their sins. In later generations our teachers found guidelines about forgiveness appropriate to changing ages and places. I took this brief detour to show how far back forgiveness is rooted in our tradition. Different sets of ideas about forgiveness became the roots of Christianity.

Forgiveness among Jews was, and is, democratic. The same rules hold for the powerful and the weak, the poor and the rich, the learned and the uneducated.

Forgiveness within our community is well codified. Questions arise when there is an interaction with non-Jewish groups. Historically that meant conflicts with Christians, and different principles for forgiveness apply to Christians. Forgive and forget is a Christian mandate.

While the affliction of chauvinistic nationalism is abating in many parts of the world, the plague of fundamentalism is spreading. Both rabid nationalism and fundamentalism are inherently against forgiveness to outsiders. The list of fundamentalists is getting longer and longer, and, alas, includes Jewish groups.

Earlier I talked about the social function of forgiveness. There is also a personal one. Not to forgive means perpetuating hostility, carrying a grudge, possibly hatred, and this eventually becomes a life-denying stance.

If forgiveness is not within reach is there a way to live with the offence? The Shoah comes to mind, and the need of individuals and communities to live a full life unencumbered by anger or hatred, to acknowledge the pain and the past, and to live with it.

Let me now return to forgiveness between persons. I’ll mention one or another situation, and ask you to help me to find a solution that seems fair.

A pickpocket steals your wallet. It contained some money, but also a photo that you cannot replace, and that picture has profound significance for you. You have to decide how to live with your loss and your pain. Here forgiveness is elusive, and acceptance is a sensible alternative.

On his deathbed, with his wife and daughter present, a father is asking his now adult daughter, to forgive him for having abused her sexually as a child. What is the proper response? What is a Jewish response, what is a Christian one? Has the Jewish daughter

the right to refuse forgiveness? The pain of the wrong done to her by her father may weigh more than the imminent loss of her father. In a Christian family the mother would demand from her daughter to forgive her father lest he burn forever in hell, moreover, the daughter’s refusal to forgive is a mortal sin, and she too would be damned to eternity.

Where does Christian teaching take its bearings? In his epistles Paul highlights the words of the Prophets about God’s love for Israel, and Paul lets this love prevail over all other aspects of God. God loves and forgives. Therefore it is mandatory to love and to forgive. The fall of Adam and Eve, while on the surface construed as disobedience is imbued with a heavy dose of sexual connotations. All persons are conceived in sin. Baptism nullifies that sin. Later sins can be atoned for, and eternal life is again, potentially, available by way of penitence and confession. My two-sentence description of Christian belief about forgiveness omits all the proclamations of Christian theologians and Church councils over the centuries. Christian doctrine, however, is firm and absolute in this one area: forgiveness is mandatory. Christian forgiveness shifts forgiveness into the theological realm, and ignores its human function.

A Jewish offender has no escape clause. Before forgiveness is asked for, a wrong must be corrected.

In 1969 Simon Wiesenthal wrote “The Sunflower”. During WWII, while an inmate in a concentration camp, Wiesenthal is assigned to a work detail near a hospital close to the front line. A young SS-man is dying of his injuries and wants to talk to a Jew. Wiesenthal is sent to that man’s bedside. The SS-man relates in detail how he was instrumental in the gruesome mass-murder of an entire Jewish community. The memory of that day torments him and he wants to repent by asking a Jew for forgiveness. Wiesenthal listens, remains silent, and then walks out of the room.

Later Wiesenthal questions his silence, and discusses it with his fellow inmates. The first 100 pages of 250 describe this wartime event. After completion of the book Wiesenthal sends his manuscript to 45 noted persons for their comment. The remaining 150 pages are their answers. Among the 45 are Arthur Herzberg, Theodore Hesburgh, Primo Levi, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Cardinal Franz Koenig, and Cynthia Ozick. Most of the Christians included demand forgiveness; most Jews would withhold it. The 45 commentators are important thinkers of our time, and their arguments are carefully reasoned. I do not want to summarize their views lest I distort their positions. I am largely in agreement with the annotators who are Jews. I understand the sources of the Christian commentators, but some made me bristle with anger. If you have not read “The Sunflower” I would like to suggest that you give it your attention.

We have no dogma. Our tradition demands from us to pose questions, explore our motives, and then to probe our questions again, testing the validity of their thrust as a practical solution to personal and community problems. We have to sift the text, turn each page over and over again in our search for answers leading to action for a new life.

This, then, is the time of intense introspection, the time to acknowledge our omissions and our actions, and the time of our resolve to do better. Our seemingly simple set of instructions from Rambam’s Hilchot ha Teshuvah to seek forgiveness appears to be applicable to many, if not all, conflict resolutions, whether person to person or among groups:

If I, or we, have wronged you, I, or we, have to set things right, repair the offense, resolve not to repeat the transgression ever again, sincerely apologize, and then ask for forgiveness."

Frederick Terna Rebecca Shiffman

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205

(718) 636-1955

November 13, 2001

A FOURTEENTH SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

Daniel Terna, our son, graduated from the Middle School this June of 2001. Rebecca Shiffman, Daniel's mother is the daughter of survivors of the Shoah; I, Frederick Terna, Daniel's father, am a survivor.

This year, on September 11th, while walking in Brooklyn, fine ash was falling, and the air reeked of burning. Brown billowing smoke was drifting across the East River from Manhattan. Fifty-seven years ago, in Auschwitz, brown billowing smoke from crematorium chimneys rained the ashes of murdered people on me, and the smell of burning was fraught with horror.

My recollection was immediate. Feelings that over the years had softened their contours surfaced with cutting outlines. Mengele had waved me, and a few other young adults to one side. The rest, the entire transport, were driven into the gas. Flames soared from the top of the crematorium chimney, changed into brownish smoke, and spewed ashes.

There are many accounts about Auschwitz. Within these lines I do not have to, and today I don't need to elaborate on these memories. I want to record my reaction to the many dead, and to the destruction of the World Trade Center.

The horror of the event did not stop the mind working. I was upset, angry, full of hatred and contempt for the terrorists. At he same time I knew that it was necessary to have a clear idea about the situation. In Auschwitz there was uninformed chaos, few options, and a wrong move could be deadly. Here news and reports were available over the radio. Telephones and the Internet remained open. There was the same awareness that the events were beyond my control, the same fear about the next day, but also the necessity to have the mind precede emotions.

When the World Trade Center was attacked the brutality of the action hit me with a sense of recognition. The potential of a sudden disaster, of suffering, and of death, had been lurking underneath a thin layer of well being. Survivors of the Shoah share the consequences of the years 1939 to 1945. The details, though, tend to be quite different

from person to person. I too have recurrent nightmares and flashbacks; I too startle at sudden noises; I too have many idiosyncrasies and quirks. I have learned to live with them in my waking hours. I also know how fortunate I am. By temperament and disposition I'm looking at life positively, using mind and feelings to shape my days. I'm well aware of the incisive impact of the events of the Shoah on my life. I'm aware of this continuous influence, the way it has shaped my attitudes and expectations.

My first reactions were practical. I called Rebecca at work. I called Daniel's school, Packer Collegiate in downtown Brooklyn, and made sure that Daniel was on his way home. Since bridges and tunnels to Manhattan were closed I suggested that boys from Manhattan could stay in our home, and two of them joined us. Without the knowledge about the extent of the destruction I went and bought three gallons of water. We have enough food in the house to last a few days. I was sure that any disruption would be dealt with, and last a short time only.

This sudden attack was different. When the World Trade Center was struck it was a totally unexpected blow. Auschwitz, in 1944, was my third concentration camp. I had acquired some lessons in the preceding places, and I was prepared; I had learned how to deal with sudden calamities, how to manage my feelings. I knew about the brittleness of life. I knew that the need to think clearly, to preserve human values, and to act morally were essential for survival.

Arriving in this country half a century ago I, as so many other survivors, was looking for a place where I would feel secure, where I would be accepted, where I would feel free to develop, use my skills, and to be part of a vibrant community. It took some time to acknowledge that this seemingly unattainable daydream was within reach, that I was in fact living it. From the very beginning I also knew that upon arriving here my past would travel with me, that the Shoah would continue to pervade the rest of my life, that my feeling of security was tentative, that happiness and life are fragile. This cognizance earlier held by a few now is part of American life after September 11th.

This country, perhaps the entire Western world, finds itself in a new era.

Today survivors of the Shoah may, perhaps, be the proof that while memories and pain persist it is possible to lead caring and productive lives in a friable and uncertain world.

Frederick Terna

Rebecca Shiffman

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205

January 21, 2002

A FIFTEENTH SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

Daniel Terna, our son, graduated from the Middle School in June of 2001. Rebecca Shiffman, Daniel's mother, is the daughter of survivors of the Shoah, I, Frederick Terna, Daniel's father, am a survivor.

The writing of Ethical Wills by Jewish fathers to their sons is a tradition that was maintained throughout the centuries. In medieval Jewish communities this custom was a cherished and cultivated literary form, and continued in various forms into our times.

Traditional forms had exhorted sons to observe meticulously practices and customs, how to structure their days in the accustomed pattern, stressing, often in fine detail, expected routines and demeanor to observe the mitzvot.

Composing an Ethical Will for Daniel is on my mind. The thought of it made me wonder what my father would have written. While I was a young teenager, and, with some interruptions until about 1940, he talked to me at length about many themes. By fortuitous chance this continued while we were both imprisoned in Ghetto Terezin, (Ghetto Theresienstadt), in the year preceding his deportation to Auschwitz in 1944. Ethics, moral values, and sociology were his favorite subjects.

What would have been the contents of Ethical Wills written by those who perished during the Shoah?

Before 1939 and the beginning of the war, while Jewish families were still in their homes, fathers would be motivated to write traditional wills, anticipating that they and their families would survive. That purpose disappeared when deportations to ghettos and concentration camps began. The hope for survival was diminishing, eventually disappearing, and there would be no more Ethical Wills. To whom would they have been addressed?

How would such Ethical Wills differ from earlier ones? Generations before the Shoah took it for granted that their communities would endure, survive oppression, persecutions and pogroms. During the Shoah traditional exhortations about familiar customs and practices became irrelevant.

The dominant idea was to record the events as they happened. Over the years hidden documents have been discovered, and today we have an extensive chronicle recorded by those who perished. Their message to posterity was a plea for remembrance.

Expression of vengeance and retribution found its place.

Here are three brief inscriptions from records gathered by Yad Vashem written by persons about to die. Rabbi Jack Riemer mentions them in his book: "So That Your Values Live On - Ethical Wills and How to Prepare Them". "…here come our murderers … wreak vengeance on our murderers…" This was carved on a wall inside the synagogue of Kovel in 1942. In other places we read: "Avenge our blood!" and "Come and avenge me".

There were many other attitudes. Moshe Boruchowicz, Rebecca's uncle, Daniel's granduncle, comes to mind. He and his sons were hidden in a cramped space, too low to stand up, below ground, near a farm close to his hometown of Zelichov in Poland. He wanted to make sure that his sons would have a Siddur after the Shoah, and he wrote one from memory. Today the original hand-written one is at Yad Vashem. Moshe Boruchowicz's son, Bernardo Baruch, donated a photocopy of this Siddur to the Shoah Archive.

In ghettos and concentration camps the writing of Ethical Wills certainly was not on our mind. Ethics of individuals and of groups, however, were discussed continuously among those with a bent for such matters. The scope of civilized norms was examined again and again. By defining our moral principles we set ourselves apart from our oppressors.

My surprise is the similarity of concepts and ideas voiced during the Shoah and the penchant of our time: Before all other commandments came the recognition of the infinite value of the individual human life. Most other rules derive directly or by inference from that first one. Respect for life, includes the right to freedom in all its aspects which we take for granted, and which are slowly and painfully becoming the measure of civilized societies today. We were aware of these rules; we did not consider ourselves to be innovators.

The mind endured, and was well focused on the order of importance. Right conduct and proper action remained at the top of the list. Ethical Wills of inmates if written down would differ only slightly from those of their fathers. The emphasis was still on individual conduct and on human bonds. Ethical behavior remained the paramount demand, and was seen as more consequential than before.

The subject of a well-ordered society, the structure of a fair, tolerant and open community remained a topic of discussion.

We are all responsible for each other. "No man is an island, entire of itself". We used different words, since, most likely, none of us then knew about John Donne. The obligation to share and to protect each other led the list. This is the very opposite of "I don't care" and "I cannot be bothered" which we considered detestable, and ultimately deadly.

While contemplating Ethical Wills that could have been written during the Shoah I soon realized that my attempt would fail if I tried to express in one Shoah Archive Note the wide range of ideas expressed. What follows is a gathering of a few thoughts, a rambling account of discussions long after they were originally voiced.

I find it difficult to put these lessons and experiences into a good and logical order. Most of them were translated into specific and rather practical actions, into standards for behavior between individuals and between groups. These became dependable rules for staying alive.

Some random discussions come to mind: Is it permitted to steal? Taking anything from other inmates was one of the worst offenses. Stealing from our oppressors certainly was allowed. When is it right to destroy or perform sabotage on the workplace? This could be quite dangerous; if found out the retribution could well cause the slaughter of the entire group. Sabotage is right when done with utmost care and circumspection. One person declared that he was going to kill the first Nazi he would find when the war ended. He was challenged. Conceivably he would kill the one who secretly helped a Jew. A rather remote and unlikely notion, but a possible one. The proper action would be to hold that Nazi, and have a duly established court decide the case. We are not murderers, and we will not copy the methods of those who slaughtered us.

How many of the recollections are colored by the memory of my fellow inmates, my teachers, how many by the talks with my father? I don't know, and I'm aware of my limitations. I'm writing about thoughts and feelings of sixty years ago.

Who are the people I refer to? A paltry group, that small number I had the opportunity to talk to here and there. Most of them eventually perished in Auschwitz or in other death camps. A few had been pulled from transports, passed selections, and were slated for slave labor. Not much later most of these too died because of starvation, exhaustion, disease, or on death marches.

I was in four concentration camps. Four camps only among a multitude of others. With the exception of Terezin my fellow inmates were all young men, the majority of them below thirty. I cannot speak or even speculate about thoughts, ideas and deliberations among women. It was largely in Terezin that I listened in on discussions about ethics and the well-ordered community. By then possessions, social position, all the externals that

divide us in ordinary life had disappeared. The ever-present impact of evil and destruction had sharpened the senses and led to insights about life.

A painful question lingers. What would have been my father's Ethical Will? His writings and notes were destroyed. I carry his oral Ethical Will with me. Would he have written a different will if he had survived? I don't think so. I remember him as a sage and a careful thinker who had weighed and examined ideas and actions. He was fifty-two years old when he perished in Auschwitz. To this day he is my wise old man, though I'm well over seventy-eight while writing these lines. His ideas pervade a good part of the outline drawn up in preceding paragraphs. In a roundabout way I have put a minute part of his Ethical Will on paper, and I hope to have presented his thoughts fairly.

It was a daring mind that was willing to formulate ideas about a just and free future world, about a vibrant Jewish community while most of us were looking for ways to survive the next 24 hours.

Frederick Terna

Rebecca Shiffman

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205

December 20, 2002

A SIXTEENTH SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

The text that follows is my reply to a request by an organization which is seeking case histories and opinions on "Justice and Reparations" for victims of atrocity crimes. Dealing with events following my liberation. I realized that I had not included that time as a separate set of notes for the archive.

As before I may have mentioned one detail or another in an earlier set of Notes while writing about a different theme.

Dear Ms. G.

Earlier this month I mailed you a brief biographical note. As promised over the telephone I'm expanding on that summary here.

• A chronological account of my life immediately following liberation seems to be a logical way starting an answer to your questions.

• Although a wide range of feelings and emotions, fears and hopes were present while I was in concentration camps I was barely ready or able to allow them to come to the foreground. Even today I find myself at times reluctant to reflect on that time, and I'm not sure how much I want to delve into it here, and in this format.

• Further down I may want to voice some ideas about justice and reparations.

Chronology:

"You surely are lucky to have survived. Now, forget the past, go, live, and, above all, don't bother us. Good-by. Go away". We heard these words, or similar ones, again and again. They may stand as a condensation of all the paragraphs that follow.

On April 27, 1945, after more than 3 1/2 years in German concentration camps, among them Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, and Kaufering, a sub-camp of Dachau, I was liberated by American troops near Landsberg, a town west of Munich.

I shall omit here describing the murderous and deadly circumstances that preceded my liberation. I was one of the few Jewish concentration camp survivors in the area, starved, gaunt, and near death. I was unable to walk. After months without water to wash, without soap, in prisoner's striped pajamas that had never been washed, I was encrusted with dirt and infested with lice. I was one of the shuffling skeletons shown on photos of that time. I weighed 35 kilos, about 76 lbs.

The US Army had emptied for us a small sanatorium, a hotel-like building in a near-by spa, Bad Woerishofen, then an enclave of hospitals for wounded German soldiers. A few other survivors and I were brought there, cleaned and bathed. There was food, but I was careful to eat but a little. I knew how dangerous it was to eat after long starvation. There was no medical staff in the building. Sores and wounds were perfunctorily attended to. No other care was provided and some survivors died there. The personnel seemed to be former German army soldiers or employees who had changed into civilian clothing. I was quite sick during those initial days there, and only a hazy memory remains. I don't remember who, if anybody, was in charge of the place; such information was outside my focus.

As a Czechoslovak citizen I was eventually transferred to barracks near the town of Kempten in Swabia, an area north of Lake Constance. Slowly I gained some weight and strength. I could walk, though my endurance was quite limited. Eventually others and I were put on stretchers, the stretchers stacked like cordwood in a truck, and we were driven to Plzen, (Pilsen) in Bohemia. There we were loaded into a French repatriation train on its way east to bring back French laborers who had been taken into Germany during the war. The train stopped at one of the secondary railway stations of Prague.

I carried a small satchel with some clothing and underwear. This was all that I owned then, and also all the weight I could carry. I was still wearing a former German military outfit that had been dyed blue. Knowing Prague well, it was my home-town, I knew which streetcar to take into the center of town. I had no money except some currency then in use in Swabia. I told the streetcar conductor that I was returning from concentration camps, and he let me ride without paying

During the war our family, including other relatives, had agreed that, upon returning, our first stop would be at the concierge of the building where we had lived, and tell her about our arrival. I was the first one to call, and I was the only one to do so. A friend, also a survivor, who knew about our arrangement, had inquired about us, and that was the only other contact.

The concierge told me that our apartment had been taken over earlier during the war by a Nazi functionary, and now was occupied by a fiery communist. I was too weak to walk up several flights of stairs, and the concierge took me up by elevator. I rang the doorbell. The new occupant came to the door. I told him that this was our former home, that I had just returned from years in concentration camps, and that I needed a room to sleep in. His answer was a loud and angry outburst, a description of his positions and titles, yelling that he was an important person with powerful connections in the newly formed government. He was going to see to it that I was properly dealt with if I gave him any trouble, that I must have been a particular scoundrel to survive concentration camps.

This reception was a foretaste of later encounters. The concierge had waited at he elevator, took me back downstairs, and then fed me.

The survivor friend who had asked for me at the concierge at an earlier date had left her address, and, fortunately, this was only a short distance away. I went there and she gave me a space in her home. I was still in a rather poor physical condition. Before long I was hospitalized again. I don't remember who arranged for that, and who paid for it.

There was a one-time assistance given by the new Czechoslovak government: Each returnee from concentration camps received 500 Czech Crowns, then the equivalent of about ten US dollars.

There was no organization in existence then that I knew of to ask for help. The Jewish community of Prague had been wiped out. There was a small organization of liberated former political inmates of concentration camps, run under the auspices of the Communist party, but they did not want to include Jewish survivors as members. There was a Jewish committee active in helping survivors who wanted to go to what was then Palestine. American Jewish refugee organizations had representatives in Prague, but I was only dimly aware of their existence.

UNRRA, the United Nations refugee organization was dealing with displaced persons, and therefore a possible resource, but we were back in our former country of residence.

Gradually survivors found each other, and an informal information network arose. There was no formal organization. The support we gave each other was mainly moral and emotional. Returning alive was no guarantee for continued survival. The number of survivors committing suicide was frightening. We had returned but we were not welcomed back.

