Original subtitles

September 1938. German Chancellor Adolf Hitler threatens to unleash a European war unless the

Sudetenland, a border area of Czechoslovakia on which the ethnic German population lives,

is ceded to Germany. The leaders of Britain, France, Italy, and Germany hold a conference

in Munich between the 29th and 30th of September 1938 and agree to the German

annexation of the Sudetenland in exchange for a pledge of peace from Hitler. To this conference,

which is also known as the Munich Betrayal, the Czechoslovaks are not even invited. Less

than 6 months later on the 15th of March 1939, in flagrant violation of the Munich Agreement,

Nazi Germany invades and occupies the Czech provinces of Bohemia and Moravia. Adolf Hitler

himself arrives in Prague and on the 16th of March 1939, by a proclamation from Prague Castle,

establishes the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. More than 118 000 Jews living in

the protectorate find themselves under Nazi domination. One of them is Evelina Landová.

Evelina Landová was born on 25th December 1930 in Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia. Evelina’s

half-sister Lisa from her mother’s first marriage was 10 years her senior. Evelina’s father Emil

worked his way up to own a horsehair processing company and her mother Ilse was a housewife who

came from a wealthy family. Ilse’s father owned 2 houses in Prague in which he rented apartments.

Until Evelina was three years old, the family lived in the Pařížská Street in

the city center of Prague. From there the Landa family, and their servant,

moved to a modern 4 bedroom apartment in Prague’s quarter Letná. Evelina enjoyed

going to school, walking in the park as well as playing with her friends.

On 30 January 1933, when Evelina was only 2 years old, Adolf Hitler was appointed

Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg. Soon after their assumption of power,

Nazi leaders began to make good on their pledge to persecute German Jews.

Throughout the 1930s, the Nazis pursued an aggressive foreign policy

and behind the scenes they began planning territorial expansion and a European war.

The first act of territorial expansion committed by Nazi Germany was the Annexation of the

neighboring country of Austria into German Reich also known as the Anschluss. This event

took place over three days between the 11th and 13th of March 1938. In the weeks that followed,

there was pogrom-like violence across the country. Austrian Nazis and others beat up,

attacked, and humiliated the Jews. They forced them to scrub the streets,

clean public toilets and perform humiliating exercises. Many tried to leave Austria and

lines appeared at consulates across the city of Vienna. Among the refugees were relatives and

friends of the Landa family who came to Prague and told the Landas about what was happening

to the Jews in Austria. Until then, Evelina did not know that she and her parents were

Jews as her family was secular and non-religious. Suddenly, her feeling of security began to shake.

Things changed for the worse in Czechoslovakia in October 1938,

when Hitler annexed the Sudetenland where ethnic German population of Czechoslovakia

lived. This border area of Czechoslovakia also contained the Army's defensive positions

in the event of a war with Germany. On 15 March 1939, Hitler violated

the Munich agreement and took over the Czechoslovak state. The Czech provinces

of Bohemia and Moravia were proclaimed a German Protectorate and were occupied by German forces.

Immediately after the Nazis usurped the Czech lands,

they passed new anti-Jewish laws which were designed to exclude the Jews from

society and restrict their livelihood. Jewish accounts were frozen, and they were forbidden

to sell companies and real estate which were confiscated and taken over by the Germans.

The Landas were no exception. They were ordered to vacate their 4 bedroom appartment and moved

into one of the apartments that belonged to Evelina’s grandfather. In the 4 bedroom

apartment lived 4 families, one in each room. One of those families were the Landas.

From the 1st of September 1939 when the Second World War began, the Jews were not allowed to stay

outdoors after eight o'clock in the evening. They were also banned from entering certain streets,

parks, cafés , hotels and other public places. From August 1940 onwards, Jewish children were

banned from attending public and private schools. Fortunately for Evelina her father enrolled her

in time in the only Prague’s Jewish school located in Jáchymova street. Because there was too little

space for so many pupils, some classes took place in the morning and some in the afternoon. At

the beginning of the classes, Evelina and other children prayed. They had no books and teachers

taught them what they considered could be useful for them. Together with other boys and girls,

Evelina attended the Jewish school for 2 years from 1939 until 1941 and she was very happy there.

From November 1940, new laws, decrees, guidelines, and regulations increasingly restricted the civil

and human rights of Jews in the protectorate. They were not allowed to leave their municipalities,

even temporarily, without special permission. Jews were forbidden to visit libraries,

theatres and cinemas, swimming pools, sports facilities or concert halls.

Jews had to hand over their jewels, music instruments, Persian carpets, antiques,

telephones and radio sets and they were not even allowed to keep pets. Evelina had to give

away her canary named Punťa. When travelling by city public transport or trains, they had

to stand in the last carriage. The Jews even had a limited choice of foodstuff and shopping times

for them were limited to two hours twice a day and later just two hours once a day. At 3 PM,

when they were allowed to do their shopping, most of the wares were already sold out. In addition,

Jews were not allowed to have contact with non-Jews, or even to greet them in the street.

From September 1st, 1941 Jews in the Protectorate, including Evelina,

were ordered to wear the badge of Yellow Star of David when outdoors.