There were Czech families we knew from before the war, largely acquaintances of my father or of other relatives. They did not quite know how to face me. Some tried to tell me about the many privations they suffered during the war. Most of them tried to keep the conversation to a minimum. They were quite ill at ease.

My family was a rather typical Prague middle class family. We were economically comfortable, but not rich. The Germans had confiscated all our possessions. When the war started in 1939 I was not quite sixteen years old. I had no information about the possessions or finances of my immediate family, and certainly none about those of the extended family.

It took a good while to get new personal documents. Duplicates were hard to come by. Rampant bureaucracy, probably the same crew that carried out directives during German rule, made it clear that we were asking for favors that were not in their job description. Trying to get documentation about property owned before 1939 was probably an insurmountable task.

When trying to reclaim confiscated property nearly all of us survivors ran into a wall. Much later I realized that the reason was not our claim, but the fear of setting a precedent. Why should the state make an exception for a few hundred Jewish survivors? More than two million Germans who had lived in border areas of Bohemia, the so-called Sudetenland, had been expropriated and expelled after the war. Restituting property to Jewish survivors could become a legal model. Denying claims was also a convenient ploy to hold on to questionable property.

Finally physically able to work, I took a job, first in an office, and later in an animated film studio. In 1946 I married the survivor who had sheltered me upon my return. Later that year, fearing that communists would take over the government, we fled with false papers to France. We came to the United States in 1952, and became US citizens in 1956. My first wife died of cancer. I remarried in 1982.

Feelings and emotions.

A simple chronology of changes seems out of place here though one early impression may have been significant. Beginning early in 1933, when I was less than ten years old, visitors arrived in our home and stayed in our guestroom. Some of them were bandaged, some had lacerated faces. Most eventually left, only to be replaced by others. It did not take me long to understand that these were people who had escaped from Germany where the Nazis had come to power.

While growing up in Prague events in Germany were but a cloud, very far away. That feeling of security changed abruptly upon the signing of the Munich pact in the fall of 1938 and Kristallnacht a short time later. From then on there was apprehension and fear. Emigration was a theoretical option, though nearly impossible. Most countries were closed to emigrants, or had miniscule immigration quotas. Even if it had been possible for

us to emigrate my father felt responsible for a number of older relatives, and decided against leaving. In March of 1939 Germany occupied the remainder of the Czech lands. Jewish children were expelled from schools. Anti-Jewish edicts were implemented with increasing severity. On September 1st 1939 WWII started, and we were trapped.

Although chronologically teen-agers, my brother and I functioned very much as adults. While my father made all the decisions we were present at all discussions. We noticed the despondency of the elderly, their depression, their despair, and we tried to function as well as we could.

I'll omit here describing the effort, including the emotional one, to remain a functioning family. As part of the attempt to continue our education my father taught me, and also encouraged me to develop skills of my own. It took the form of long conversations, but focused very much on sociology and philosophy. I owe it to my father's talks that I survived emotionally and intellectually. I had a good foundation in ethics, the cognizance of the requirements of a fair and just society. I was aware of the evils of dictatorships, of rampant nationalism, racism, and the power of mean-spirited greed, stupidity, and murderous lust for power. Nazi Germany had power over my body, but no more than that.

In 1940 I lived with forged papers on a farm in Bohemia. The controlling feeling was circumspection and mistrust. Warned about betrayal I returned to Prague. Soon thereafter I was picked up by the Gestapo and "questioned" by them for several days. It was hours of pain, fear and terror. I dreaded the next grilling. I fainted several times. To this day the imprisonment by the Gestapo is a blur in my memory. I did not expect to come out alive, very few Jews did. Then, suddenly, I was let go. I have no idea why I was taken in, or why I was allowed to leave. Later in life I learned about repressed memories. Even if I could recall details today I'm not sure I want to.

On October 3rd 1941 I was taken to my first concentration camp, later shipped to Theresienstadt, from there to Auschwitz, and I eventually wound up in Kaufering, a subcamp of Dachau. Total time in concentration camps: Three years, six month, three weeks, and three days. It would be a hopeless attempt describing in detail the changes of feelings from day to day and from place to place.

Before mentioning anything else one fact should be underlined. We were absolutely and firmly convinced that Nazi Germany was doomed, that its end was merely a matter of time. This certitude gave us immense strength; we knew that this was not the conclusion of foolish optimism. What we did not know was that most of us would perish before the end of Nazi Germany.

There were stretches of pessimism. Early in the war when Germany occupied one country after another the future seemed dismal. We knew, however, about German arrogance and their unfailing propensity to antagonize those whom they had conquered. Even if they succeeded in the subjugation of additional territories the nature of their reasoning

demanded total dominance and eventual rule over the entire world, and that was a doomed undertaking.

Unrelenting hunger and wretched living conditions were designed to depress us and to have us loathe ourselves. The phenomenon of cultural activities in Ghetto Theresienstadt proved the total failure of that attempt. The life of the mind continued even under the most adverse conditions. Yes, there was fear, dread, and anger, but also soaring spirit reflecting on great ideas of humanity.

When challenged by unpredictable changes and brutalities of concentration camp life I, as others, developed ways of keeping an emotional balance. I learned that anger must not be shown in some situations. A stony mien was the only safe one in front of a raging SSman. Expressing anger, loathing and contempt would have to wait. The Nazis used an arsenal of physical and emotional scourges. Unexpected and illogical changes were some of their tactics of terror. We learned to deal with them, one by one.

There was a time when it was necessary to stay alert, to concentrate on staying alive, and to keep feelings in the background. Arrival in Auschwitz comes to mind; moving in a slow line towards, what I later learned to be Mengele, being sent to one side instead of being sent into the gas. Then followed days in Auschwitz when the chimneys of the crematoria were spewing ashes around the clock. I wondered when I too would get gassed. There was another selection and I thought that this was going to be my end. We were, however, herded into cattle cars, and a train leaving Auschwitz. By then we were primarily young men between the ages of twenty and forty, destined to slave labor. Those who were younger and those who were older had perished in the gas chambers.

Arriving in Kaufering after a long and tormenting train ride we were put on twelve-hour shifts building underground hangars. It was quite obvious then that the war was coming to an end. American forces had crossed the Rhine; the Russians were advancing into Germany. We were driven relentlessly. A small remnant of the inmates of the Kaufering camps survived, most of us died of starvation, exhaustion, and, in the final days, on death marches.

On April 27, 1945 I had the brittle satisfaction of having endured to see my liberation. I was not sure then whether my body would recover, whether I would survive.

Months later, arriving in Prague, waiting for a streetcar to take me into town, I was aware that this was my happiest moment in life. At the same time it was also the saddest. I had survived, but I knew that I was the only one to survive.

Reparations I received

As mentioned above, as a Czechoslovak survivor of German concentration camps I, as others, received the equivalent of ten US dollars. There was no other monetary compensation in Czechoslovakia. When hospitalized for a stretch of time I did not have to pay for it.

Many years later, it may have been in the 1970s, a law was passed in, then, Western Germany giving some survivors of concentration camps a monthly payment. By then I lived here in the United States. It was a tedious and degrading application process, and I was not sure whether I should submit myself to the humiliation. Needing the money badly for my wife's medical expense I went ahead. Eventually I was granted the minimum allocation, and today I get a monthly check that just about covers the cost of my telephone bill. Some survivors I know were fighting for a higher compensation, and succeeded. Repeating that demeaning process, the wear and tear on my mind and dignity was not worth the potential return to me.

While writing these lines, in accordance with a recently passed law, I'm applying at the appropriate office in Germany for social security payments for work performed while an inmate slave laborer in Ghetto Theresienstadt. That is, I'm permitted fifty-nine years after the fact to apply. This application is for Ghetto Theresienstadt only, and not for slave labor in preceding camps or those that came later. There is no guarantee that I will receive anything. How many bureaucrats, how many officials will earn their wages working on this case, accumulating pension time? How many survivors of concentration camps are alive today? Those payments could, with some luck, allow me to buy a year's supply of shoelaces.

On my next birthday I'll be eighty years old. Every now and then I read in the newspapers about former officials of the Nazi era. It seems rather obvious that today former functionaries and officers of the Third Reich receive generous pensions, while survivors do not.

The preceding remarks could be an admonition about timely assistance to persons or organizations trying to alleviate the fate of victims of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.

Justice.

Searching for justice for victims of persecution should begin immediately after attending to two subjects.

The first need of victims is the affirmation of their human dignity. We may not be able to restore their lives to the ones lived before their victimization, or revive murdered family members. We can endorse their personal and community values. We can reinforce their self-esteem. We must safeguard their culture and artifacts. This declaration must come before attempting any physical or material assistance. Victims must see themselves as viable human beings.

Assistance: Material help from the outside should go to the community, not to individuals. The community of the victims knows best what is needed, how to allocate resources. Communities will bring forth responsible members. The donors must,

however, insist on strict outside auditors, and full accountability. The implementation of this rather simple rule is quite difficult, but allows the restoration of a community framework and that of individual members.

Justice is our problem. Victims need food, clothing, and shelter. When we find a way to establish a just and fair society then victims will find justice as they see it. Any outline of justice in a few sentences is a preposterous undertaking. There may be some angles that have meaning for victims.

What follows is a very personal set of observations about justice. (This list may be outof-place within the context of these pages, but perhaps relevant as the conclusion of a survivor.)

Vengeance is always wrong. There is no value that exceeds human life. Killing a person is always wrong, even when the state does it. We are all responsible for each other. The plague of nationalism of the preceding 200 years has been replaced in our time by the plague of fundamentalism. There is no single valid Truth with capital "T". Secrecy in government and business leads to ruin. An open society and open enterprise is an avenue to a free and just community.

Restitution.

Returning land or homes may be feasible, though usually impossible due to a multiplicity of political factors. Returning property once owned by grandparents has practical and political limits. How far back should we go? Should Manhattan be returned to an Indian tribe, Baghdad to Mongolia, or Granada to the Berbers? Difficulties abound. It should be possible to restore formerly owned assets of survivors. Returning property to communities is desirable but may need a deeper sense of responsibility. This may be a channel for restitution by culpable groups to victims.

On both justice and restitution

Rabbi Tarfon, (Second century, C.E), in Pirke Avot, (a Tractate of the Talmud): "It is not your duty to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it."

Frederick Terna Rebecca Shiffman

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205

January 7, 2003

A SEVENTEENTH SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

Most of the text that follows is a lecture by Tommy Mandl about Ghetto Theresienstadt, in Czech called Ghetto Terezin. Tommy and I were inmates in Terezin at about the same time. We did not know each other then. Late in 1944 we were both in the same transport from Terezin to Auschwitz, and eventually shipped from there to Kaufering, a cluster of sub-camps of Dachau. We shared the harrowing months preceding liberation together. I shall elaborate a little about the final weeks further down.

Tommy was born in 1926 in Brno, Principal City of Moravia, one of the regions of the Czech Republic. Very early in his life he decided to become a musician, and this became his field after the war. At this writing Tommy and his wife are living in Miami Beach.

I shall not try to describe Tommy's life after liberation. It would be quite presumptuous to condense into a few lines his brave and daring exploits escaping Communist Czechoslovakia, effecting the successful escape of his wife to the West. While living under Communist rule in Czechoslovakia he, and his wife, a pianist became performing soloists. Tommy is the author of several books in Czech and in German. Their subject is the time of the Shoah, and also of life under Communism. Some of his work is fiction, some texts are historical observations, aspects of philosophy, and some are about music. Tommy acquired several degrees of higher learning in music.

As the war was coming to an end in 1945 both of us were in Kaufering No:4. (There were eleven Kaufering camps with different numbers). Both Tommy and I were in the same group, and slept in the same earth hut. At night we could hear the rumbling of artillery further north, and we knew that the Americans were but miles away. While we were still under SS guard the supply system was breaking down. Most of us inmates had been without food for a number of days. In the earth hut where we were housed some were dead, probably from starvation, disease or exhaustion. Suddenly, in the middle of a night we were driven out of the earth huts. I was so weak that I thought that I could not get up

and walk. An SS-man put a pistol under my ribs, and I did manage to get up indeed. (That SS-man saved my life, though that was certainly not his intention.) Prisoners able to walk were driven out of the camp. Later we learned that the Nazis used flame-throwers to kill the many inmates still alive in the earth huts.

A section of the electrified barbed wire fence had been cut away, and we were driven to a rail siding where empty freight cars were waiting for us. It was in the middle of the night; searchlights from guard towers lighted the area. There was wild chaos, SS-men shouting to hurry up, there was shooting, and guard dogs were barking. I was quite scared that we would be machine-gunned inside the cars. I found a flat piece of iron, and Tommy and I managed to be some of the last ones to be pushed into the car. As the door was being slid shut I jammed the iron so that the door did not close all the way. While the guards were trying to push it shut the train was starting to move. It was still dark outside.

The train went but for a short while when American fighter planes attacked it. The train came nearly to a halt, and the planes kept shooting it up. There was still snow on the ground, it had been a hard winter, and these were the foothills of the Alps. I pushed Tommy out through the door opening, and jumped after him. The train was on an embankment. We landed in deep snow, and fell behind a big tree. The planes kept shooting; but the tree was protecting us. We were on the shadow side of the bullets. Other inmates who jumped from our car were hit, some fatally so.

Tommy and I both needed each other to get up from the ground. We then had to decide where to move. There were no SS guards within sight. It was very early in the morning. We had the choice of going west, and we knew that there was a forest, but we did not know how deep it was. We were afraid that we could freeze to death there. We knew that we needed shelter from the weather and, if possible, to find some food. Going east we would have to cross open fields, and, if lucky, find a haystack, perhaps even an open barn. However, there was also a highway to cross. Both of us were quite weak, and moving with difficulty through the snow across the open space.

I shall omit details of what followed. We were caught by German troops, including some SS, retreating towards the Alps, presumably for a final redoubt. Since we could not move at their pace they wanted to shoot us. They dropped us at the nearly abandoned camp of Kaufering No:1, where there were still some SS guards at the gate. Much later we learned that the inmates of that camp had been marched south, and that only a few had survived the death march. Before long the SS guards disappeared. Neither Tommy nor I remember knew long we were in Kaufering No:1 before liberation by American troops on April 27, 1945. Both of us were near death.

In the preceding sixteenth set of Notes for the Shoah Archive I described how I was hospitalized after liberation in Bad Woerishofen. Tommy was brought in a short time later, and we were in the same room together for a good while. From there we were moved to Kempten in Swabia to join repatriation transports which would take us back to our former homes. Tommy went to Brno, and I went to Prague.

Trying to get in touch with Tommy was not possible. I did not have his address in Brno. It was a long time before even elementary search organizations were set up. In 1946 I ran away to Paris. After the 1948 Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia I stopped trying. Such a search from the west would endanger the person sought.

A few years ago my telephone rang in my studio in Brooklyn. In Czech a voice asked: "Is that you Bedo?" Bedo is a diminutive of Bedrich, Czech for Frederick. "Yes, but who are you?" "Tommy." "Tommy who?" "Tommy Mandl." "Where are you talking from?" "Miami Beach."

It was more than fifty years since we had talked to each other. We have made up for the lost time, talking over the phone, and visiting each other.

Tommy speaks from personal knowledge about music in Terezin, about its composers and their work there. I have his permission to include the text below as his contribution to the Heschel Shoah Archive.

PRODUCTIVE DEFIANCE CULTURE AND THE HOLOCAUST

Lecture by Thomas Mandl at the Florida International University

November 2001

The 20th century can be characterized by a number of new historical qualities. Among them two ideologies - National Socialism and Communism - exerted an enormous influence. They were new by claiming that their teaching was based on science - National Socialism maintained that the political aims were derived from biology - the expression "race" sounds like biology, the Communists claimed that their political aims were based on sociology - the expression "class" makes us think of sociology. This accounts for both the differences and the similarities of the two systems. One of the elements they shared was the verdict that the political opponent has no right to exist, and that the political enemy was incapable of producing cultural values because of his parasitical nature. Both systems used black lists. It is informative that black lists of both systems frequently contained the same names, e.g., Sigmund Freud, Arnold Schoenberg, and Rudolf Steiner.

With regard of culture in the sphere of National Socialism it should be noted that the Holocaust did not start with the functioning of the extermination camps, but with the takeover by the Nazis in 1933. From the very beginning Jewish artists and scientists were excluded from the realm of Culture. Typical of the initial phase are the following episodes. After the exclusion of Jewish scientists, the minister in charge, Rust, summoned the leading German mathematician David Hilbert, to ask him whether German theoretical physics had suffered. Hilbert's answer: "Not in the least. It died instantly." Dr. Josef Goebbels, the chief propagandist of the Nazis had a plan: German scientists were to write

a book intended to damage the planetary fame of Albert Einstein. The title of the book - it was never written - "100 Scientists against Einstein". When Einstein - he was at the time already in the USA - heard of the plan, he made a simple and convincing commentary: "Why 100 scientists? If my theories are wrong one is absolutely sufficient." In those days, in the first years after the takeover, Jews could still passively take part in the cultural life. They could attend concerts, theatrical productions and lectures, they could listen to the radio, make music in their homes, listen to records.

All those things changed fundamentally within a few years. Laws, decrees, and ordinances excluded Jews from most professions, they lost their homes, their property, their musical instruments, turntables, radios, bicycles, electrical devices, furs, pullovers, jewelry, shares. They were not allowed to use the streets and roads after 8 PM, their food rations were drastically smaller than those of the non-Jewish population, social contacts between "Aryans" and "non-Aryans" were prohibited, i.e. punishable, Jewish children were not allowed to attend public schools: movie theaters, theaters, museums, parks, all cultural events were inaccessible to Jews. The mass media at all times produced anti-Jewish propaganda that was intensified from day to day. There existed even one periodical that contained nothing but anti-Jewish propaganda - "Der Stuermer". I still remember one illustration: It was a photograph of Einstein shaving. The Text: "This is not an anthropoid ape - it's Albert Einstein, the Jewish relativity swindler".

While Jews were excluded from the cultural life their longing for culture was growing. In the first years it was still possible to organize private concerts, recitals, lectures and courses in private homes. There still exist notes: so it is possible to establish the extent of the events. Here we find the names of outstanding musicians, such as Victor Ullman, Hans Krasa, Pavel Haas, to name a few composers. For a number of reasons this was getting increasingly difficult. Jewish families were "resettled" - the rule was that a whole family was put into a single room. In an apartment consisting of three rooms, where originally three to four people lived, now twelve to fifteen persons were housed who had to share the use of a single kitchen, and one bathroom. Musical instruments radios and gramophones were confiscated. All Jews became paupers. Their accounts were frozen, their property confiscated. Jews were - at best - allowed to do menial work. My parents and I were deported to Theresienstadt in March 1942. My luggage consisted chiefly of books: School textbooks, a history of philosophy, a textbook on harmony, one on counterpoint and musical forms. I wanted to become a concert violinist.

Theresienstadt is a very complex, yet instructive example of the role culture played during the Holocaust. Culture in this context was a controversial phenomenon. It started as an act of defiance and resistance, and never lost this function. In 1943 the leading forces of State Security (RSHA) started utilizing culture as a means of propaganda. Thus the prisoners had to face the problem: Should we support cultural activities? In addition, if so, how should we select the programs? From the Nazi angle two events were of decisive character. The visit of Theresienstadt by a group delegated by the International Red Cross, (based in Switzerland), and the production of a propaganda movie known under

the title "Der Fuehrer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt" - "The Fuehrer donates a city to the Jews".

But back to the spring of 1942. When I arrived there, I was overwhelmed by two facts that seemed to be of contradictory nature: on one hand the terrifying physical conditions, and on the incredibly rich cultural program. The physical conditions were not our only problem: psychologically devastating were - at least until 1942 - the never ending victories of the German forces and the never ending fear of being put into one of the transports which left Theresienstadt. We did not know the destination of the transports, but the mere word "transport" was to us identical with destruction. Was it possible to develop an interest in culture under these conditions? Would it not have been natural to think of nothing else than one's survival?