Since they were not allowed in parks, Jewish children played after school in the old Jewish

cemetery or at the only sports ground, where Jews were allowed : the Hagibor. This was a large

sports ground, consisting of tennis and volleyball courts a race track, and spaces where the Jewish

children could play games and participate in competitions. All activities were organized by

Fredy Hirsch - a German-Jewish athlete, sports teacher, and Zionist youth movement leader,

who was dedicated to the youths. He was a very handsome man, always clean shaved and

well groomed. Though he did not speak Czech well, he had authority. Children played games, sang and

exercised . Those who lived in the Jewish quarter had to walk for an hour to get to Hagibor and an

hour back home. Evelina and the others knew that Fredy was gay but nobody paid attention to this.

In November 1941, Reinhard Heydrich, the new acting Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia,

established the Theresienstadt Ghetto which was located in the fortress town of Terezín.

The first transport of Czech Jews arrived there in the same month. The ghetto existed for three

and a half years, between November 24, 1941 and May 9, 1945. Though the Landa family

and other Jews thought that it was a place from which they would return after the war,

Theresienstadt served mainly as a transit camp for Jews on route to extermination camps. It

was also presented by the Nazis as a “model Jewish settlement” for propaganda purposes.

Evelina and her parents arrived in the ghetto on 2 July 1942. Deportees to the ghetto had

to surrender all possessions except for 50 kilograms (110 lb) of luggage,

which they had to carry with them from the railway end station at Bohušovice, 2.4 kilometres (1.5

mi) away. The walk was difficult, especially for the elderly and ill Jews. After reaching

the ghetto, the prisoners were registered and distributed to the men’s and women’s baracks.

Conditions in the camp were harsh. Lack of water and

electricity, overcrowding, bedbugs, fleas and lice, and

above all no privacy. Food was distributed to all the inmates

from the central kitchens. It consisted of a portion of soup, usually made of lentil powder,

and a potato or dumpling with gravy. Never fruit or vegetables. A quarter loaf of bread for two

days and a spoonful of jam were distributed in the rooms. The prisoners were hungry,

many were sick. 200 inmates were dying daily, diseases were rampant.

Conditions in the ghetto varied depending on a prisoner's status. Most prisoners were squeezed in

rooms with sixty to eighty people per room, They slept on three-tired wooden bunks. For

older children there were also several separate boys‘ and girls‘ Heims meaning Homes. In their

rooms there was usually a table and a bench in addition to the bunks. Evelina stayed with

girls her age in room No. 28 of the Heim L 410 which was the children’s home. This was arranged

by her sister Lisa who was in Theresienstadt with her husband Franta since December 1941.

Evelina later recalled “When I think of the really bad years of the war and the Holocaust,

there is always a bright point, a beam of light, on my mind – our Heim in the ghetto,

our room 28. I spent eighteen months in Terezín. It is not much in an adult’s life, but in the life

of a child who was barely twelve it’s almost an eternity. The Heim helped me endure much hardship,

however, only fifteen girls out of nearly sixty who occupied room No. 28 were so fortunate. “

The prisoners spent their waking hours either on the bunk, queuing for their meal,

or at work. All prisoners aged 14 to 60 or 65 had to work. Most were involved

in war production for Germany or in the vegetable gardens. Evelina, though only 12,

also worked in the garden growing vegetables for the SS kitchen. In addition she was taught drawing

by Friedl Dicker- Brandejsová, a well-known painter who worked with children in the ghetto.

Her father Emil worked in the administration office and her mother Ilse worked as a nurse.

The Ghetto was administered by the Jewish Elders, among them Fredy Hirsch,

who was Head of the Children and Youth Department. His intention was to keep the children somewhat

insulated from the harsh conditions of the ghetto, so that they would not „succumb to

demoralization”. It was he who managed to find for them better housing in the so-called Heims.

Although education was forbidden, the prisoners, many of them former professors, scientists and

artists, continued to clandestinely teach the children in the Heims. During our interview

Evelina expressed doubts about the fact that the Germans did not know about this clandestine

teaching saying that the Nazis did not care as in the end all Jews were going to be murdered.

Of the approximately 140,000 Jews transferred to Theresienstadt, nearly 90,000 were deported to

points further east and almost certain death. Roughly 33,000 died in Theresienstadt itself,

mostly from malnutrition and disease. Out of fifteen thousand children who passed

through Theresienstadt, approximately 90 percent perished in killing centers.

On the 26th of October 1942, less than 48 hours after the arrival of the last

transport from Theresienstadt to Treblinka, the SS dispatched the first transport to Auschwitz,

carrying 1,866 persons. Upon arrival, SS officials selected 247 people, mostly men,

to be registered as prisoners. The remaining 1,619 were killed in the gas chambers.

In December 1943 the Landas were selected for deportation “to the working camp in the

East “ so they were told. Evelina’s pregnant sister Lisa together with

her husband stayed behind. Evelina later recalled: “ In Terezín, I was deprived of my

childhood. I became an adult. I began to think. I came to Terezín as a little eleven-year-old girl,

but when I left the ghetto in a December transport to Auschwitz, I felt almost an adult.”

In the cattle wagons which were used to deport Jews

from Theresienstad to Auschwitz, there was no toilet

only a bucket, which was overflowing within a few hours. The stench of urine and excrement added

to the humiliation and suffering of the deportees. Lacking

food and water and proper ventilation, a few of the

deportees died before the trains reached their destination. The journey took a day and a night,

snow was everywhere and it was the first time in Evelina’s life that she travelled so far.

Armed guards accompanied the transport and they had orders to shoot anyone who tried to escape.

Evelina realized that they had lost and was overwhelmed by such fear that she

started to scream and cry hysterically. However, the worst was yet to come.

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