The answer is: the worse, the more humiliating the conditions are, the more imperative the longing for cultural values becomes. This only looks like a paradox. Man has physical needs, but his spiritual needs are as intense. Freud's notion of compensatory mechanism was impressively verified in Theresienstadt. The prisoners' most painful experience was hunger - as a permanent state of mind. People who have the good fortune of living in a civilized country are not familiar with this kind of hunger. But being hungry is not the situation of a person looking forward to a nice meal. Life threatening hunger is a neverending torture, which suppresses all other contents of the human mind. This life threatening hunger may be compared with a deadly mental disease. But if you listen to J.S.Bach's Chaconne in d-minor for violin solo, you have overcome hunger - while the music lasts. This is only one reason of the need of culture, which grows while the physical, conditions get worse and worse.

In terms of culture Theresienstadt was incredibly rich. In the years 1943 - 1944, when the number of prisoners was around 65,000, the place would have been able to compete with a city the size of Prague, or Boston. Culture of a magnificent variety was offered to the prisoners - from unassuming geography lessons up to very demanding courses of higher math, medical problems, philosophy, psychology. There was even a series of lectures on the psychology of music, e.g. "Symbolism in music", or "The manifestations of the unconscious in the opera". One of the triumphs was a lecture with the title "Psychological effects of being a prisoner in Theresienstadt" The lecturer was Prof. Dr. Utitz, the internationally known founder of Characterology. The Victim's ability to precisely describe the effects of the conditions he was exposed to, was one of the many victories of the spirit over the mind … There was theater, opera, operetta, cabaret. A significant role played the fine arts. Most of the painters and draftsmen worked at the so-called ""Technical department" where they produced illustrations of the statistical data submitted to the SSheadquarters. These artists illegally produced pictures depicting everyday-life in Theresienstadt. Contacts between the prisoners and the outside world were strictly prohibited, but these artists had connections capable not only of smuggling the pictures out of Theresienstadt, but even abroad. This action was uncovered by the SS, the artists were murdered.

The field of music was of amazing variety. The prisoners had the choice of unassuming songs up to the most refined chamber music and recitals. There was even a "Studio of modern music', the head of which was Victor Alumna. The prisoners were willing to make greater sacrifices for music than for other manifestations of culture. Today I think that I know the reason: According to the philosopher Schopenhauer, the music is everything the other arts are trying to achieve: the depiction of the whole reality, using material of one kind only - sound. And according to Rudolf Steiner music is the complete representation of the human mind, consisting of thinking, emotion, and willpower. Music consists of the elements melody, harmony and rhythm. Rhythm is the counterpart of will power, harmony of the emotions, melody of the cognitive abilities, - thinking.

In Theresienstadt there was a great number of amateurs, but also of professional musicians - instrumentalists and singers. There were two orchestras in Theresienstadt - the symphonic string orchestra, conducted by Karl Ancerl who became head of the Czech Philharmonic of Prague after the war, and the coffeehouse orchestra, conducted by Carlo Taube, a concert pianist who had studied with Feruccio Busoni. And there was the outstanding jazz-ensemble - the "Ghetto Swingers" who played chiefly American music. Sometimes caution had to be used. The medley from "Snow White", music by Frank Churchill, appeared as "composed by Walt Disney". The name "Churchill" could have irritated the SS-headquarters.

There was a good natured "Cold War" going on between the jazz musicians and the specialists of classical music. A typical dialogue: "You longhairs are too stupid to improvise. Even the cadenzas of your concertos are fully composed pieces where nothing is ever changed". The Answer: "You are absolutely right. That's because the harmonic and rhythmical structures of jazz music are so primitive that every halfwit can improvise. Just try it with the music of Brahms". The jazz musicians of Theresienstadt were fanatics in the best sense of the word. A "normal" prisoner would ask a member of a new transport that had arrived in Theresienstadt: "What do you think? How long do we have to wait for the end of the war?" A jazz musician would ask: "How do the American groups use vibrato these days?"

Basically, any cultural achievement was an act of resistance, as it refuted the tyrant's claim that Jews, being parasitical subhumans, are incapable of producing anything of cultural values. But there were cultural programs that opposed the oppressor quite openly. The most straightforward was the language of the cabaret. I would like to mention just one name: Kurt Gerron, a famous actor who played in approximately 70 German movies with people like Marlene Dietrich. Right now an American company is producing a documentary about him. But other forms of art were very clear in their choice of expressions too, e.g. the "Old Bohemian play Esther", telling the story of Haman, the Jew-hater who is beaten and deprived of power by Esther. In the Theresienstadt production "historically" looking costumes were used. Only Haman appears in the typical Gestapo-look, wearing a modern leather coat. Among the productions which were easy to decipher should be mentioned the dramatization of the "Ballads of Francois Villon", for which Victor Ullmann wrote the music. The "Buccaneer's Song" was chemically pure rebellion - in a court of law the buccaneer accuses the leaders of the country of piracy. The song is highly expres-

sive, its main ingredients being defiance, melancholy and well placed vulgarisms. In conversation, the director of the dramatization, Irena Dodalova, made her intention very clear: "Should anybody ask us after the war what we have done against Nazism, 'we can say we performed the ballads'."

In Theresienstadt not only the great performances could be heard, new works were there performed too. Among the prisoners there were outstanding composers whose works are now, more than a half century later, being performed in Europe, America, and Asia. To name just a few: Hans Krasa whose opera for children "Brundibar" was composed before the composer's deportation, but had its premiere in Theresienstadt, Gideon Klein whose Sonata for piano is played in international piano-competitions, Pavel Haas whose opera "The Charlatan" is being performed in Germany, and finally Victor Ullmann whose opera "The Emperor of Atlantis" was completely written in Theresienstadt, from the first note to the last. There were rehearsals but the opera never was performed there. Up to the present day it is impossible to find our why - the SS-Headquarters could have forbidden the performance, or the so-called "Jewish Self-Administration" might have cancelled it. I am unable to prove it but I think that it was the "Self-Administration's" decision, because the first impression is, that the "Kaiser" describes Nazi Germany, especially because of the slogans which anticipated some of the propaganda phrases used by the Nazis, e.g. "The total war". In Theresienstadt the cultural programs were much freer than outside the camp. All the blacklisted works were freely performed because the SS were chiefly interested in the title of a program, not the contents. A series of lecture with the title "Jews in German literature" could be held only, only the title had to be changed into "Jews in the literature written in German" - a Jew could not contribute to German literature. The text did not have to be changed. But "The Emperor" probably posed too great a thread. The "Emperor" challenges all kinds of tyranny - so, naturally, Nazism is included. The fact that this opera is being performed today, more than half a century after the composed Victor Ullmann and the author of the libretto, Peter Kien, had been murdered, is a triumph of man's free spirit over tyranny.

Herbert Th. Mandl

Frederick Terna 321 Washington Avenue Brooklyn 11205

April 19, 2004

AN EIGHTEENTH SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

Daniel Terna, our son, graduated from the Middle School in June of 2001. Rebecca Shiffman, Daniel's mother, is the daughter of survivors of the Shoah. I, Frederick Terna, Daniel's father, am a survivor.

This is the text of my remarks on the occasion of the Yom Hashoah commemoration at the school on the evening of April 19, 2004.

Before commenting on our theme for this evening, "Living With Memories" I want to mention two names: Jenny Taussig, my grandmother, and Erwin Boehm, a friend.

Jenny Taussig was born in 1875 in Bohemia. When I think of her I remember her for her kindness and love, the authority of her wisdom, and the details of her daily life. She knew by heart all the telephone numbers of her sisterhood, and those of many friends. She had a photographic memory. Playing music from a score she did not need the printed copy ever again. I'm aware of the horrors imposed upon her during the last two years of her life. In 1942 Jenny Taussig was put to death in a gas chamber in Treblinka.

Erwin Boehm and I met in Prague in 1939. What I remember about Erwin is his wild sense of humor, his wit, and his energy. He was an ardent Zionist. He was handsome, and he knew it. We met again in Theresienstadt in 1943. In 1944 both of us were in the same transport to Auschwitz, survived the selection, and, late in 1944 were in the same transport to Kaufering, a subcamp of Dachau. A few weeks before his death, then starved and nearly a skeleton, Erwin recited to us a poem he had written in his head in which he was explaining to an imaginary girlfriend why he was not looking his best. Erwin was killed in 1945, a few weeks before liberation.

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Remembering and observing Yom Hashoah we are still searching for words to describe what happened. While in concentration camps we promised each other that the one who survives would tell the story. Even then we realized that a full description was beyond words or images.

Today I want to reflect about one aspect of those years. How do we live with the memory of the Shoah? I want to go from a few general observations to the personal, how I have managed to live with my memory.

The Shoah became a part of our life, but it took some time to be admitted. After liberation in 1945 the world acknowledged that many Jews had perished, but it did little more than that.

My own experience is probably typical, and survivors heard variations of it wherever they went. "You are lucky to be alive. Go and live. Forget the past, and, above all, don't bother us. Go away, go."

The world was more than eager to ignore and forget the victims.

A psychologist later coined the apt phrase "A Conspiracy of Silence".

We had no graves of our families, and we buried our memories. We struggled to mend our injuries. We had to start a new life in new countries; we had to learn new languages. We wanted to start a new family. Memory was pushed deep inside.

More than twenty years went by before facts were gathered and recorded. The word "Holocaust" began to be used in its current meaning. Before the 1960's only a few books about the Shoah had been published. From then on ever increasing numbers of studies have been written, and today we know that there are libraries of records, there are university courses, research institutes and museums.

The Shoah became a part of our community memory. The Shoah has also entered the awareness of the rest of the world, and it now reverberates in the politics and actions of nations. We, and now the rest of the world too, live with the knowledge of that history, and with the fate of those who perished.

I must omit here detailed comment about the way a community lives with painful memories. This is a large and separate field of study.

I have some knowledge about myself though and thus I may tell you a little about at least one survivor's attempt to live with his memories.

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It took me a while to learn how to cope with the past, and how to live sensibly. By trial and error I found my formula, my limits, the little techniques of evasion, repression, distractions and routines to keep me on an even keel.

As early as 1943, while still in Theresienstadt, I decided that I wanted to become a painter. In 1945, after liberation, then still hospitalized, a friendly soul gave me watercolors and I painted scenes remembering Auschwitz and other places. I quickly realized that part of me was still in the camps, and I changed to painting landscapes. Much later, looking at some of my landscapes I noticed that there were walls and fences in many of them. It taught me that the memory of the Shoah was a part of me, and that it would not go away, and that I would have to live with it. I cannot illustrate realistically images vividly alive in my mind. I learned how to tackle these themes in a semi-abstract and symbolic mode, using line, color, composition and surface to reflect feelings and ideas. Painting allows me to express my anguish and intrusive recollections, to put my feelings and memories onto a canvas.

I have to stay away from movies dealing with the Shoah. I don't read fiction about it. I do occasionally read factual reports or studies. I do belong to museums and organizations that commemorate the Shoah. I speak about my experience to the extent that my emotional wellbeing allows it. I have learned that it then takes some time to regain my balance, and I pace myself with some care.

Yes, I do have bad nightmares, far too many of them, and I don't know how to avoid them. I have no control over haunting dreams.

The Shoah remains a lens through which I read the world and through which I evaluate people. Would they give me a slice of bread? Would they hide me? Could I trust them? I see a certain man, and I know that he has all the hallmarks of an obtuse and narrowminded SS officer and concentration camp commander. He is kind to his dog, but is ready to send people to their death to satisfy his ideology.

The Shoah has shaped my life style. I value the time that I have. Those who perished around me would have wanted to savor every living moment. I don't want to spend my time on trifles, read shallow books, or watch trite programs.

I'm aware of the fragility of life, and of my obligation to sustain it. I keep thinking about my younger brother, a rambunctious, know-it-all teenager, and I miss him sorely. He was killed in Treblinka in 1942. If he had lived he would be 79 years old this year. I remember well the teaching of my father whose precepts and principles allowed me to understand the events around me. This allowed me to survive emotionally and with a sound mind. Late in 1944 my father perished in Auschwitz.

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The Shoah has shaped my value system. The highest value is life, and the quality of life. This includes an open, fair and just community. We are all responsible for each other.

I accept that my memory of the Shoah is close to the surface at all times. On earlier occasions I used a simile: Inside of me there is an unpredictable bass player playing an ugly tune. Over the years I have learned to play the fiddle above it so that there should be some harmony to my life.

I consider myself to be a happy person. I'm married to a wonderful and wise wife, and we have a promising teenager. I have enough to eat, clothing to wear, and a roof over my head. I have good friends, a challenging and inspiring community to live in. It took me a while to put it all together. I made it.

But, (and you knew that a but would follow), events and images that were long suppressed and pushed down into deep layers of the mind for many many years are now increasingly coming to the surface, and have to be faced anew. I'm still learning how to live with memories of the Shoah.

I want to end by speaking to the younger ones among you. You may well forget the details of what was said here this evening. I want you to remember one thing, and to remember it well. On Yom Hashoah, in 2004, you met a survivor. I want you to remember this for forty years, and then tell your children and grandchildren. It will be one hundred years from the time in which one third of our people perished. Let your deeds and your remembering be the memorial for them.

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Frederick Terna

Rebecca Shiffman

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205

September 25, 2005

A NINETEENTH SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVES OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEHEL SCHOOL

Daniel Terna, our son, graduated from the Middle School in 2001, one year before the Heschel High School opened. Daniel then went to the Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn where he graduated in 2005.

Rebecca Shiffman, Daniel’s mother, is the daughter of survivors of the Shoah; I, Frederick Terna, Daniel’s father am a survivor. Daniel most probably was the only second-generation student at Heschel. Today there are many second-generation, and now, perhaps, even third-generation parents of Heschel students. I sense that Daniel’s comments, attached below, were partly shaped by the many years he was at Heschel.

Today Daniel is a freshman at Bard College at Annandale-on Hudson, north of New York City.

Bard College starts freshman a few weeks before the official opening of the campus with an intense study of reading and writing. On completion of Daniel’s course he downloaded the essay he had written.

I was deeply moved by his lines. Daniel is a little over eighteen years old, and, most of the time, displays all the traits of that age group. Here, suddenly, there is a manifestation of maturity that I did not expect to arrive until many years from today. Survivors of the Shoah and their children have written at length about the delayed aftereffect on their lives. I feel that there is a historical dimension to Daniel’s observations written sixty years after our liberation in 1945.

This is the text downloaded by Daniel. The only change I made was the reduction of the text from double to normal spacing.

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Daniel Terna Bard College

August 23, 2005

L&T/ Final Essay

Growing Up With a Survivor

In a 1996 interview, Fred Terna, my father, spoke about being a survivor. “The Holocaust is like a crazy bass that is playing all the time. I have learned to play the fiddle above it so that there should be some harmony to my life. There isn’t a second, however, that I’m not aware of it.” Likewise, it is fundamental for my wellbeing that I am forever conscious of my father’s past. For my whole life I’ve had to come more to terms with my father’s past than my own. It is only recently that I have realized this. By acknowledging my father’s memories of the Holocaust, I am able to use my past as a reference guide for my present self. By connecting my father’s behavior to my childhood memories, I’ve begun the process of accepting my own identity. While our experiences shape who we are, and it is memories that remind us of who we are, it is oftentimes unclear why, upon reflection, we acted in certain ways. What triggered us to act or react in exclusive ways? It is not always possible to understand our past if we don’t have something concrete to refer to and make connections with in our present. In my case, it is my father, and the memories that distinguish him, that have begun to help me understand my own memories, and thus myself.

I’ve grown up knowing it’s my duty to remember the events that plagued my father, but I haven’t always acted on that. He bears the memories of his days in concentration camps on his forearm. Born in Vienna in 1923, my father grew up with his parents and brother in Prague. “My name then was not Terna as it is now, but Taussig,” my father said. On October 3rd 1941, then 18 years old, he was put into a labor camp named Lipa. After three and a half years, he had been to Lipa, Terazin, Auschwitz, and Kaufering. After jumping from a moving train about to be bombed by planes, he was discovered hiding near Kaufering on April 27th, 1945, by American soldiers. “I was one of the shuffling skeletons photographed by liberating Allied soldiers,” he said. During his time at Terazin he began sketching, and he continued to do artwork after the war. In 1946, my father moved to Paris and studied at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere and the Academie Julien. He moved to New York City in 1952 and became a full-time artist. As young children, our social lives are pretty simple: your friends are the kids on your block throwing snowballs at each other; or the daughter of your mother’s co-worker; or that kid who makes Lego buildings with you in pre-K. We’re shaped mostly by our parents because they’re so ever-present, and as children we rely on them for everything. Then we start going to school and our dependency on our parents lessens as outside influences begin to take hold and we’re separated from them for longer periods of time. We interact with other children more often now, and they start to shape our identity too.

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When I was singled out as having a unique father, the attention affected my behavior and view on life. The feeling of strangers looking at my father and me beside each other is one I know all too well. The age gap between my father and me is 64 years. People always thought and still do that my father is my grandfather. Most people don’t say anything, but I can see in their eyes the questions that must be running through their heads when they encounter my father and me together. Greeting baby-sitters at the door comes to mind, or catching the side-glances of teachers and students during Parent’s Day at school. Being the son of a Holocaust survivor isn’t something that’s easy to comprehend, much less to accept. I grew up knowing vaguely of my father’s past. Yes he’s old, I was taught, older than all of the other dads and in most cases, older or about the same age as other grandparents. My relationship with my father has never been “normal”. I remember when I first started noticing the differences: the accent, the grey hair, the numbers tattooed on his arm. For a long time, it was scenes of Nazi firing squads executing Jews that dominated my school drawings. I remember one picture in particular: instead of signing my name on the bottom right of the page like I had learned to do, I drew a speech bubble coming from the mouth of a Nazi, yelling my name, as if to say: “You’re up next”. I remember that drawing vividly because I had to sit down with an important head-teacher along with my parents. That was in first grade. In fourth grade I was sent to a therapist. I remember playing Connect Four. But instead of playing the game (trying to make a row of four checkers), I arranged the red and black checkers into a giant swastika. As I grew older, things became more complicated. I was jealous of my friends who played catch with their dads. I remember how American all their dads were: their haircuts, their business suits, their country houses outside of the city, the relaxed but stern way they spoke to their sons my friends. Their rich Americana attitudes appeared normal to me. I was mostly embarrassed to have a father who couldn’t run fast, who spoke differently when talking to strangers, who was clearly unlike the dads that I knew and that I saw on TV. I always felt singled out as the kid with the older, different dad. In Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez voices a similar feeling towards his father’s difference in society. “There were many times like the night at a brightly lit gasoline station (a blaring white memory) when I stood uneasily, hearing my father. He was talking to a teenaged attendant…I looked away to the lights of passing automobiles. I tried not to hear anymore. But I heard only too well the calm, easy tones in the attendant’s reply. Shortly afterward, walking toward home with my father, I shivered when he put his hand on my shoulder. The very first chance that I got, I evaded his grasp and ran on ahead into the dark, skipping with feigned boyish exuberance” (290). My friends teased me over my father’s behavior, his eccentricities; his obsessive-compulsive behavior, his need to plan everything out, his need to be punctual. “I have a number of meshugassim, idiosyncrasies, but none of them that handicap me,” he said. “For example, I can’t throw away shoes, and I’ve got to know the map, the physical layout of where I am geographically at any given time. I tend to like to plan ahead and have alternatives. If I have no control over a situation, I will be quite sure to have alternatives for handling it. Security, safety, predictability.” It was in high school that I eventually learned to feel guilty for not thinking about my father’s emotional scars, like forgetting to call home when I stayed out late. My father knew family and friends who also stayed out late, but never returned.

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I always lashed out at my father, at what I thought was unfair or irrational or just the wrong way to handle things as a father as I had seen other fathers react to their sons. I would become frustrated with his methodical manner I didn’t have the patience to sit with him and have him help me with homework. His mannerisms irritated me he kept everything in perfect order, labeled every thing he owned in bold, uppercase letters, and he never threw anything out. I constantly provoked my father into frustration by neglecting to inform him of my personal interests and pretending not to care about his own. I did this because I was fighting the difference I was fighting my father in order to quell the way he had shaped my identity. I was cruel and irrational because I felt more defined by my father’s status than by my own. It was small things, like the way people looked at us on our block, in the supermarket, at school, in synagogue. An emotional reunion with a close friend from the camps. The crowded auditoriums when he was a main speaker. People constantly reminding me how “lucky” I was to have a father who could still “run around at his age.” His survivor status affected my social life and my social behavior. And once people know of your past, you can’t escape it you can’t run away from public knowledge.

His trauma from the concentration camps is obvious to me now. Growing up though, I could never understand why he got nervous around authority figures such as security guards, police officers, even toll-booth collectors. I’m still surprised nowadays that he hasn’t relaxed that he’s still on edge after 60 years. My father has a friend involved in the arts from Israel named Amon. He has short white hair and a constant grin on his red face, and his massive potbelly shakes every time he laughs. I always felt puny around him incomparable to his two children who’ve both served their time in the Israeli army. When I was in 10th grade, while Amon was staying with us to do some business along the East Coast, he casually asked me if I’d like to see a movie with him. Despite the difficulty I had with his personality, I was open to the idea of getting to know him better. It was warm outside, a Sunday, and I hadn’t had much homework so I accepted the invitation and together we walked to the theatre. I must have said something particularly disturbing to my father in front of Amon, because on the way back home, Amon began questioning my behavior, my disrespect. He said something that’s stuck in my head to this very day: “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” I stared at my moving feet the whole way home.

The move to a new high school in 9th grade gave me the opportunity to keep a secret identity I didn’t want anyone knowing about my father’s past, nor my own. By falsifying my true self, I confused the way I perceived myself and how others perceived me. My secret came out eventually, but this time I wasn’t ostracized and marked. When my secret was finally revealed, my peers embraced the history of my father more than I did at the time. In my sophomore year, for my amusement as well as theirs, I suggested one Friday that my friends come home with me to eat Shabbat dinner. My mother always encouraged me to bring guests for dinner. I wanted to see the reactions on my friends’ faces when my parents sang the strange prayers. I wanted them to laugh along with me at how “weird” it was. Little did I know that it was this one Shabbat night, April 27, that commemorated the anniversary of my father’s liberation from Kaufering, a subcamp of Dachau (where he had been sent after some weeks at Auschwitz). My father considers this date his real birthday, but I had forgotten entirely. My mother and father embraced in tears, and I stood awkwardly behind them, looking back and forth between my parents

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and friends, who shifted their weight from foot to foot and looked at the floor, at me, at my parents, at the floor.

By the time I reached my junior year, I had become ashamed with myself for keeping my friends in the dark. I began to feel guilty for not dealing with my own father, and that scared me. Although my friends reacted to my family situation uncomfortably, they understood that I didn’t want to talk about my father. Over time though, the silence over both my father’s past and my identity among my friends began to feel so out of the ordinary that I began to bring it up myself. I began to retell stories. I cried for the first time in years in front of a friend. My high school art teacher urged me desperately to connect with my father.

It was my senior year of high school that changed the way I looked at my father. My respect for my father increased tenfold. Maybe it was the fact that I enjoyed being different. Maybe it was my attraction to his story. Maybe it was the fact that I had always rebelled against my parents and by senior year I had almost unrestricted freedom, which gave me the opportunity to see my parents and my father not as an imposing authority figure, but as a real person. In any case, I became proud of my father. I was more open to others about his identity. I no longer blushed when the word “Holocaust” was mentioned. I embraced my own identity as the son of an ordinary human being who had been thrust into a horrendous atrocity but had survived nonetheless and although my father isn’t as ordinary as everybody else, that doesn’t mean I should let what others see as odd as a disadvantage to my own life. The harmonious tune of my father’s fiddle is ever-present in my life and I must skip along to it.

I credit some of my current understanding to my art teacher who insisted my father come in to school to lecture my art history class about the Holocaust and how it affected the style of his art. “After the war,” he told us, “I started out painting semiabstract landscapes and eventually realized that painting was involving me in my past…It didn’t take me long to realize that concentration camps were an ingredient in my paintings, that there was a need to express certain ideas, to deal with the past…I paint attitudes, emotional states, rather than physical description. But like most survivors, to some degree, I have the need to tell. And this is my way of telling.” I had finally come to terms with the fact that my father had invisible scars and that I needed to realize their origins. I had finally decided to face his past without looking away, and could now begin to live my life with more confidence than ever before.

Growing up I’ve witnessed the interest that colleges, museums, newspapers, books, and TV programs have in survivors, especially my father. Andreas Huyssen writes in Present Pasts of the “Holocaust as a universal trope of traumatic history” (16). My father acknowledges that “from past experience, dwelling on details will evoke feelings within me that will disturb my functioning for a long time.” Despite all the trauma he has endured, my father has the emotional strength to lecture on the event itself as well as his personal experiences, on a very frequent basis. He is too modest, declaring, “My survival was due to luck…When every tenth was shot I was number nine.” Upon liberation, he states, “I weighed thirty-five kilos [about 75 lb.] and I was twenty-two years old…three years, six months, three weeks, and two days in the camps have given me a superabundance of memories to deal with. I’m aware of the fragility of life. I’m also aware of my obligation to be a witness. I’m here, a survivor.”

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The central most important thing to me about my relationship to my father and his memories is that I learn to understand that his memories have shaped his personality, and that his personality profoundly affected my own identity. In a June 6, 1989, Village Voice essay included in Art Spiegelman’s Art Spiegelman: Comix, Essays, Graphics, & Scraps, he explains that “My three-page strip, ‘Maus’, was propelled by a thenunarticulated personal need to understand my Survivor parents who had been permanently scarred by ‘The War’ and by an impulse to look dead-on at the root causes of my own deepest fears and nightmares” (14). My own father’s presence has affected me powerfully, and until recently I wouldn’t have even credited him with that. Since my memories shape the person that I am, I have to realize and understand that it was my father’s identity that made me do things in the past that I am now able to interpret. The ability to analyze my past is one of the most important things for me. I need to constantly question and try to understand.

My father said: “When you think about it, it was just a stretch of four years. Yet you can understand how people have something happen in their lives a car accident, a brief traumatic moment and are affected by it throughout their lives.” My father’s family perished in the camps. My mother and I are a testament to his will to move on, to put a new life together, to look death in the face and prove that life can flourish.

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Frederick Terna

321

Washington

Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11205

May 18, 2006

A TWENTIETH SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

Daniel Terna, our son, graduated from the Middle School in June 2001. Rebecca Shiffman, Daniel’s mother, is the daughter of survivors of the Shoah. I, Frederick Terna, Daniel’s father, am a survivor.

Daniel has just ended his freshman year at Bard College, and he will continue his studies of journalism and photography in his second year there.

This spring the Kane Street Synagogue here in Brooklyn compiled a Journal commemorating the 150th year of the congregation. A number of pages contained extensive quote from notes I wrote for the Shoah Archive.

A good friend then suggested summing up some of my ideas mentioned in the Journal, and it seems appropriate to add this summation as a 20th set of Archive Notices:

Gathering reflections that began in the 1930’s demands simplification and shortcuts. Delving into my past today is accompanied by many feelings and frequently disturbing memories. I’m well aware that the years between 1933 and the immediate post-war era weigh heavily on me, and that, to a significant degree, I view and measure events and persons through that lens.

Let me start, however, with my conclusion:

The highest value is life, and the quality of life, lived in a fair, just, and open community. We are all responsible for each other.

Looking at this summary two ingredients stand out. The first one is a search for the laws of a well-ordered community. The second one is my shorthand for which there are only approximate terms such as world-view, Weltanschauung, and eschatology.

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Translating the above two into current terms they are politics and ethics. Both bedevil us today as much as in the past. Guidance by thinkers and writers of past millennia would seem quite indispensable but they are not close at hand. I must therefore rely on whatever observations and experiences are available to me.

The experience of many years, starting with the events leading to WWII, provoked questions, made me search for causes and explanations. Preceding the outbreak of the war in 1939, and to some extent early in the war, my father had taught me sociology, philosophy and ethics. I was attuned to the events around me.

After the rise of Nazi Germany, and particularly after 1939, the contrast between the community we knew and the direct experience of the Nazi occupiers led to a constant examination of values. There was a practical side to this. Understanding the mentality of the Nazis was necessary to cope with their actions. The mindset of the Nazis was comparatively clear-cut. It was the fundamentalist’s approach to the world. They knew the absolute Truth with a capital T. The party had proclaimed the Truth, and they acted on it. Their ideal was the person implementing the party program by any means available. Questions or doubts had no place in the system.

Dictatorship as a system was observed in vivo. The textbook archetype of one-man-rule and fundamentalist ideology was going through its Nazi mutation before our eyes. A submissive parliament had abdicated to the power of the party. Ideology overruled civil liberties. Brutality, secrecy, lies and propaganda became rules of governance. An obedient judiciary allowed imprisonment without review. Expanding nationalism encouraged aggression. Dissent became treason. We Jews became the obligatory devil, the enemy.

More could be said about other dictatorships and absolutist systems of the last century. This is not the place for it, though they too are ingredients in my conclusion.

The other subject on our mind, ethics, remained firmly in its place. Observing the violations of humane codes around us sharpened our sense of right and wrong action.

In rapidly changing circumstances, and that eventually included concentration camps, personal relationships between inmates was, and remained grounded on traditional precepts. A good example is the moral atmosphere maintained in Ghetto Terezin (Theresienstadt). When individual space was reduced to a straw pallet in a triple tier bunk, politeness and respect for the other was the rule. As in any other group there were differences in age, background, and personality, in ideas, in philosophy and therefore there were also disputes. There was, however, no criminal behavior, and no physical violence among inmates. We would not act like our oppressors. Later, in other concentration camps, on that rare occasion when an inmate would act contrary to the interest of others, this was seen as deterioration before an impending demise. Abandoning the values of the group brought isolation, abandonment, and an early death.

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When the Nazis attempted to dehumanize us we maintained civilities observed in normal life. Each one of us had a trade, a job, a profession before imprisonment, so a baker remained a baker, a teacher remained a teacher, and a doctor remained a doctor. To a guard, to an SS trooper we appeared as smelly, unshaved, lice-infested apparitions. To each other we said please and thank you.

Even during the most dangerous times we continued talking and deliberating. We observed carefully the world closest to us. We were starving and near death, and yet the military situation of the moment was discussed, albeit we knew that some the information was imprecise and dated. The near demise of the German Reich was never questioned. What should take its place? What is the form of a well-ordered society?

Living since 1952 in this country allowed me to learn about other places and events. Conclusions listed at the top of these pages are valid and indispensable for the well being of people.

The highest value is life, and the quality of life in a fair, just and open community. We are all responsible for each other.

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Frederick Terna

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205

July 21, 2006

A TWENTY-FIRST SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

Daniel has just ended his freshman year at Bard College, and he will continue his studies of journalism and photography in his second year there this fall.

This is the story of Ari, a survivor.

Ari died this past May. I now feel free to write about some of the events of Ari’s life during and after the Shoah. In past years I had urged him to record his memories. In his inimitable way he dismissed my suggestion with a stream of invectives belittling my judgment, and, specifically, the need for recollecting the past. Knowing Ari since the 1950’s I acknowledged his feelings, and, eventually, left it at that.

Ari was akin to other survivors. Delving into the past could bring painful and disturbing memories to the surface. Some survivors needed to push these back into remote and deep hollows of the mind, others, more fortunate, could acknowledge them as part of their life.

The significant events of Ari’s life are easily and quickly recalled, and I shall come to them shortly. Their consequences are a complex web.

The memory of others about Ari will differ from mine. Ari’s family, i.e., his sons and his former wives certainly will preserve a benign image about the recently departed. In the last years of his life Ari may have told Jenny, his companion during the last years of his life, one or another detail of his past. I doubt whether Ari would have confided data or feelings to his sons or any one of his three wives.

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Should my intent to narrate the story of Ari, a survivor, have taken precedence over the possible negative impact of my assessment on his wives, his children, or his grandchildren? This set of Notes could come to their attention. I have resolved my dilemma by omitting family names, changing his first name to Ari, and using the terms first, second, and third wife, also first son and second son, etc. Since meeting Ari nearly half a century ago I learned more facts, some directly from him, some from others. I have no documentation. The assessment of the events is mine, and mine only. A good part of it is armchair evaluation. When talking about Ari’s family I’m reflecting his opinions and feelings, and my interpretation of them. So, e.g., I never met his father; when I met his mother she was a patient in an Alzheimer’s home.

There were some of Ari’s friends in my circle who knew more about his past, and who knew his parents. Most of them probably have died long ago, and, if not, I would not know where to find them. Writing these lines I’m aware of the paucity of my sources. While I have only fragments, they deserve to be recorded.

Some time in the latter 1950’s I sat with my first wife, Stella, in a rather crowded doctor’s waiting room. While talking to another person I was interrupted by a shower of histrionic invectives, laughingly challenging my premises as being ridiculous, and not worth even a minute’s attention. The tone was friendly, even kindhearted, though the words were cutting. I stopped and laughed. I probably replied, but I don’t recall details. I recognized the tone of a survivor. In his torrent of disapproval I sensed pain and sorrow, and I wondered about the sources, and I wanted to know more. Ari and I became friends after that first meeting.

What were the words Ari used? They included “ridiculous, absurd, doesn’t make sense, preposterous, bizarre”, and similar terms. It soon became apparent to me that these were part of his regular vocabulary sprinkled like salt and pepper over any and all subjects; their inclusion was nearly automatic. I wonder about the reaction of persons meeting him for the first time. Could they ignore the corrosive and sarcastic content while being charmed by his smile and the tone of his voice?

Ari, then close to thirty years old, was a short, stocky person with a round face, twinkling eyes; there was allure in his manners, even while the words were abrasive.

Ari was born in Warsaw in 1932. His family probably middle-class, and that is all that I know about them. In September 1939 Germany invaded Poland. In 1940 the Warsaw Ghetto was created. In 1940 Ari was about eight years old, a small spindly child. Ari’s father suddenly stopped functioning in the Ghetto. I cannot visualize the family’s situation then and I have only a generic explanation for his father’s emotional state. The psychological, and even physical numbness of some inmates in ghettos and concentration camps has been described in the appropriate journals after the war.

I don’t know who led Ari into his next phase, or who instructed him. Ari, then a thin and emaciated kid, looking much younger than his years, walked through the sewers out of

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the Ghetto into Warsaw proper carrying valuables out and exchanged them for food, medicines, and, occasionally, weapons.

Here my imagination is failing me trying to visualize a child walking in sewerage and slime, in darkness, stench and rats, and doing it again and again. Was he alone, was there a group? Did they have light?

There must have been an adult guiding and directing him, there must have been an organizing mind gathering valuables in the Ghetto, a parallel set of contacts in gentile Warsaw, and then again someone distributing food and medicine brought back into the Ghetto. That person is the invisible hero of this story. There must have been some system of amassing money or other assets to enable the family to survive after their escape into Warsaw proper and their flight into the forests. It probably was not Ari’s father. I don’t think that a child, even a very smart and courageous one such as Ari could have evaluated the risks, opportunities, and the political situation of the moment.

What happened to that person? Did he or she survive the war? The chance for survival was very small. That person may have chosen to remain in the Ghetto, and thus eventually would have been shipped to the death-camp of Treblinka, or perished in the Ghetto uprising. Even after a successful escape from the Ghetto there were some options for survival, but they were limited. The fight between the Polish Home Army and the Germans caused immense casualties among the civilian population of Warsaw.

Ari became the provider, the source of life for his family. He later became also the rescuer of his family. Before the Ghetto upraising in the spring of 1943, and while Ghetto inmates were being shipped “east to other working areas”, in reality to Treblinka, Ari managed to guide his parents through the sewers out of the Ghetto, and, eventually, out of Warsaw into forests. Ari was eleven years old then. The family was in the forests while Russian Troops in August of 1944 stopped their advance on the far side of the Vistula River and waited just outside Warsaw while the Polish Home Army was fighting to liberate Warsaw. An ensuing German counter-offensive turned the city into rubble. The Red Army was waiting for the annihilation of the uprising and of the potentially westernoriented regime. They entered what was left of Warsaw in January 1945. WWII ended in May of 1945. Ari was thirteen years old then.

I don’t know whether any member of Ari’s extended family survived the Shoah. I don’t think that Ari had any knowledge about them. He never mentioned other pre-war family.

In1946, after the Kielce pogroms the family fled Poland to refugee camps in West Germany.

In the critical years between 194l and 1944 Ari kept the family going, fed them, and eventually saved their lives. The role of parents and child were reversed. The family was saved, but the emotional damage was beyond measure. There was no tradition, no template to deal with such a disruption. There also came a break in the relationship between Ari’s parents. The legal shell of the marriage remained; they lived in a common

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household as an economic unit. The bond was never repaired; there was no psychological help available then. It would have taken a rare person to heal that marriage. Ari had a wretched exemplar as a model. This negative paradigm probably played havoc in his three marriages.

Ari’s education finally started in the refugee camps in West Germany. At the same time his parents attempted to assert their traditional role as guides of a child, then a teen-ager. This did not work, and the conflict was predictable. The wreckage of that configuration was visible for years afterward. It is easy to blame Ari’s parents. They owed Ari their survival. Starting a new life in a new place was an enormous task even for the best adjusted, it was a nearly impossible undertaking for injured minds, for a family in turmoil.

In 1948 the family arrived in the USA, settled first in Boston, and then in Brooklyn. Ari got a high school equivalency diploma. Upon the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 Ari enlisted in the army, and served for five years, almost all the time in Brooklyn. He married his first wife, and remained with her for 2 ½ years. I have no information about her, why they married or why they parted. When I met Ari the legal proceedings were in their last phase. I had the impression that the divorce was by mutual consent.

Who would want to be married to Ari? He was kind, responsible and hardworking, but also cynical, negative, corrosive, skeptical, and dubious about motives. It would take very self-assured and positive person to overcome, perhaps neutralize his jaundiced view of the world and of life. The marriage of his parents certainly was hardly a positive example.

Ari’s father died of a heart attack at a comparatively young age. I never met him. There seems to have been some regret in both Ari and his father that they did not have the opportunity to develop good relationship. His mother died in an institution, after years of oblivion.

When the future wife number two appeared she seemed to be the one to have the strength to balance Ari’s world-weariness. She was an Israeli, daughter of pre-war immigrants from Germany to, then, Palestine. She was divorced; there were no children from that first marriage. She had served in the Israel army, in the tank corps. She was literally an Israeli tank driver. I wonder why they got married. One of the reasons may have been her need to get US citizenship. She wanted to get her own parents to this country. Another reason was Ari’s reliable income from his business as buyer for restaurants, supplying their daily needs of produce from the Hunt’s Point Market. I don’t remember wife number two and Ari living together in the same place. Number two found other partners, and the marriage ended after about 2 ½ years.

Ari and I lived in the same area, the Upper East Side. My first wife Stella and Ari shared the same internist and thus we had a point of contact. Later Stella had developed bi-polar depression and needed constant attention. When she was not hospitalized she needed continuous guardianship while at home. Ari was always available to help, get groceries,

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or spell me when I had to run errands, or just to be available as someone to talk to about mundane matters.

There were areas in Ari’s mind that never had a chance of expanding. He loved dancing, cooking, enjoyed popular music; he very much preferred musicals to serious music. I don’t recall ever seeing a single book in his hand. His politics were quite liberal, and no surprise for someone whom life had taught the value of a free, fair, and open community. I wonder what would have become of him if the war had not shredded his future. His intellectual horizon was remarkably wide for someone without academic predilection. His information about Jewish life was marginal and focused on the ceremonial. He belittled historical and sociological ideas. He suspected abstract concepts. I don’t know about the extent of the religious observance in his family before 1939.

In the late1960’s wife number three appeared. She was in her late teens, a rather typical girl from a traditional Brooklyn Jewish middle-class area and background. She was young, vivacious, and I shall omit other physical attributes. Upon meeting her for the first time I suggested to Ari to end this uneven relationship, but to no avail. He may have been tickled by the attention of a young woman. She may have been taken by the security of a good provider, while unaware of his emotional load. In her community of Brooklyn her contemporaries were all married. Eventually Ari and wife three were married, and two sons were born. Ari and wife three worked hard to support the new family. Wife three followed some of the fashionable trends of child rearing of the 1970’s, and became a nutrition faddist. Rebecca and I became concerned for the health of the children, but felt helpless. Nutritional deficiencies may have warped the development of the boys in their early years.

The father of wife three had moved to a city in the South, opened a used auto-parts business and invited Ari to join him. There followed years of business trouble aggravated by disagreement with his father-in-law’s business morals. Ari’s father-in-law was less than scrupulous in his dealings. The result was a criminal conviction and a jail term. Eventually Ari acquired the business, put it on a solid base and supported the family.

There was a medical emergency: Ari needed major cardiac surgery. All heart arteries had to be replaced. Ari recovered, but years later the by-pass surgery had to be repeated.

There was a gambling episode. For a time Ari regularly went to race tracks.. Professionals in the field of psychology have observed the attraction of risk taking to some survivors. Some describe it as an attempt of self-destruction, some to survivor’s guilt. Ari eventually understood his particular motivation, and stopped gambling.

The above two reasons may not have been the only visible consequences of the Shoah during that time. The sarcastic and mocking language remained his hallmark to the end. A small illuminating detail: At all times Ari made sure that there was bread in the house. He could not go to sleep unless there was bread in the freezer

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After Ari and family moved to the South, our contact was by weekly telephone calls, and by Ari’s frequent visits to our home here in Brooklyn.

Soon after arriving in the South the food fad of wife three took a religious turn. She went from one esoteric cult to another, became a born-again Christian, and then changing from oriental sects to Pentecostal ones. The constant shifting of adherence to fringe groups disrupted the life of the boys and caused them significant emotional and behavior problems. Ari and wife three separated, and the boys lived with Ari most of the time. After 17 years there was an eventual divorce.

The boys are now married, and they in turn have children, Ari’s grandchildren. I understand that one of Ari’s daughters-in-law is involved with families of Shoah survivors. I don’t know about other involvement of the families in Ari’s past. I wonder about the influence of the Shoah, if any, on Ari’s sons or their families.

Over the years while observing Ari I did not notice any expression of love towards any one of his wives nor did I see him as the recipient of their affection. Eventually, after his divorce from wife number three he found Jenny, and the give and take of a lovingly shared life. Jenny was a widow, a caring and wonderful person with a big family. Jenny and Ari came to visit us on a few occasions. It was only during the last six years of his life that love and happiness finally had allowed the Shoah to recede into the background. After all these years there was a person who said, “I love you” to Ari, and to whom he could reply “I love you too”.

Ari braved the horrors of the Shoah, and lived with its painful aftermath, he walked through the sewers of the Warsaw Ghetto, and he started a new life. The story of his life is a part of our life.

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Frederick Terna

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205

December 24, 2007

A TWENTY-SECOND SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

Daniel Terna, our son, graduated from the Middle School in June 2001. Rebecca Shiffman, Daniel’s mother is the daughter of survivors of the Shoah. I, Frederick Terna, Daniel’s father, am a survivor.

At this writing Daniel is a student at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem as part of his studies of journalism and photography. Daniel is in his junior year of college, and this is his semester abroad. He will return to Bard College early next year.

Earlier this month Daniel wrote in an e-mail: “ …I have a paper to write…Towards the end of the class we were focusing on ideas of memory and collective memory, with an emphasis (of course) on the ways in which the Holocaust is remembered and revisited and reinterpreted over time…” Daniel continued with additional details.

While there is a specific set of notes about memory I feel that my answer to Daniel could be another one. The sum of all the notes is memory.

To Daniel:

More notes on memory and visual representation.

It is difficult for me to comment on specific points of your assignment. I did not see any of the films you mentioned, not Lanzmann’s “Shoah”, nor the 1978 NBC “Holocaust”, “Schindler’s List”, or any other film dealing with the Shoah. When listening to or watching such films in my mind another movie is running, reels of visual memory that leave me upset for a long time. I have learned my limits, and the degrees of my tolerance. This is not criticism of the movies, they are probably quite important. For better or worse they are the current record, and I’m not able to judge them.

Visual history of the Shoah is subject to the general criteria of history. Where do we find the evidence of an event? How do we pick the data, and who decides on what to pick? Is the evidence valid? Is it the original source? These, and a great number of other questions should be clarified before proceeding with a historical project. Volumes have been written about this in preceding centuries. Historiography, the study and method of the writing of history, has become a critical and separate subject.

Historiography itself must respect areas of philosophy. What is a fact? What is evidence? What is reality? The entire range of these basic questions comes into play. While they may seem remote from matters of visual history of the Shoah they are ingredients that cannot be ignored.

You know that memory and visual representation is on my mind, that it is the subject of a good part of my work. My earliest drawings made immediately after liberation in 1945 dealt with imagery of the preceding years. Looking then at these early attempts I realized that my body had survived but that my mind was still in the camps. Later I would see landscapes from my hospital window and changed to this new subject. It was not long before I noticed the many walls and fences in these landscapes. I accepted the fact that my past experience would not go away, and that I would have to live with my memories.

The preceding is a simplification, the abbreviation of a slower growth. The years following liberation demanded attention to the mechanics of life in new countries and new communities. Contemplation and scrutiny came later.

Considering all the above I’m not sure how to tell or show the events of the Shoah. A movie director picks images and scenes. It is his or her choice, a choice made generations after the events. No matter how sincere or wise the director may be it is but a two-hour version of lives then. The Shoah lasted about six years, and happened in all areas then under German rule. I doubt whether there is any medium or method that can encompass more than a very small part of it.

It may be possible to tell about one place, event or another. There were thousands of destroyed communities, and millions of lost lives. The feelings and thoughts of this or that person may be brought back. Even a book about this single life would be filtered through the mind of a writer, an editor, and a publisher.

I don’t know how to communicate the element of time. How can one describe the impact of one painfully long day following the next one? The logical expectation was more deprivation, suffering, hunger, and the expectation of a violent death. Seeing the next day promised more of the same.

It was only in the 1960’s that the world at large started dealing with the subject. Before that there was avoidance and denial. A few books had been written, and only few studies existed. Later accumulation of information may allow future generations to have more and better data. Today, fortunately, there are institutes; there are museums and libraries there are departments in universities. The visual record went through similar stages.

Earliest paintings after the war dealt mostly with the macabre, the gory and the melodramatic.

The mention of some other visual expressions of the Shoah is omitted here: Sculpture, monuments, dance, also music and architecture.

Other angles have to find their expression in a different form, in a different medium. I’m not qualified to discuss the place of the Shoah in theology, psychology, and sociology and many other areas.

The history of the Shoah is changing. This definite set of events within the specific area and time is being transformed into a symbol, manipulated by political consideration. Iran’s president Ahmadinejad uses it as a political bludgeon, Joerg Haider in Austria uses it as campaign element, Kurt Waldheim, a Wehrmacht officer who supervised the deportation of Jews from Saloniki became president of Austria. That Austria, the birthplace of political anti-Semitism, and also the cradle of Nazism, vigorously denies responsibility for its enthusiastic support of Nazi actions.

As there are fewer and fewer survivors the image and the impact of the Shoah will change. While we survivors are still around we can verify feelings and descriptions. Later years will have books, photos and movies, and taped interviews as sources of information. Past events and ideologies will be measured with a different set of values.

Eventually we will have the memory of memory.

Frederick Terna Rebecca Shiffman

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205

June 25, 2008

A TWENTY-THIRD SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

Daniel is going to begin his senior year at Bard College, and will continue there his studies of journalism and photography.

Earlier this year we were invited to go to Vienna. I’m adding here my report as a twentythird set of notes for the Shoah Archives.

YOM HASHOAH IN VIENNA 2008

Before leaving for Vienna on April 30, 2008 I promised our friends to keep notes. A detailed report, a diary, was on my mind. Arriving in Vienna the persistent flow of events, of impressions, and feelings put a speedy end to that rash pledge. After our return home we received an e-mail from LetterToTheStars asking us for our account. The notes below are thus addressed to both, our friends here and to those in Austria.

The lines below are excerpts from various notes I kept during the trip, and loosely connected chronologically. I put a few of these on paper well before our departure, but most of them after our return on May 13, 2008. When mentioning some persons I shall use their first names only since this text may find its way into unpredictable places. The exceptions to this decision are Peter Niedermair of www.erinnern.at, and members of www.LetterToTheStars.at, specifically Markus Priller, Josef Neumayr, and Andreas Kuba, and their team. They deserve full attention and praise for their work teaching the current generation of Austrians about the Shoah.

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A quote comes to mind: “This letter is longer than usual, it would be shorter if I had more time.” (If memory serves I’m paraphrasing Pascal.) This is the note I wrote before our trip to Vienna in May 2008:

Early last year I was contacted by an Austrian organization “A Letter to the Stars”. (Their name “A Letter to the Stars” originated a few years ago from an event in Vienna when children were encouraged to write a letter to a person who was murdered during the war, attach it to a balloon and let it go into the sky. More about this can be found on www.lettertothestars.at.)

I was asked whether I would I be willing to meet here in New York a young Austrian student, part of their program of a “one on one” encounter with a survivor of the Shoah. I acceded. After an exchange of letters Isabella and other members of A Letter to the Stars came to see us. The following week Isabella, an eighteen-year-old, and I went to places that I felt would give her additional information about our background and cultural setting. Isabella joined us in a synagogue at a Yom Hashoah commemoration where I was the speaker. We went to several other places such as the Jewish Museum here. I was quite impressed by Isabella and her thoughts. Isabella and I probably learned a lot about each other, and about our communities. Isabella and I keep writing to each other.

Later in 2007 I heard from A Letter to the Stars about a planned meeting of survivors in Vienna in May 2008. I deliberated quite a while whether to accept their invitation. I did not want to become a pawn in local political squabbles. (There were, e.g. two articles in one of the respectable newspapers in Vienna, Der Standard, berating the attempt of Letter to the Stars. I may attach two of my letters to Der Standard as an appendix to these notes, albeit I’ll leave them in their version as written, in German.) After discussion with people I respect, I accepted. The meeting with Isabella was an ingredient. Even if only little good would come of it I should go.

The invitation of The Letter to the Stars to the meeting in Vienna went to about two hundred plus persons from Austria who were affected by the persecution following the “Anschluss”, the takeover by the Nazi regime in 1938. Most of them were part of the “Kindertransports”, groups of children that were allowed to leave without their parents, the majority for England, where they survived the war. They are now in their seventies. A few survivors, now well into their eighties were also invited.

One of the causes of the planned gathering in Vienna was the thought that the members of the group would go to their former schools, and talk to the students about their experience in 1938. Quite early I stated my preference of talking to teachers rather than to

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students. Having spoken for many years to students, I know that I’m more effective when talking to teachers. In Vienna we participated in a conference chaired by Peter Niedermair. More about the conference further down.

A Letter to the Stars had gathered the necessary funds from private and other Austrian entities to pay for travel and hotel. The cost to us would be small. We would have three days before our return flight home from Vienna. We eventually decided to stay largely in Vienna, except for a half-day trip to Bratislava, now the capital of Slovakia.

Arriving in Vienna via Austrian Airlines we were greeted by that amazing team of members of the Letter to the Stars, and from that moment on were carried in a cloud of caring and loving concern at every stage of our visit. A description of the amount of sensitive attention to every detail would require a lengthy list. No detail was too small to be left unattended. The amount of planning by the Letter to the Stars team may well be an ideal of foresight and planning. We were lodged in an elegant hotel. At all times there was a service desk of A Letter to the Stars in the lobby with young volunteers ready to help us. There were free tickets to museums, free bus and subway tickets, maps, and sources of information. On occasions when the entire group was attending a function buses were provided.

A part of the hotel lodging was breakfast. That early morning gathering became one of the occasions to meet other members of the group. We had come from all corners of the world. Some had come from Australia, some from Argentina, from Israel, from the USA. This was a meeting of people who had lived in the same community some seventy years earlier but did not know each other then. Now the common language among us had become English, but the accents were decidedly different, some were British, some Australian, Israeli, and Hispanic. I was wondering about their lives after the war, I sensed the turmoil coping with strange, and often hostile new worlds. What a rich lode for a writer. There was care, love, and understanding; there was curiosity about the fate of others who had survived the war, and the many years of building a new life. The talking themes were current families, retirement from rewarding careers; past horrors and struggles were not discussed. With a few exceptions most of them had been children when leaving Austria.

Here we were actors in the emergence of a new, and certainly only very temporary community. We had shared a part of Austrian history. Some of it, pre-1938 was positive. The disruption that followed changed not only us, but also very much the lives of most Austrians. We had accepted the pain that followed, rethought our place in life. The informal discussion groups that formed spontaneously talked more often than not about present and current events. There was a consensus about the lateness of Austrian awareness and acknowledgement of their long overdue involvement, and their deliberate forgetting. There was a note of hope for Austrians embodied by Letter to the Stars, and Peter Niedermair’s effort by way of www.erinnern.at. Other subjects surfaced, but these were central to discussions that came up.

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The conference of educators on May 3 and 4, 2008 chaired by Peter Niedermair of the project www.erinnern.at clearly was one of the two most important events in Vienna for me. The focal point of the meeting was about teaching of the Shoah.

Reading later a list names and professional titles of the educators made me aware of the importance and scope of the meeting. The level of this pedagogical hierarchy within Austria gave me a measure of reassurance that a long overdue change is going to happen.

At this meeting we, Rebecca and I, met Elisabeth, one of the participants, and within that short time we became good friends. Here occurred that happy and rare confluence of feelings and thoughts that bridges relationships across distances. Later that week we went to visit Elisabeth and her family.

As part of the panel discussion each member was asked to take about fifteen minutes to summarize his or her remarks. Discussing some of my possible themes I prepared the following text. Eventually I did not use my prepared comments. Since these words were on my mind before going to Vienna I do think that I can include them here. The reason for my omission was simple. The three panel members who preceded me had been inmates in Terezin, Auschwitz and other concentration camps, and my talk would only repeat in other words and more detail what was well said by them. I thanked them for lessening my emotional burden. Since this was a conference of educators I would talk about education inside concentration camps. Learning and studying are a basic aspect of our tradition. Whenever possible, and in strange, and usually dangerous circumstances, teaching and learning was resumed. Since my formal education had ended when I was fifteen years old I was glaringly aware of my inadequacy; I sought information, tried to learn from anybody willing to teach me. It took me some time to realize that the drive to teach and to learn was a survival mechanism. It knew that we would need that knowledge. Seeking it implied that we would survive.

This, then, is the prepared text written before our departure while still on this side of the ocean. Please remember that I did not use this text:

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You and I share the task of teaching a painful stretch of history. While my explicit memories go back to the early 1930’s I would like to expand here on the time after liberation south of Landsberg in Bavaria on April 27, 1945.

Most of you are teachers of history, and you are thus informed about the time under discussion. The conveyance of that time, i.e. remembering and teaching is your expertise while I’m a painter. There is one element that I can contribute here, how I, a survivor have dealt with memory, how I have tried to transmit my memories and ideas to subsequent generations.

I may have some difficulty using German today about this difficult subject. I probably have spoken more German in the last few days than in the preceding sixty years. At times I may have to switch to English, assuming that you are fluent speakers. After these many years the fitting and necessary right word has faded from memory, the very necessary comma may well be missing.

While in the camps we promised to each other that the one who survives would tell the story. I assume that you are well informed, and I therefore shall not talk here about my experience while in the camps. At the moment of liberation I weighed 35 Kilos. You may recall seeing photos of skeletal apparitions. I did not have lice; lice had me.

The gradual physical recuperation, to the extent that is was possible, was slow. Returning after months of hospitalization to our former homes was painful. We were not welcomed. Our families had perished, our homes stolen. We were told to go away, and to forget the past. Resuming a new life of took all our energy, and our past was pushed into the background. The recovery of emotional functioning took much longer than the physical one.

You know that I’m a painter. I made some early drawings in Theresienstadt. Almost all of them were lost when I was shipped to Auschwitz. After liberation, while hospitalized, a kind soul gave me some paper, brushes and watercolors. These first works were memories of Auschwitz, of camp life, and of death marches. I quickly realized that my mind was still in camps. I stopped, and changed my subject matter to landscapes I could see from my hospital window. It did not take me long to see the many fences and walls in these new images. The realization soon followed that my camp experience would not go away, that I would have to live with it.

Painting became my early, and non-verbal mode of dealing with the Shoah. While not verbalizing my mind kept asking the obvious questions. What were the circumstances that allowed a once civilized community to commit the Shoah? What was the sociological configuration, what do the horrors of the concentration camps say about human nature, and all the perennial questions of philosophy? Why did the ethical and critical mind stop working?

It took nearly twenty years before I allowed myself to talk about details of the Shoah. The rest of the world participated in that amnesia. A psychologist coined the fitting phrase

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“conspiracy of silence”. The focus of the world around us then was the cold war, the threat of an expanding communist ideology. It was another welcome reason for the world to ignore the plight of the few survivors, and we complied. The emotional problems were drowning out memories and the deeper engagement with the personal past.

The search for surviving relatives was the first and very personal attempt of recording the past. The extension of this search to larger groups, the awareness of the scope of the Shoah took nearly three generations. In some places the first steps have just begun.

I’m aware of the many volumes that have been written in the second half of the past century. I did not read most of them. I’m aware of the several movies that deal with the Shoah, and I avoided most of them. This is not a criticism. I understand that many of these are important. While watching some of these movies a different set of memories is running in my mind, and I find most of them upsetting.

Over the years I have learned to live with the memories of the Shoah. In a different setting I have used a simile: There is a wild and unpredictable base constantly playing in the background, and I have learned to play the fiddle above it so that there should be some harmony to my life.

A brief correction of one remark made in the preceding text: I did speak German in the meeting, and I was surprised how easy it was to find the right shade or flavor to express myself. Let me get back to the actual conference of educators,

There was a panel of four survivors, “Zeitzeugen “ i.e. witnesses about past times, (a rather loose translation). At the last moment Peter Niedermair asked Rebecca to sit in on the panel. As a second-generation person, and child of survivors she was a valuable additional point of view. Rebecca spoke English, and that was quite acceptable for this audience.

Rebecca elaborated on the complexity of feelings as children of Holocaust survivors for their parents. As a new family they frequently carried the burden of taking the place of children murdered during the war. Parent and child relationship in survivor families was different. Rebecca then wondered about the configuration in families of Nazi supporters. Questions a child would have about parents and grandparents were inevitable, but suppressed. It seems that this persists into the third generation.

Most of the participants were educators from various areas of Austria. Some of other “Zeitzeugen” were sitting in the front rows of the audience rather than on the panel. Among them were persons persecuted because of their political points of view.

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One of the panelists was Pavel Stransky, a survivor of Terezin, Auschwitz, and other camps. Another person was an Israeli, Harry Josef Linser, who had been in the same Kaufering camps at the same time I had been there. In the final days of the war he had been included in a death march, and he was liberated a few days later than I near Ebensee, a sub-camp of Mauthausen. There was also another survivor of Kaufering, and I don’t remember his name. I don’t recall hearing about a setting anywhere when there were three survivors from Kaufering in the same room at he same time. We did not talk about Kaufering, merely compared dates of arrival there, and dates and places of liberation.

The morning session dealt with educational themes aimed at the teachers attending. A detailed report of this is beyond the scope of this note. The conference then continued in smaller panels during the afternoon, and the next day.

Lunch was served on both days. (The meeting was in a hotel.) It was during that break that we had the opportunity to get a better feeling for the participants. We felt very comfortable asking them questions about their hometowns, about their schools. On the other hand that group was a self-selected one, eager to learn and to teach.

I was moved and impressed by Peter Niedermair’s effort and www.erinnern.at. Telling Austrians to acknowledge their past is a heavy task.

May 5th, 2008

May 5th is the official Austrian date for Yom Hashoah, the day when in 1945 Mauthausen was liberated. In the morning Buses took us to the Parliament for the official program. The building was restored to its 19th century structure but the inside is quite modern. The assembly hall and some of the inside hallways seem to be replicas of a 19th century imperial Habsburg style.

There was a full house of Austrian government bureaucrats, representatives, perhaps also other Viennese public figures, fungible bodies of elected officials plus their bodyguards, security people in civilian disguise, television crews, plus the usual flunkies. The scene, the image, the feeling, would probably be the same in Madrid or Kiev; central casting would supply the usual cast for Official and Public Commemoration. Here we were, however, two hundred plus victims of the events of 1938. I felt that this performance was staged for the media and a part of a nod in an obligatory direction. Upon leaving the event we did not discuss it.

The speeches were predictable, and boring. The music by a student group was tolerable. There was one imaginative element, the projection of names of perished children projected on a huge dark screen, appearing briefly, and then oozing out as diminishing and accelerating streaks right and left. This was the only item on the parliament program

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that fit the occasion. Four actors later reading letters and similar writings were mechanical, somehow out of place, and fell quite flat.

Then followed the second high point of our visit, and any hesitancy or misgiving I might have had about going to Vienna disappeared. This justified our going to Vienna, and the memory will persist.

What a moving and memorable experience. We were about 200 older people. Some of us came with a spouse, a child or grandchild, or with another family member, all invited by the Letter to the Stars group. Walking from the Parliament building and getting close to the meeting on the Heldenplatz a path was held open with several thousand student-age youngsters right and left, applauding and smiling. All of us had tears in our eyes. This was a turning point.

Chairs with nametags were set in front a stage. Each chair had a small pouch with a plastic poncho, to protect us from a possible rain. Sandwiches were handed out, and for those who might have insisted on it there were kosher ones. The performers on the stage were students. The program was varied and to the point. There was old music and new music; there were dancers, soloists and groups. A few of the invitees were reading short notes from writings that survived. The theme of the Heldenplatz meeting was the link between the performers, and those they were commemorating.

You who live in the USA cannot grasp the importance of the location. Heldenplatz is the traditional Viennese and Austrian ceremonial site where in March 1938 more than 200,000 Viennese citizens welcomed Hitler. Old movie reels will tell you about the frenzy of this welcoming. The echo of this is lingering in my mind, and it may do that in the memory of those who were aware of the political situation then. The word ‘Held” is German for hero, “Platz” is a place, a square. Thus “Heldenplatz” describes a hero square.

The preceding is the account of happenings experienced as part of a group. There were also a number of get-togethers with other persons, whom we met in informal settings. Some were encounters when we were invited to their homes, some we met in town. A detailed explanation of them would extend these lines beyond sensible limits. I have cousins who lived in Israel during WWII and now live in Vienna. We spent as much time with them as our program allowed.

One afternoon we were invited to meet a businessman, now located just outside Vienna, who had built up a vast enterprise with branches in most parts of Eastern Europe. Among all the people we met on our trip he is the only one who mentioned religion as part of his life and motivation. He seems to belong to a Protestant fundamentalist sect, and I could

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not tell which one. In this country he would fit into a Mormon mold. He deserves mentioning since he differs so very much from every other person we met. We expect to meet him here in the States eventually

My impression of Vienna would take many more pages, but this is not a casual visitor or tourist’s account. My description would be a warped one, shaped by too much personal experience, and by the promise we gave each other during the Shoah to keep alive the memory of those who perished.

Today I have a tentative answer to the question whether some good would result from our visit. The answer is yes, though I cannot quantify it. Vienna and Austria may have changed but a little; but I have changed, my thoughts and feelings are different today. The members and activities of www.LetterToTheStars.at, and of www.erinnern.at, and the wonderful individuals working for them and supporting them are, to me, a visible leading edge for a change in progress.

When, in Vienna, the monument to Karl Lueger is removed, when that part of the Ringstrasse is renamed, and when both are replaced in the memory of a victim of history in Austria, then I’ll know that change has occurred.

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Frederick Terna 321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205

August 24, 2009

A TWENTY-FOURTH SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

Daniel Terna, our son, graduated from the Middle School in 2001. (The High School opened one year later, in 2002). Rebecca Shiffman, Daniel’s mother is the daughter of survivors of the Shoah; I, Frederick Terna, Daniel’s father, am a survivor. Daniel graduated from Bard College earlier this year. His fields were writing and photojournalism.

A few weeks ago a friend of some years ago called me about a book she was writing, compiling material from the second generation of Shoah survivors. She had read the essay Daniel had written as part of his admission requirement to Bard College. (I included the essay as the nineteenth set of notes for the archives.) She wanted me to write about my feelings. I had written about persons and occurrences but had omitted to record my feelings while experiencing the events around me. Her point was well taken. I wrote the two pages below.

After mailing her the pages she replied quite contrite, even penitent, and apologetic, comparing herself to a reporter asking a mother how she felt about her son killed in action. I understood her feelings about herself but I feel that indeed there is a dimension missing to my notes. Wanting to include my two pages to her here in the Shoah Archive I would omit her name and call the pages “A note to a friend”.

A NOTE TO A FRIEND

It was a late and severe winter. Tommy Mandel and I had jumped into deep snow after squeezing through an opening of a cattle car. The train had slowed down, nearly coming to a halt. Neither one of us was hurt while bullets from attacking planes were cutting holes into the frozen ground. It was still quite dark and we did not see a single SS man, a platoon of guards over the transport. We had not had any food for several days, and we were quite weak and emaciated. We decided to look for a place to protect us from the weather, to keep us from freezing to death. While crossing open fields we were spotted and caught by an SS troop retreating from the front line.

You asked me to write about my feelings while in concentration camps. During the events described above I, and Tommy too, were concentrating on the best way to face the next hour. That was a complex set of reactions; a good part of them included experience, considering available energy, evaluating alternatives, and also the feel of the moment. Recording feelings had to wait. In the vernacular of today I was suppressing my feelings. I’m sure that they certainly were there, but acting on them was usually impossible, and certainly dangerous.

Most of my years in concentration camps were in places where there were men only, and, as time went on, the ones still alive were largely well below forty. Men have a hard time expressing feelings, and more so for twenty-one year olds. I was no exception.

My physical survival was due to a series of improbable accidents, a statistical anomaly. Listing them here is outside the scope of these lines. My spiritual and mental survival, however, I owe to my father’s instruction and teaching. He gave me a thorough background in philosophy, ethics, and in the wider range of humanistic studies. Events were discussed and evaluated from day to day. I was well aware of the deadly practice of Nazi Politics. There never was anything but contempt for them, and we were convinced of the inevitable collapse of the Third Reich. My father perished in Auschwitz in 1944.

The moral corruption of Nazi ideology was obvious and needed but little comment. Anger, hatred, and fear were directed at individual supporters and accomplices of the Nazis, but, given the circumstances then, overt action against it was foolish.

An incident comes to mind: Jiri Jontof, a fellow prisoner whom I had known for some time, angrily berated a guard who had mistreated an inmate. That guard, and other SS men fell upon Jiri and beat him until he died. It took them nearly an hour. We had to stand still for the entire hour.

While in concentration camps we talked about hometown of years ago. Family life was a subject carefully avoided. On some level we knew that we were the only ones still alive, and that our future was uncertain. Events and their consequences were discussed and that included also fundamental concerns, the ever-returning examination about the sense of life, the moral world, about personal responsibility, the usual range. Feelings were not included. Included, however, were such questions as whether the next ration of moldy bread would be edible, or would my clogs hold up for another day.

During the war years I found ways of dealing with feelings. I knew that I had survived specific personal occurrences, and that I went on living. Fear, sadness and anger, and other feelings had to be subdued in too many instances. A stony mien of indifference, an outward expression of numbness were survival mechanisms.

Some days ago you asked me to describe my feelings while under Nazi rule. I assented to your request while only dimly aware of the consequences. You mentioned that you had read some of my notes about the Shoah, including the ones I wrote for the Archive for the

A.J. Heschel School. You rightly observed that I stressed the what, the where, and the when. I omitted details, and I did that deliberately. That stance allowed me to talk about people and events, and still keep some emotional balance.

More than seventy years have gone by. Feelings and past events of my life, my family, and that of the community were around me all these years; they are here right now, an ever-present resonance and background. Thinking about a person and a specific moment I’m very much aware of my feelings. In years past these were filtered through more than half-a-century of re-remembering, and remembering remembering, Thoughts and feelings that I had not allowed to come to the surface now do so with too much clarity. I have no control over nightmares, and they are unpredictable. When awakened by one I try to arouse myself to full wakefulness, but too often I would fall asleep again reverting to more horror.

Painting at times allows me to express my feelings in a non-verbal medium. It is one of the facets that allow me to live a balanced and productive life. Around me are good friends and a supportive community. Above all I know that my marriage to a wonderful and wise person is the main ingredient that makes it possible for me to deal with the past, to live rewarding days.

In the camps we promised each other that the one who survives would tell the story. Within my limits I have done my share. More important perhaps is my example that painful and destructive memories do not exclude a happy and productive life.

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Frederick Terna

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205

14 August 2014

A TWENTY-FIFTH SET OF NOTES FOR SHOAH ARCHIVES OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

Daniel Terna, our son, graduated from the Middle School on June of 2001. Rebecca Shiffman, Daniel’s mother, is the daughter of survivors of the Shoah, I, Frederick Terna, Daniel’s father, am a survivor.

Some time ago I found the interview recorded below in my computer. I have no memory of the interview, I don’t recall the person or persons who made it, and I don’t remember the exact year when it was made. Since I was 89 years old then the year may have been 2012. It seems sensible to include it in this set of notes for the Heschel Shoah Archive.

The content of the interview tells me that the writer is a Lisa, and I don’t remember her surname. She came with her husband and they made a visual record of their visit. The text is headed by ‘Chapter 5’, and I assume that it is a part of a larger text.

Chapter 5

Interview with Fred Terna – Portrait

Background

Childhood and pre-war life. Frederick Terna (born Friedrich Arthur Taussig) is an 89-year-old man who currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. Fred spent his teenage years and early 20s imprisoned during the Holocaust in Lipa, Terezín, Auschwitz, and Kaufering concentration camps. Fred was born in 1923 in Vienna to a family from

Prague. When he was 3 years old, he and his family returned to Prague, where Fred was raised until he was first imprisoned in a concentration camp at 17 years of age

As I began looking for dissertation participants, I learned about Fred, a painter whose passion for art and creativity developed while he was imprisoned in Terezín. For Fred, art was not only a way of coping with acute suffering during his imprisonments; Fred has continued painting ever since the time of his liberation It is through Fred’s art that he re-creates, re-tells, processes, and shares his experiences during the Holocaust. Knowing the extensive amount of creativity that took place in Terezín, I contacted him to see if he had any experience with musical and theatrical activity in Terezín. Not only did he have such experiences, but Fred also had been imprisoned in Lipa was his first concentration camp and there, too, he took part in musical activities. This fact was particularly interesting to me, as very little has been documented regarding the cultural and creative activities that took place in Lipa.

We began the interview process talking about Fred’s life prior to the war. Not only did he tell me about his family, but he also painted a dynamic backdrop of what life in Prague was like for Jews before the Holocaust In sharing about his family and their lifestyle, Fred stated, “I would always say, you want to know about my family study the Kafka family.” Fred described his family as a “typical Prague family, Jewish family, bilingual thoroughly.” They were not religious, and as was typical for the Jewish community at the time, they were very assimilated and integrated into Czech culture. Fred described pre-war Prague as a place that thrived with culture, music, theatre, and education. His father knew Max Brod, a writer, critic, and close friend of Franz Kafka. Fred described growing up in a modern milieu, a kind of atmosphere where culture and

creative activity was an integral part of life. “To know operas, to be familiar with music, to know how a sonata was built” was a central part of everyday life.

Fred’s father was in the insurance business, and was deeply interested in philosophy, sociology, history, and geography. Fred described his father as being a big influence in his life. Fred’s mother passed away prior to the war. Fred had only one sibling, a younger brother who did not survive the war. Fred was educated and went to school until he was expelled at the age of 15 for being a Jew in late 1938/early 1939, when the German troops occupied Prague.

Fred describes himself as a “lucky survivor.” He stated, “I owe it to my father really, who has given me a good moral bank account and a stance of what is right and what is wrong, without conferring it to a supernatural source, but in a very good current vernacular sort of a humanistic stance. And it's served me well.”

Entrance into imprisonment. In an attempt to protect his family after the German occupation of Prague, Fred’s father obtained false papers for Fred and sent him into hiding. Fred was found out, and on October 5th, 1941, at not quite 18 years of age, he was taken to Lipa, then called Linden bei Deutschbrod, in Bohemia. Lipa is known as the very first concentration camp used by the Nazi regime located in Southeastern Bohemia. With the exception of his father, this was the last time Fred would see any of his family members. His younger brother died while imprisoned at Treblinka. Fred stated, “with the exception of my father, whom I met later on in Terezín, the rest of family and whoever there was . . . October 5 was the cut off date. October 5, 1941.” After being reunited in Terezin, his father was transported to Auschwitz, where he perished.

Three hundred young men, many of whom were college students and older than Fred, were transported to Lipa, a labor camp that was formed on a large estate. They were used as slave laborers to do agricultural work that was needed on the farm. Under SS supervision, the work was very difficult, and the hours were very long. There was very little food, but Fred stated it was a “good” camp, in the sense that nobody was killed there. Once Fred was taken to Lipa, he had no communication with his family, nor did he have any idea what had happened, or would happen, to them He and other inmates were constantly on their best behavior, as they knew that anything they did could affect their survival, as well as the survival of their family members. Fred stated, “It was kind of a tacit arrangement. You behave and, and we will not give you any hard time and what we didn't know was that our families were being shipped away from, but that we did not know.”

Fred was transported from Lipa to Terezín in 1943, where he was imprisoned until his transport to Auschwitz in 1944. Terezín, as previously mentioned, was a concentration camp that housed large numbers of prominent Jewish artists, stage performers, and musicians who were sent there from cities such as Prague, Vienna, and Berlin. Most prisoners who ended up in Terezín would meet their fate in Auschwitz. Despite the constant reality of death, loss, and despair, the large number of creative and artistic prisoners maintained a very rich cultural life in Terezín. While imprisoned there, Fred was in a group that was called Hunderchaft, which was a roving group of young people who would fix things. They would dig ditches, and repair things such as gutters and roofs. Doing this work meant that Fred had to be available whenever he was needed, but that it also gave him the freedom to be outside the barracks after 8:00, and to feel

Deleted: U

safe. This allowed Fred to attend various cultural activities in the camp, such as performances and lectures that were given in different barracks.

In the fall of 1944, Fred was shipped with a transport to Auschwitz. As all prisoners arrived, two lines were formed: those who would immediately be sent to the gas chambers, and those few who were deemed fit to work. Fred was among the lucky ones who were selected for labor. From Auschwitz, Fred was transferred to Kaufering, a subcamp of Dachau. On April 27, 1945, he was liberated, and soon found that he was the only survivor in his family.

Despite the life transition from freedom to imprisonment, from living in a world in which he knew to one completely foreign, Fred did not give up hope. In fact, in describing his years of imprisonment, Fred depicted an atmosphere where he still strove for some sense normalcy, civility, and his culture, and where the will to live remained.

Themes

Several themes emerged while exploring Fred’s experiences with creativity during the Holocaust. The major theme that surfaced was the significance of the preservation of culture and its implications for survival Musical and theatrical production was only one aspect of the cultural life that was brought into the ghettos and camps. As Jewish prisoners’ lives were severely compromised, the ability to maintain aspects of their previous lifestyles and culture became a mode of survival. Fred poignantly stated, “What disappeared was a kind of underlying trust in religion. That disappeared, but what remained was the power of the culture.” Other important themes that emerged in relation to the theme of preservation of culture were: creativity as

connection and community, teaching and learning, survival and trauma, and the continuation of creativity after liberation.

Creativity as preservation of culture. Throughout the interview, one significant theme emerged that encompassed, in its essence, the other supplementary themes that arose. The dominant theme was the need and desire for preservation of culture in the ghettos and concentration camps. Various topics were discussed that all led back to viewing the necessity of sustaining the culture while incarcerated as a mode of survival. Fred’s interview described how, as Hitler deliberately set out to obliterate not only the Jewish people, but also their vibrant culture that had existed for thousands of years, the Jewish prisoners made enormous efforts to preserve their culture during imprisonment. Fred’s interview illustrates how he and his fellow inmates brought with them into the ghettos and camps visual arts, music, performance, literature, philosophy, and education, all integral aspects of Jewish culture. Doing so seemed to be an innate response to their persecution. Not only did engaging in cultural activities allow them to hold on to something that was previously a part of their existence, but it also was a way for them to maintain social connections with each other. They also participated in cultural activities as a way of communicating with each other and the outside world. Furthermore, creative acts were utilized as a mechanism of reporting, to ensure that accurate accounts of their harsh realities were left for the world to see. It became an important way to tell their stories, share their experiences, and process their emotions. And, finally, maintaining cultural activity aided in their ability to sustain belief that, in the midst of death and destruction, life could continue

Creativity as connection and community.

“It was strengthening the mesh of connectedness

Throughout the interview, a significant theme emerged as Fred discussed his experience with creativity: Creativity played a primary role in generating connection and community amongst the prisoners, despite the emotional upheaval that took place behind the barbed wires.

Fred described how his relationship to creative activity began many years prior to the war. Fred defined his childhood as being one that was filled with music, poetry, education, and art. Even before the war, these were aspects of their lifestyle that brought people together, created connection, and built community. In fact, his grandparents were very much involved with music. They had a huge apartment and in one room they had two pianos. He recalled, as a child, watching his grandparents and father playing the piano, and on Wednesday evenings people would come to his grandparents’ house with their own fiddles, violins, or whatever other instruments they played. Fred described the atmosphere:

They would sit around and they'd sit around, schmooze and drink chocolate and coffee and schnapps and I'm sure that the coffee and the sweets were the attraction more than the music. But in that room there was a wall with very narrow shelves with sheet music and so I heard most of the operas on a piano before uh, some barely. We were comparatively close to the German theater in Prague, which was very Jewish at that time . . . I grew up around it. So grandparents’ home was kind of a musicians, [sic] but I was too young to realize, but the atmosphere was there. And I remember one evening uh, somebody performing, somebody was saying “you call that an interpretation!” and the guy stands up and say “shut up, you sit down and you play!” My father was reasonably good pianist and in a pinch he would sort of sit in to help out on the piano when, when they asked. My grandmother was, had a strange thing, she had absolute, total visual memory. She could get a piece of music, play it, put the music away and play it again.

Creative activity was rooted within the culture of the Jewish people, within the Jewish people of Prague, and was deeply a part of Fred’s family life. As was illustrated in

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”

the example above, music was a way of bringing people together, fostering and maintaining relationships, and spending quality time together. Through Fred’s interview, we see this phenomenon as it emerged in the ghettos and the concentration camps as well. When asked how he thought it was possible to create and engage with creative activities under such traumatic circumstances, Fred stated, “actually it was one of the positive things. To have that door to move out of the moment and into a never never land.”

Creativity as connection and community in Lipa. Fred described his relationship with creativity as it emerged, even during his early days, in Lipa:

I know that I was an artist before I was aware of being an artist. I remember in Lipa once in some kind of working outside looking at the beautiful landscape and saying the road is going the wrong way. It's going this way and it should go more like this. Now I was doing what an artist does recomposing.

Fred was a part of a group of 10 to 15 men that formed in Lipa, that other inmates called “the schönen geist,” “schönen” meaning beautiful, “geist” meaning “spirit.” This was a group of intellectuals. Most of the inmates were intellectually active. One of the men he met was Karl Berman, who later became a famous opera singer after the war. In the camp, Berman, along with a few others, decided to create a choir. After long and arduous work days, he constructed the choir and would teach the men to sing. The choir sang folk songs that were popular at the time. Fred described that the singing and performances were done “under the eyes of the Gestapo if they won’t give us trouble we won’t give them trouble. Kind of a live and let live ” The choir was tolerated as long as the prisoners didn't act up or do something that would put themselves in danger, or endanger the jobs of the Gestapo.

Fred explained how the singing would take place:

One of the things that we sang was a Canon, and we like to sing not just up on the silage place, but also inside the camp there was what we called the bathhouse. It was a structure, a wall with faucets and what they forgot is needed water. They dug it well but they didn't really supply enough. But there was the structure, a cement wall in a grove gully, perfect for singing.

Berman assigned the men their parts and would teach them to sing. The new world they were now living in lacked normalcy and morality, so they did all they could to keep a connection to the world they knew before. Although they physically could not bring much into the camp, they infused the environment with aspects of the life they had and knew before by singing, teaching, learning, and performing. In describing how they were treated, and the importance of maintaining an environment of civility amongst the prisoners in the camp, Fred stated,

It's not the past, it is a lifestyle. The SS never talked to a Jew, they always screamed and yelled. Yelling at each other was, “don't behave like an SS man.” So there was a very, very civil behavior and then they in fact went on into Terezin, where it was “please” and “thank you” and “good morning” and “how do you do?” But certainly in Lipa, it was carrying on as civilized as one could be given the circumstances bringing in very much cultural aspects, behavior that was our heritage, that is how we lived.

The unity and solidarity amongst the group of prisoners was part of what helped boost spirits and maintain emotional strength and stability.

Fred depicted a powerful moment when the group was caught singing by the camp commander. With their enemy literally staring them in the face, the prisoners did not know what their fate would be by engaging in such an activity.

There we were singing and suddenly, Camp Commander: Achtung! (Attention!), and there he was with his crew. He said, What are you doing!

Fred/group: Singing.

Camp Commander: What are you singing? Communist songs?

Fred/group: No. Folks songs. He said, Sing!

And Berman turned around and said (in German): You’re singing for your life

To the commander (in German): it's a Canon that you know probably. (SINGS

MELODY: On the Waters of Babylon??)

And he [the commander] turned and said “good, good” and then he realized what and said, “Ausch fine Juden!” (Dirty Pig Jews!), and that was the end of it.”

Fred said, “We sang, we sang it in German so he understood every word ” Insinuating that the interaction was a dangerous one, he continued, “If he had wanted to, he could’ve been . . . he could’ve done anything.”

Fred continued to depict the creative activities that took place in the camp. Books were smuggled in; he learned Faust in Lipa, which he can still quote to this day. Scenes from plays, such as+ A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Working Men were performed for the other inmates. Tables were put together, and they would stand on top of them to perform for their audience, some 300 prisoners. Through singing, performing for other inmates, reading plays, and other various creative acts, prisoners found ways to connect and build relationships, a reason to come together rather than isolate When I asked Fred what this experience was like for him emotionally, he stated:

Emotionally this is what we lived. We lived in a cultural milieu. And we just carried on our civilizations to the extent that we could. There was writing of poetry I learned actually from one person who had perfect French memory and wrote down French poems. So we had hand written copies of Baudelaire we had books there that were not allowed, but what did one do? We took them apart and separated them, and then, in the evening we'd put it all together again

Creativity as connection and community in Terezín. Fred also discussed his interaction with music and performance while in Terezín. Although he didn’t directly participate as a performer there, he saw many performances, including every opera performed, such as The Bartered Bride and Verdi’s Requiem. His friend Karl Berman,

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with whom he sang in Lipa, was now a main performer in Terezín. Fred said that he was also involved in the theater. Although he didn’t perform, he was a consistent audience member, and would help clean up after the performances to stay in and around the environment. Fred described seeing the performances, such as Verdi’s Requiem, in Terezín. “It was in concert form and very, well the singers were top notch people and the piano was gloriously out of tune and just a wood horse, but who cared? And they, they were exhilarating moments.”

The utilization of creativity as a way of maintaining social connection and community was a significant theme that emerged throughout the interview. We discussed the impact that participation in performances had on the inmates, whether as a performer or a spectator.

It's a little bit like going to the club, to a coffee house where everybody knows everybody else and it was probably a group reinforcing event Consensus building. Yes, it was strengthening the mesh of connectedness And we weren't quite aware of it. Today looking back I can sort of say yes, this is what it was. We didn't think of that.

Fred described that although they might not have been consciously aware of it at the time, creativity helped as a method of survival Participating in the creative events contributed toward making the prisoners “feel good.” It was a way to cope with nagging hunger and starvation, and the ongoing concern of what was happening to their families, since there was no connection to them. Fred portrayed the significance of music and performance as phenomena that helped to uphold some sense of normalcy by maintaining aspects of the lifestyle and culture they had prior to imprisonment.

Education: Teaching and learning.

“I’ll need it . . . I’ll Survive!”

“What remained was the Power of Culture ”

A subtheme that emerged in relation to the desire for preserving the culture was the continuation of education in the camps. This is meaningful as it is another way those imprisoned in the camps maintained their culture and engaged with each other creatively. Fred had a keenness for education and learning that had been fostered by his father. As we discussed the continuation of cultural activities in the camp, Fred described how significant the role of education was. As Fred had lost his right to attend formal education years prior to being deported to Lipa, his father made sure he was still learning. Since he was in the marine insurance business, Fred’s father had several atlases. Fred explained that he learned about geography, topography, sociology, and history from his father. Once he was imprisoned in Lipa, an educational system developed amongst the inmates. He and his fellow inmates began taking turns teaching each other what they knew. Fred described an atmosphere of, “Tell me what you know, I’ll tell you what I know.” There were no books available, so everything that was taught was from memory. Despite hunger and harsh living conditions, education persisted Fred said that emphasis on learning existed not only in Lipa, but in Kaufering, the sub-camp in Dachau as well.

Fred said that he learned geometry, some calculus, and music. In turn, he taught geography and history. Fred described the exchange of education as something that became a “mode of survival.” “Teaching, that went on all the way in Kaufering. By then I was totally aware of it, that by teaching each other, we were saying, ‘I am teaching or learning something because I’ll need it! I’ll survive!’” The act of teaching each other and learning new things helped to maintain the prospect that life not only could endure, but

would endure. Education was symbolic of preserving the knowledge they had already learned, as well as creating new knowledge to prepare for the life that was to come.

Fred reported that education was also an important aspect of the cultural life that took place in Terezín. He would go, whenever possible, to listen to lectures that were being given, including going to every lecture that Rabbi Leo Baeck gave. Rabbi Baeck was known as the “Rabbi of Terezín,” who strove to help maintain humanity while imprisoned in Terezín, and lectured often on philosophy. Fred informed me that there were numerous lectures given around Terezín, and they drew very large audiences. His father would lecture there as well. Fred stated:

You have a voice and you have something to say you might as well. Sometimes the audience was just inside the barracks so you could have 40, 50 people or as many as the room would take. And you had to be careful.

Creativity as expression In Terezín, Fred became involved with the visual art world more than the musical world. Fred stated, “I know I was an artist before I was aware of being an artist.” It was in Terezín where Fred began sketching. “I think that there was somewhere within me the need to express myself and this was one way of doing it.” Fred was involved with a man named Frantishek Zelenka, a well-known man who had been a stage designer for avant-garde theatre in Prague prior to the war. Zelenka, who drew as well, taught Fred how to use a certain technique in drawing with a stick and ink. It was rare to find good paper to sketch on, but he would make due with what he had. Fred also met the well-known artist Bedrich Fritta in Terezín, and recalls meeting him. “One time I worked up enough courage to show him my work. He went through it and said ‘terrible,’ ‘horrible,’ ‘inexcusable!’ And I was getting smaller and smaller. He hands it to me and says, ‘this is fine work, but if they find it on you you're

dead.’” This was Fritta’s demise. He was arrested in Terezín, as the Nazis claimed he was creating propaganda. He was tortured and sent to Auschwitz Birkenau, where he perished

When I asked Fred what he drew, and what his inspirations were for his drawings, he said that he was always thinking about and drawing what was around him, what he saw in front of him. He would sketch people standing around, buildings, illustrations of the atmosphere; drawing what could serve as a witness, a visual diary or record. Before Fred was transported to Auschwitz, he put his drawings in a metal box and left it with someone. That person was shipped to Auschwitz as well, and Fred doesn’t know what happened to the box. Interestingly, Fred has been looking for his drawings, and he found some in Israel, on a Kibbutz.

Four drawings, and I left them there because it's the right place. They are in a museum there in Beit Terezín. That makes me believe that somewhere there, they still exist. Probably misapplied or misnamed or misdirected as somebody else's work Fine with me as long as they didn't totally disappear. A record nothing else short of “I was there and I did it.”

Trauma and survival. The themes of trauma and survival emerged repeatedly throughout our dialogue. Although Fred attributes his survival mainly to luck, in describing his experiences in the camps extensively, he expressed several times that the cultural activities he took part in contributed to maintaining some sense of normalcy and helped him to believe that he could indeed survive. So while he does not necessarily feel that the creative activities directly aided his survival, he does believe that they helped

provide him with the conviction that survival was his future Even at his lowest points, Fred remained logically sound, and attached to an attitude of endurance

Well with absolute conviction that those scoundrels' days were counted and what I didn't know was could I manage physically. There was disease more people died from hunger than from any other causes. But no, somewhere intellectually I was in good shape and you know one sees people running into the wires as a form of suicide yes it's there, and it's understood, I understand what the war motivated some of these.

During the most difficult of times, Fred explained that denial would often set in. Rather than acceptance of reality, believing “this is going to happen to me,” denial helped to maintain a belief that one could live.

Everything, everything that hold a person as an entity, as a functioning had gone. And alive in Auschwitz things are pretty bad. Uh, in some ways there was also a degree of denial and denial of this is not going to happen to me…Denial was an important element, but even after the war I think even that much more so than, usual you have sort of an aim to live and most people with very, very few exceptions to live properly. Yeah, they've got some scoundrels everywhere but, we were not in denial about what could happen we just didn't think that it would happen to us.

Fred explained that while in the camps, the notion of surviving the traumas, and the subsequent affects it would have on their lives was already a discourse they would face. Those who would survive knew they would have to ‘tell their story.’

I feel very, very much an obligation on me. In the camps we promised the one that survives would tell the story. I'm here. And uh, mine is just a tiny fragment of innumerable records. Spielberg, other have taken care with their skills, their knowledge, I do a lot of painting. You will see some of them. So communicating is part of what I took upon myself.

The continuation of creativity after liberation. Fred has continued to create for the last 68 years since his liberation. He described himself after his liberation from Auschwitz as “one of those shuffling, lice infested, filthy, stinking, smelly uh, you've seen pictures. That's what I was like.” Upon being liberated, he was hospitalized by

Americans in a place that had no medical staff and wasn’t well taken care of. However, somebody provided him with paper and watercolors. Fred didn’t know how they managed to get them, and he was still in poor health, but he immediately began making drawings, sketches of Auschwitz.

I started making drawings while still in bad shape physically and made sketches of Auschwitz, and then I caught myself, I said “my god, you're free and still doing ” That stopped. Suddenly I said, “I'm not going to do that anymore.” And I was painting the spring landscape outside Bavaria. Yeah, that's what I thought. Then I looked at it. Not right away, but eventually, and I realized it had all those walls and fences in there I was doing the landscape but still it was in there. And that was, I'm conflating thought process and it didn't just happen that fast. I realized camp is there. I'm not going to get rid of it. I'm going to live with it.

Fred and I further discussed this idea, “camp is there.” An idea he continues to feel today.

Lisa: You are free, but it is still with you?

Fred: Exactly, it will not it will not go away and I’ve accepted that. I feel that way today. I mean I’m still painting stuff that I know very, very clearly what the connection is. You can’t see it so to you it would be a happy painting, I hope. But I know what went into it in order to become a happy painting.

Lisa: Through those paintings you are still processing the experience, really. Fred: I would say I am shamelessly using it.

Fred described a type of painting, called “getting it out.”

I wouldn't have ever known then in the past, I don't do them, these thing too much, what I used to call toilet painting, getting it out. And, and failing. An experience in reasonably, somebody did some terrible things to us and I wanted to paint that person without illustration. How do you, does one depict evil pictorially? And uh, I failed miserably. I couldn't do it. That is I, without illustration, that is Goya, you may remember uh, Saturn Eating its Children, a famous painting, well that was, but he used the person. And uh, so I, occurred to me that in order to depict evil you have to have a person in there. Evil in abstraction, a hurricane, a bad forest fire, not evil.

Perhaps Fred feels he is failing at the painting because he is unable to fully express it. On the one hand, evil is not something that is within him, but he cannot fully relieve himself of the experience he encountered with evil.

Fred described how his artistic and creative endeavors aided in survival during his imprisonments, as well as how it has helped him cope throughout his life.

It was, it was one of the facets of living well and uh, comes sort of ultimate questions like “what is the sense of it all” and the answers we have no answer, but living well is an answer. And you know living a sensible life and uh, that may be the only thing that I've learned to live in a way that I'm reasonably satisfied as myself is too strong a word but uh, managing. And uh, I figured out my own value system.

In my last question to Fred during our formal interview I asked him if there was one thing he could share, words of wisdom that we could learn from his life experience. He said, “What is the sense of it? That is, to live in a community that is open, free, where we are all responsible for each other. I'm just a very lucky guy.”

Tour of the House

After our formal interview, Fred invited me and my husband to his house to see his artwork. It was with this experience that I could truly understand the relationship Fred has cultivated with creativity, and how significant creating art has been for him in surviving trauma and healing, and the revealing and re-telling of his story throughout his life. Fred’s paintings are not all works that represent the Holocaust, but the influence of his life experience on the art is undeniable throughout his works. Fred lives on a beautiful street in a three-story brownstone building. Upon entering the house, I immediately noticed that the many vast white walls of Fred’s home are covered with his paintings. Although Fred said he is more culturally Jewish than religious, Fred’s house radiates as a

Jewish home. It is big and warm Each doorway has a mezuzah with covers that Fred has made, and there is also a giant collection of menorot that fills the dining room.

Although they are placed in no particular order, it is easy to distinguish which paintings are what Fred calls “Shoah,” or Holocaust, paintings. His earlier statement, “it will not go away and I’ve accepted that” is enormously clear now. Fred uses deep, penetrating, dark colors to create the Shoah paintings dark reds, crimson, orange, and black. As Fred told me, “fire is an important ingredient in my work”; it is impossible to miss the element of fire in these paintings. Although abstract illustrations, the images of fire and flames are clear and vivid, representing the crematorium and chimneys from the concentration camps. Intermixed amongst the Shoah paintings are also Fred’s more recent works, paintings that radiate light, using colors that are livelier and soothing to the eye (see Appendix A video:1:48). As Fred said in our interview,

I'm still painting stuff that I know very, very clearly what the connection is. You can't see it so to you it would be a happy painting, I hope. But I know what went into it in order to become a happy painting.

At first glance these more recent works bring about a “happier” feeling These paintings bring up feelings of optimism, hope, and assurance; however, as Fred points out, these works still have fire within them. The contrast of seeing these works on the walls next to the Shoah paintings provides a deeply rich understanding of Fred’s life experience of holding the trauma of suffering along with the continuation, the recreation of life. If I had not been aware of Fred’s life experience, I would have no idea what lives within the light, bright pastels and abstract designs. There are several of these paintings hanging on the walls on each floor throughout the house.

As we went through each room of the three-story house, Fred shared and described the majority of his paintings. I have selected a few to include here that illustrate Fred’s powerful work and capture the essence of the trauma and healing within his art. Themes and subtle images that emerge and are consistently repeated in Fred’s work are fire, walls, the Jerusalem temple, circles, letters of the Hebrew alphabet, menorot, rams, and images representing stories from the Torah.

In one of the first paintings Fred showed me, he depicted a crematorium with flames emerging out of it. Specifically, there are six flames that make up the Hebrew letter “Shin.” Shin is utilized here as representing the number six, the six million who perished in the Holocaust (see Appendix b). In addition to fire, the letter Shin is an image that comes up frequently in Fred’s art, as well as walls and, particularly, execution walls (see Appendix c, video: 2:12:37)

Fred showed us a large painting (see Appendix d, video: 1:37, 2:01) of a wall with a temple behind it. This image comes up multiple times in Fred’s art. He shared the moment of inspiration for these paintings:

At one point, I was in Eilat and I painted execution walls, then the idea of a wall brought up the wall in Jerusalem. And so I made a rough sketch, and then I wondered . . . what was behind the wall? And I built it up . . . the imaginary temple. So I went from the execution wall to painting the temple in Jerusalem. (see Appendix e).

As Fred described his inspiration for painting the temple that once stood behind the Western, or Wailing, Wall in Jerusalem, I could not ignore the themes of death, destruction, and creation. Here Fred is painting the execution walls of the Holocaust, and the image of the wall calls him to the holy site in Jerusalem, a place where the temple was destroyed, and he is called to re-create it. To re-create life (notice

comparison/transformation between execution wall painting Appendix f, 2:12 and Jerusalem wall painting) Fred shows me how this is a theme that recurs over and over again in his paintings.

Fred pointed out another one of his more recent paintings (see Appendix g, video: 1:38:48), and says, “you’ll notice eventually the connection to the fire. But by now it’s changed, metamorphosed into something else ” This work demonstrates how the fire is still present, but has changed through time and healing. Another example of this transformation is seen (Video 2:28) as he says, “flames changing.”

The next painting (see Appendix h, Video1:39) is a good example of Fred’s work, illustrating the combination of beauty, intensity, and subtle but detailed images that are used symbolically. Fred described this as still being a Shoah painting, but the images that make up this painting include significant aspects of Jewish history The image of the head of a ram, or Akedah, appears and is present in many of Fred’s paintings. In the book of Genesis, God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, and as he prepares to do so, God intervenes at the last moment and replaces Isaac with a ram instead. Although there are many interpretations, the ram in Jewish thought has symbolized sacrifice and martyrdom. Moving closer to the painting, one can see faces emerge that are delicately made out of feathers. Next to them are nails. Fred described this as a reference to the first Jewish pogrom of the 20th century that took place in Kishinev in 1903, an important turning point in Jewish history. The bloody feathers and nails symbolize the Cossacks going through town and ripping open the bedding, the imagined feathers floating down the village street, and the bloody nails of Kishinev. The bright red flames sweeping upward take up the majority of the painting. In between the flames are obvious dark black circles.

Fred said the circles represent the 10 Sefirot of Kabbalah: crown, wisdom, understanding, knowledge, kindness, severity, beauty, splendor, foundation, and kingship, which symbolize the 10 ways in which God reveals himself in the creation of the physical and metaphysical world. Interestingly, Fred points out that, “Sefirot are light (God-like), but here, they are dark the lights have gone out.” To summarize the work, Fred said, “ancient history of Akedah, Kishinev, and our time, the lights have gone out, but there’s still flames going up.”

We eventually reached the top of the three-story house and entered into Fred’s home studio. Fred showed us what he was presently working on, and it was meaningful to see art pieces that are in the process of being made. Again, these are lighter in nature, made up of an amalgamation of light colors, with the noticeable sweeping red flame (see Appendix i, 2:14:02)

As mentioned earlier in Fred’s interview, he attempted to paint a depiction of evil and ugliness. In the studio he showed it to me (Appendix j, 2:17) and reiterated his feeling that he failed:

It’s not a good painting, it’s just an attempt to depict evil without using a human reference and I think that abstract evil cannot be shown. It needs a human reference. In other words, evil doesn’t exist except in people. Hurricane is not evil, hurricane is. And, I just am not satisfied with it.

As Fred took us into yet another room, we went back in time and saw two paintings that he said were “made long ago” (video, 2:25). They stood out from the others he had shown us. The use of vibrant greens, yellow, and light blue make up a landscape of nature. Fred stated, “Both of these were made long ago, and my first wife when she saw I was painting such a painting said, ‘what’s troubling you?’ She knew I was running away, painting myself into Never Never land.”

One of the final paintings Fred shared was called The Telescope of Time (Video, 2:26:54) I found this work particularly interesting, as it used many of Fred’s repeated images, circles, gates and walls, and the imaginary temple. But what made this painting stand out was how he used perspective. Through the biggest circle, he conjured up a viewpoint so that it is as if the viewer is looking through a lens. In a way that felt acutely meaningful, he said, “I’ll leave it to you, whether you are looking into the past, or to the future.”

Frederick Terna Rebecca Shiffman

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205

19 March 2015

A TWENTY-SIXTH SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

Daniel graduated from the Heschel Middle school before the Heschel High School was opened.

Later this year Daniel is going to get an MFA from the International Center of Photography of the Bard College, concluding his studies of communications, journalism and photography.

About a year ago I received an e-mail from Prague from Jan, a grandson of of Zdenka Herboltova. Zdenka was not affected by the Nazi racial laws, and survived the war. Zdenka had died shortly before Jan sent the e-mail.

Zdenka and my brother Tomas were very close friends in 1941 and 1942, both were about sixteen years old. I did not know about Zdenka since I had been in hiding before being taken to my first concentration camp on October 5th 1941. Tomas was shipped to Terezin in a transport on July 22, 1942, and then from Terezin to Treblinka on October 15, 1942. The entire transport was killed upon arriving in Treblinka.

Before Tomas’s deportation he gave Zdenka his harmonica.

Today I know these numbers and dates because of compilations made in recent years. Before Zdenka’s death she too had learned about lists of transports, and found out where Tomas had been sent and where he had died. She also learned that I, Tomas’s brother, had survived. Zdenka’s grandson, Jan managed to find me.

It seems that the memory of the friendship of Zdenka and Tomas had become an important part of Jan’s family history. Soon after hearing from Jan he and I began exchanging e-mails. Jan feels that except for the war he might have been Tomas’s

grandson. I feel that there is a family in Prague now that considers me to be a distant relative. I feel moved, sad, and also happy.

It is but a year ago that I was told that Tomas’s harmonica was the only memento of my brother Tomas that survived the Shoah.

Two days ago a photographer of survivors of the Shoah brought me a package from Jan. It was the harmonica Tomas had given to his grandmother.

Frederick Terna Rebecca Shiffman

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205

23 March 2015

TOMMY’S HARMONICA

About a year ago a grandson of of Zdenka Herboltova sent me an e-mail from Prague.

Zdenka had died shortly before her grandson sent me his e-mail.

Zdenka and my brother Tomas were very close friends in 1941 and 1942 in Prague, when both were about sixteen years old. I did not know about Zdenka since I had been in hiding, then betrayed, and taken to my first concentration camp in October 1941.

Before Tomas’s deportation he gave Zdenka his harmonica. Tomas was shipped to Terezin in a transport in July 1942, and soon thereafter in October 1942 from there to Treblinka. The entire transport was killed upon arriving in Treblinka.

Today I know these numbers and dates because of compilations made in recent years. Before Zdenka’s death at age 86 she too had learned about lists of transports, and learned where Tomas had been sent and where he had died. She also learned that I, Tomas’s brother, had survived. Zdenka’s grandson then managed to find me.

It is thus but a year ago that I learned that Tomas’s harmonica was the only memento of my brother Tomas that survived the Shoah.

It seems that the memory of the friendship of Zdenka and Tomas had become an important part of Zdenka’s family history. Soon after hearing from her grandson he and I started exchanging e-mails. He feels that except for the war he might have been Tomas’s grandson. I know now that there is a family in Prague that considers me to be a distant relative. I feel moved, sad, and also happy.

Two days ago a visitor brought me a package from Prague. It was the harmonica Tomas had given to Zdenka.

Frederick Terna Rebecca Shiffman

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205

22 April, 2015

A TWENTY-SEVENTH SET OF NOTES FOR THE SHOAH ARCHIVE OF THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL

Daniel graduated from the Heschel Middle school before the Heschel High School was opened.

Earlier this month Daniel forwarded to me a letter from a Dr. Gabriele Hammermann, Director of the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site inviting an escort and me to come the Memorial Meeting in Dachau early in May 2015. Their e-mail for the occasion is befreiungsfeier@kz-genenksfeier-dachau.de. Travel and accommodation would be paid for by the organization arranging the ceremony.

After some early hesitation I agreed to go to Munich. My main reason for consenting to attend was my awareness that Daniel would have the opportunity photographing, filming, and writing about a cluster of events to which he has a direct connection. Daniel, his friends and schoolmates, starting in early grades at the A.J. Heschel School, were successively more and more aware of detailed levels of the Shoah. This planned visit may become his history and a part of the effort of the world to keep remembering.

We inmates during the war had promised each other that the one who survives would tell. Yet, it took nearly a generation before the word ‘Holocaust’ came into general use, before the Shoah became a subject of study. Today, seventy years after the liberation of Dachau there exist centers of Holocaust studies at all major universities across the globe. We did keep our promise.

The entire trip will last only seven days, and a good part of it will be traveling from place to place. My preference would be for at least two weeks. I’ll manage the physical strain.

Experience of earlier involvement with commemoration has taught me to be prepared for the unexpected. About a month ago I went to talk to a large group of high school students. It took me two days to regain my balance. Two weeks later I talked to students

in the Social Sciences Department of New York University, and I left in a good mood. I know that I cannot predict my reaction from case to case.

Anticipating the range of planned events I’m trying to brace myself for the unexpected. I’m aware of my physical fragility. Fatigue, lack of sleep, long travel, jet lag, the sudden immersion into a German speaking community, plus that long list of living with the past will travel with me.

My full reaction to this invitation should include my feelings and thoughts of the moment, and I’m aware of the lack of a special or different attitude today. Over the years I have developed a mode of living with the past and it probably remained basically the same. As anniversaries come and go I could add but little to the Notes for the Heschel Shoah Archives.

Observances of this seventieth year after liberation include items reported in many of the media stories across the world. The rather late attention to the Turkish genocide of Armenians has become a political hot spot. Currently Sunni and Shiah do their best to eliminate each other, and both are also the targets for Islamic radicals. Looking at the entire gamut I see the usual villains, fundamentalism, organized religions, national exceptionalisms, and economic superstitions.

A COPY OF NOTES MADE ON MY NEW TOY, AN I-PAD

This set of notes are preliminary jottings made while thinking about a more consistent page planned. It is a raw version elaborated upon in the following set of notes in Archiv28.

Sunday, May third, 2015

Thus far mostly Dachau and commemoration

A cold and rainy day, quite in tone with the occasion. Starting early from the hotel in Munich, eventually filling the bus with people from different hotels. The central event the speech by Angela Merkel. Beginning with a larger meeting and religiously focused ceremony at the Jewish memorial site. People sitting in a tent in front of the place, the tent too small. To accommodate the number of people, probably several hundred. Speeches by various officials, including a woman, the present the present head of the Jewish community in Germany. All speeches much too long, recapitulating history with the evident effort of leaving a historical record, and repeating obligation of Never Again.

A rabbi, a Chassid in full uniform, supplied the Jewish religious angle. Central Casting would have been proud of supplying the perfect

stereotype. His tone Eastern Sub Carpathian heavy ultra orthodoxy, the volume at maximum. The occasion probably a good excuse for a performance of a right wing far right politico. I sat at the outer ledge of the tent, barely shielded from the continuing heavy rain. At the conclusion other men in a variety of religious garb appeared, various Greek Orthodox that I could not identify were to do their thing, but I left the tent then. The sum of religious expressions exceeded my tolerance. The notion of theodicy never came up. I missed the presence of a Muslim clergyman. The absurdity of religiosity at Dachau seems to have been ignored by all. I wonder about the depth of religious awareness of the survivors attending. I wonder how many of the attending survivors ware Jews, the percentage of Hungarian speaking was rather high, Ivrit was perhaps second. The percentage was probably determined by the choices of the organizing group.

After a break for food ceremonies were to continue not. A big tent. Having had to deal with a measure of chaotic planning this was a well-planned performance. The attendance to the tent was limited to the survivors attending plus all the officials, dignitaries, diplomats, VIPs, of the German establishment, U.S. Army, film crews, musicians all ending up to many hundreds of people, all this underlining the importance of the political, nay, historical moment of the speech by the head of the German government at the site of Dachau. Angela Merkel's speech was mercifully to the point, comparatively brief, and rather predictable. Then came a group of students, more speakers, trumpeters, wreath laying plus the usual basic ceremonial performances. Sitting there fairly far back and aware of my role as one of the props I thought that I would just sit through the various program points. At the end I was in an emotionally fragile mood, and in need of some quiet and calm, and it was not available there. Earlier during the morning I had promised a reporter of the German equivalent of the PBS to be interviewed. The inside of the tent was too noisy and chaotic after all the action there. The film crew wants to have a Dachau camp background, and the remaining place was the outside, and it was still raining. Three barely adequate umbrella as had to do. I think that the reporter and crew got exactly what they wanted, a somewhat frail old survivor, emotionally not quite back in balance, talking on the Appellplatz in Dachau, in the rain doing what seems to him an obligation to remembrance. Daniel meanwhile was somewhere moving around filming, perhaps adding footage to his file.

4 Macintosh HD:Users:FredTerna:Documents:ft homepage:WRITINGS:SHOAH:Archiv27.doc

Frederick Terna Rebecca Shiffman

321 Washington Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205

26 May 2015

A TWENTY-EIGHTTH SET OF NOTES FOR THE ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL SCHOOL SHOAH ARCHIVES

Daniel Terna, our son, graduated from the Middle School in 2001. (The High School opened one year later, in 2002.) Rebecca Shiffman, Daniel’s mother is the daughter of survivors of the Shoah; I, Frederick Terna, Daniel’s father, am a survivor. This year Daniel received his Master’s Degree in photography and photojournalism from the International School of Photography of Bard College.

KZ DACHAU, 2015

In the preceding twenty-seventh set of notes I mentioned ideas, thoughts and events that preceded Daniel’s and my trip to the former concentration camp Dachau in Bavaria. I was liberated near a sub-camp of Dachau on April 27th 1945.

The official title of the event was, and I’m translating here loosely from the German: The Memorial Proceedings Occasioned by the Observance of the Seventieth Anniversary of the Liberation of Concentration Camp Dachau, April 30th to May 3rd 2015. The German organization was the KZ-Gedenkstaette Dachau. Stiftung Bayrischer Gedenkstaetten.

We, Daniel and I, left NYC on Wednesday evening, April 29, 2015, and returned on Wednesday, May 6th It was a brief trip, merely seven days, and that included travel time. Two weeks would seem to be the minimum sensible number of days for such an endeavor. My first impulse was writing this note right after arriving. Reconsidering this I decided to give myself time to resume my usual pace of living.

The first reflection after receiving the invitation to participate in the commemoration of the liberation of Dachau seventy years ago was that I certainly felt no need or inclination to accept the offer. The invitation included airfare and hotel for me and for an escort. Daniel could be my escort, and he could experience an event dealing with the Shoah and my reaction to it.

The date of my liberation is April 27th, 1945, near camp Kaufering 1, close to Landsberg, and a sub-camp of KZ Dachau This is but one of the dates in that long list that began on

March 15, 1939, with the occupation of Prague by Nazi Germany. That date, that day was seventy-six years ago.

Today it is beyond my skills and my emotional strength to describe the entire range of experiences, feelings and thoughts of those difficult years. I was in four different concentration camps, Lipa, Terezin, Auschwitz, and Kaufering. Here I do not feel the obligation to add my personal detailed story to the many books and studies gathered all over the world. In past years I taught, wrote, painted, recorded and lectured to the extent that my emotions allowed it.

Denial was never a consideration. The world outside was in denial for decades well into the1960’s.

Soon after my liberation in 1945 I learned that I would have to live with the past. and I accepted that reality. The Shoah would not disappear. Full awareness of that did not come instantly, there was a gradual change while coping with memories and the turmoil of the post-war chaos.

I’m now, and, as I was in the past, trying to stand outside the events observing and experiencing, attempting to understand what was going on around me, and, within the possibilities of the moment, to act or to desist from acting. Allowing feelings to take over could be dangerous. As time went on I learned to accept and handle feelings, and today I have a number of tricks and evasions to get over difficult days.

Thus this standing outside and observing was my first reaction when asked about my feelings about the invitation to go to Dachau after all these years.

The trip to Dachau would take me back to a Germany, meeting Germans, speaking German, moving within their community, going to a former concentration camp site, and participating in a commemoration that largely answered German needs.

Other than taking Daniel to Dachau my focus was on Germans today. Whenever the occasion arose I spoke to people around me, and that meant taxi drivers, hotel employees, sales people, waiters and airplane attendants, i.e. people within the tourist circuit. With very few exceptions I did not have the opportunity meeting people with whom I could converse in a social setting. I’m quite fluent speaking German, coming from a once quite common bi-lingual Prague Jewish community. I’m quite sensitive to German verbal structures that would hint at a negative opinion about Jews. I did not detect any. Germans I met were born after 1945.

My German probably sounds dated; it predates the two linguistic changes after 1945. While largely not conversing in German, and unaware of writings after 1945, I continued reading what I was familiar with, from Goethe to Thomas Man to plays and poetry. That area is a part of my background. I have rather strong opinions about Germans living today. I’m careful about my preferences, my likes, and dislikes. I was careful in the past,

as I’m now, not to condemn an entire group. I would not copy Nazi ideology. I do not hate, and I did not hate. Hate is self-destructive.

Arriving in Munich on Thursday, April 30th Daniel and I were met at the airport by two persons, volunteers from the organizing group KZ-Gedenkstaette-Dachau. While in Munich the persons working for the Gedenkstaette and their volunteers were taking care of us at every step, they did that with loving care and patience. I was one of the 130 invited survivors, many of us in wheelchairs, and all around or close to ninety years old. My imagination allows me merely to guess at the enormous amount of planning and the many people that went into the effort to plan for every one of the 130 survivors and their escorts, for their accommodation, food and transportation. I remember, e.g., detailed pages of information about possible medical emergency situations. The local weather was miserable, at times the rain was heavy The somber weather may have been the proper atmosphere for the occasion.

Arriving by bus at a side-entrance of the KZ along the Alte Roemerstrasse we entered the area by way of the present offices of the Gedenkstaette. The path to it was gravel and difficult to cross, the wheelchairs moving with difficulty. There was ample food and space to rest. I’m writing this part of the account with hindsight and information that came much later. There was the attempt to preserve as much as possible the feeling of the original KZ Dachau, and that included gravel paths rather than pavement. From the offices there was an entrance to the exhibition area. We had entered it from the back rather than from the beginning, this back area showed many posters and photos. There I met the head of Gedenkstaette and complained to her that there was a lack of feeling, that memory was poorly served. This was a thoughtless remark, I had belittled the work to which she had given her time and energy. She was truly kind to me, quietly tolerating my criticism. Talking later to Daniel I realized that I had wronged her, that I had judged without information, that her work had produced an important commemoration. When back home I wrote her an apology, and I hope that she received my lines. She did not reply to my letter.

The following day, Friday, May 1st, the weather was better, with barely a drop of rain here and there. Daniel and I decided to use the day to go and see Munich museums, and specifically the Alte Pinakothek. I concentrated on Flemish and German art of the 15th and 16th centuries. We walked to the museum area, trying to get the feeling of the city. The city of Munich had avoided massive destruction, it was bombed during the last months of the war, and the damage was comparatively minor. The feeling today is that of a well preserved and well maintained 19th and early 20th century city. While we were going to museums the events by the Gedenkstaette-Dachau were at sub camps, such as Muehldorf and other monuments.

Saturday, May 2nd had as its highlight an official reception in Dachau of the 130 survivors and their escorts in a sumptuous ballroom of the ancient castle residence of the rulers of the place. It was a festive dinner. After immersion into the heavy past of concentration camp time this was a welcome change. The feeling was that of a festive get-together, perhaps also a celebration of surviving. The music was nostalgic light 1930’s, perhaps a

sensible choice. The Gedenksataette showed its mastery of foresight and planning when arranging the event.

For me the best part of it was the presence of many of the volunteers of the Gedenkstaette, and my opportunity of talking in German to Germans about just about everything that would come up in a casual meeting. They were not at the dinner table; they were standing on the sides. I felt bad about that, but there was barely enough space for the diners. All of the volunteers were well-educated and interesting people, though this self selected, and local group may have been different from Bavarians at large. They were delightful hosts and they are a fond memory of the trip

Sunday, May 3rd was the focus for the official ceremony of the liberation of Dachau in 1945. The seventy years gone by are an illustration of the continuing process of shaping our memory. I’m omitting here my feelings and ideas and recording my observation.

The weather cooperated. Heavy and persistent rain underlined the solemn mood. The day occasioned both religious and governmental observances. The religious one I attended was in front of the Jewish memorial site, a somber, thought provoking place. There was a tent in front of the site, barely large enough to protect the speakers and the people in wheelchairs from the rain. I managed to squeeze into an area that gave me some protection from the rain; a large crowd had to stand outside under umbrellas or just getting soaked. There were a number of speakers, and I forgot their names, probably important people in the current German Jewish community. A lady leader of the community, perhaps THE leader spoke endlessly, repeating past history, accounts, and repeating them again and once more. It seems that this was her occasion to speak for the history books. My memory is that of rain dripping into my collar. Then came a rabbi, a Chassid in full uniform, super-long white beard, black hat etc. speaking in a very laud Sub-Carpathian accent admonishing us after the traditional prayers to observe halacha. Who picked this rabbi? He did not reflect the ideas of other survivors present, nor did he reflect mine, and probably not of Jews now living in Germany. Then, and for reasons I could not fathom, a number of Greek or Russian orthodox priests and, again in full ecclesiastic uniform, elbowed their way into the tent. I did not see any Muslim clerics, neither Shia nor Sunni. Today Muslims are a significant percentage of persons living in Germany.

The inclusion of religious observances on the site of the former KZ Dachau, and the absence of Muslim participation is telling. The contradictions were piling up. With all the clergy in place this could have been the perfect place and time to discuss theodicy.

Daniel was out there somewhere with his camera, taking pictures of the other religious ceremonies at the Protestant, and Catholic memorial sites. Daniel had talked earlier to a crew of the local PBS equivalent and told them that I would be willing to be interviewed. While I was still under the tent they waved to me, I came out into the rain, and then there was the question of where to do the interview. With no shelter nearby it was agreed that the filming would have to be done under umbrellas. Somebody found chairs and extra umbrellas, and there we were in the rain in the middle of the former Appelplatz of the KZ

Dachau, camera crew, reporter and I recording my feelings about the occasion. It was a perfect memorial setting.

The main event of the commemoration was early in the afternoon in a huge tent on the former Appelplatz of the camp. Inside and outside the tent security was palpably thick. Earlier in the day the buses taking us to the site had to run on a circuitous tour with security people in uniforms at every corner. Chancellor Angela Merkel was going to be the main speaker. Access to the tent was limited. We as survivors, and our escorts had special tags. I don’t know who else merited access. There was a contingent of US army soldiers, current members of the US army units that had liberated the camp in1945. While it was a functioning concentration camp Dachau, beginning early under Nazi rule held people from many countries s well as internal German opponents. Each one of these groups may have been represented. The tent may have had space for many hundreds of persons. Since the stage where ceremonies were held was too far to show individuals there were huge screens showing detailed action. This was a technologically perfect presentation, a first rate show. The program included orchestral music, chamber groups, and testimonies by families of survivors from different countries, speeches by important politicos of Bavaria, other VIP’s, including a French speaker.

Finally the main speaker was Chancellor Angela Markel. She spoke a comparatively short time; she said the appropriate things, a fitting statement for the occasion. Then came the trumpeter’s platoon, wreath carriers, and more undefined activities that seemed to be necessary ingredients for such high level ceremonies.

I admired the smoothness of the proceedings. The easy flow of the program spoke well for the organizers of the commemoration. This was a major governmental effort, and there were no hitches. On the local, the Dachau level, my admiration went to the effort of the Gedenkstaette-Dachau to shepherd us through these emotional days with kindness and caring. We were well aware of the energy and financial burden spent on our behalf.

Early in our involvement with the program I, and Daniel too, saw us as the spear-carriers, silent but necessary in a full production. Liberation ceremonies require the visible liberated victims. Why was this large effort made, made seventy years after liberation of the place? The Bundesrepublik Deutschland had defined itself long ago, before the collapse of the communist east. In such a major effort the country is speaking to itself. Why this major production now, and why Dachau? Political analysts and commentators may well find many reasons, all related to internal and international predicaments of the day. There is, of course, also the possibility that many Germans felt that such a memorial was the right thing to do right now.

The events described here are a part of the uncounted attempts of remembering the Shoah. Jotting them down here notes but one of its many angles, here the needs of Germany of this very moment. The very place, the former KZ Dachau, gives it a dimension within the memory of all countries. This was a well-planned and elaborate major commemoration of events that ask us to remember and to observe.

A larger task remains. How do we continue remembering those who perished during the Shoah? How should we live with our memory?

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