PILSEN - Eva Brummel

"The 'Classmates' project was formed as part of the literary seminar led by Mgr. Monika Stehlíková at the Plzeň, Nicholas' Square high school. The goal of the project was to find out as much as possible about the lives of the former students of the school (which was called "2nd Czechoslovak Real High School" at the time) who were marked as Jews by the Nuremberg laws, expelled and further prosecuted. The first group which started working on the project in 2002 found the names of three such children, all of whom died in camps in the East. We, the students who followed up the next year, found nine more children in school yearbooks, seven of whom survived the war.

Searching for the 12 varied life stories took two years and comprised mainly of researching in archives and interviewing the classmates and relatives of the affected students. We also contacted those of the survivors, whom the circumstances permitted. In mid-2004, we placed a memorial plaque at our school, in memory of those students who did not survive. The project went on till autumn, 2005, when its achievements were summarized in a publication of the same name."

The "Classmates" project was succeeded a project called "Room 127" in 2007. "Room 127" follows the story of Egon Löbner in more detail. The students mapped the lives of eleven boys, who spent some time sharing a dormitory with Egon in the Terezín ghetto. Some of them perished in extermination camps, others were soon faced with further repression, this time by the communist regime.
The project participants founded the HUMR association, which occupies itself with human rights education and especially the holocaust. The association is currently working on a web site informing about the holocaust victims of Plzeň. The web site will also include the methodology of working with archives.

Project authors:
Ilona Dvořáková
Kristýna Homolová
Jan Jáchym
Aleš Turnovec

Supervising teacher:
Monika Stehlíková

Some of the Jewish students were in the same class at the Real High School. Charlotte Epstein stayed on the school longest of them - she wasn't expelled until 1943, as "half-Jew". Two other students - Charlotte's brother Arnošt and Mirko Lauterstein - also came from mixed marriages. They, however, were male and as such, they were held in labour camps in conditions that were relatively less harsh. Most of the remaining Jewish students were deported in January 1942 in one of the three transports from Pilsen to Terezín. Egon Löbner, Hanuš Deiml and Hanuš Löw were freed in Poland and Germany at the end of the war. Hana Fanta, Emil Ehrlich and Jiří Stein died in extermination camps (Izbica, Auschwitz and Raasiku, respectively). Jiří Schanzer was probably another victim of the holocaust. He participated in the guerilla resistance and was captured on the Hungarian border and taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Hana Porges, we later found out, only attended the school for one year in 1934, her sixth grade. She died along with her entire family in 1942 in an unknown transport, probably headed to Sobibor. The last student was Eva Brummel, who was saved in Nicholas Winton's train. Her family, however, perished, as did most of the twelve students' relatives.

Questions:
- What are yearbooks and what sort of data can we obtain from them?
- How could the students find out from the yearbooks which students were Jewish and which weren't?
- What is the Garden of memories?


Eva Brummel
born 20.6.1923 - died in Bristol
The Brummels moved to Pilsen from the Rakovník region and part of the extended family settled around Klatovy. Leo, the father of the family, took over his father's tannery upon returning from Russian imprisonment, where he spent much of the first world war. Curiously, Leo and his brother Jan each married one of two sisters. Leo also had a sister, Markéta, who died during the destruction of the Terezín "family camp" in Auschwitz-Birkenau, and another brother, Kurt, who was the father of K. Brummel, but died before his birth in 1933. The family had befriended Adolf Loose, an architect, and his wife, Claire Beck.
Many of Eva's friends think back to the time they spent together, often at the Brummels' home - there was a huge swing, a piano and Mrs. Brummel's ball masks - and at other times, at their aunt's, who lived in a house with a flat roof perfect for basking in the sun and where they could listen to old vinyl records. They also remember the time when Eva had left for England: "... and if I recall correctly, her father had long been here. I used to see him shovel the snow around the train station. Lilka was a friend of Honzina's, when he already had to wear the star - when Lilka couldn't go shopping for her mother, Honzina would do the shopping for her and bring the groceries to Mrs. Brummel." (Jarmial Bartůňková-Kreysová, a classmate)
The parents of both girls long thought of making use of the opportunity to send their daughters to England with the help of Nicholas Winton. At length, they left the decision to the children themselves. Eva wanted to leave, the younger Lilka, however, refused - she had to share the fate of her parents and the vast majority of the other Jewish children.
Eva maintained contact with her family in Pilsen even during the war; she sent post cards with the help of the services of the Red Cross. The family that adopted Eva in England moved to the countryside when the war broke out - they were friends of Eva's parents, so she could study till 1941. She then moved to Bristol, where she worked at a doctor's office and a hospital laboratory. Lilka and their parents were deported to Terezín on July 5, 1943. Lilka's boyfriend Karel Kumpera, who used to visit the Brummels on a regular basis, and a few of like-minded individuals organized the gathering of food to be sent to Terezín. He also taught children who remained in Plzeň but couldn't go to school, and he continued to work with the Jewish youth.
After little more than two months in Terezín, on September 9, 1943, the Brummels were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, to the so-called "Terezín family camp". Hana Sachsel was a survivor of this camp, and she recalls: "We were in Auschwitz with them for three months. They, however, ended up differently. Mr. Brummel visited my mother and gave her valuable counsel she could have needed. When they canceled the family camp, the Brummels were taken to the gas chambers. It was the anniversary of T. G. Masaryk's birth, and it is said that the prisoners sang the Czech national anthem."
After the war, the remaining relatives wanted Eva to come back and study medicine, which was her interest in England, too. She visited back home in 1947, and then for uncle Jan's funeral in 1960. She kept in written contact with her relatives from Pilsen and she started visiting Czechoslovakia regularly after around 1970.
After arriving in England, Eva wrote a letter home, in which she describes the journey in what was one of the last rescue transports dispatched by Nicholas Winton. This is (a translation of) an authentic transcript of the letter, with no edits made:


"Dear all!
You must already have my telegram, which Mr. Pamment sent right after I arrived, and you know I arrived safely. I am very happy now and Beckenham is so divinely beautiful, you can hardly even imagine it. I will describe my impressions and everything, as it happened in order.
We departed from Prague with a horrible delay and the children were already very sleepy and tired. Mom, I took off my shoes immediately as you told me to. These are the children in our section (I was supposed to look after them, and I did; a very nice Russian chick named Taťána Bogos helped me): Renata Kress (5 years old), Lia Blum (9), the little Rita Hacker from Pilsen - they put her on just after leaving Prague. Then two chicks around 12, although one of them didn't belong to our compartment and was just visiting. Last, Táňa and I; enough, isn't it? First, we tidied everything up and tucked the 3 smaller kids in. We napped occasionally sitting, but we didn't sleep. Rita screamed horribly for about half an hour, but fell asleep in the end and slept very long. Like that, we reached Terezín on the Czech-German border. We halted there for 4 hours, because the lady who went with us forgot the tickets in Prague […]
[…] Holland is very beautiful. Everything is very clean - we wouldn't dare throw a piece of paper out the window into the beauty. There were huge meadows everywhere and on them, black or brown and white cows and calves. I only saw about 3 windmills. The houses are all just like toy houses (even in cities) and you can barely see any people walking on foot. Everyone has a bike, but not as hunched, or as fast as back home. Beautifully upright and slowly, gently, why rush? Holland apparently has enough time for everything. It must be beautiful to live there, in the neat houses with quaint curtains and gardens full of flowers - anyway, at about 11, we arrived in Rotterdam. That's the last time we saw our backpacks before London. We left them in the train and they put them on a ship and took care of them all the way to London. We then went to the harbour, which made a horrible journey. It was dark and it rained. We had to carry Rita and watch the others. After about 10 minutes, we were aboard the ship. We were assigned cabins (all the way below deck, not bad, but the ship's engine was very noisy there). […]
[…]I then slept till ? to 6, when a "navy" woke us up, yelling 'come on!', which made me angry and I told him we can't 'come on' wearing our gowns and so sleepy we could barely see. I hope he understood my broken English. There was a bustle on the ship. I had to carry Rita to breakfast, I punched people who bumped into me like blind. I met a poor old lady who dragged two suitcases and about 20 other things (unless it was less) onboard. I helped her and she praised and thanked me, and she swore at the reluctant people who didn't. I desperately looked for Rita after that, or at least the greasy stain she would have become if they trampled her - fortunately, I found her whole and took her to a long table with a huge number of children sitting along it, with pots of tea, bags with bread and butter and apples and bananas. We ate, and then went above deck. Oh, and I forgot to say that none of us were seasick. On the deck, Táňa and I sat the children down and covered them up. We strolled all over the deck and talked with the sailors, stewards and waiters, watched the sea and the seagulls and it was splendid. We dropped anchor in Harwick. There was a medical checkup which was filmed by a young American woman and some Englishman. Probably for a weekly paper. […]
[…] We were very hungry, but we didn't have our backpacks. We ate what we had left of breakfast. Táňa and I walked around the deck till about 1 o'clock and watched a crane unload bags of potatoes and set them on the mainland. At around 1, they lined us up in pairs at the train station. We got bread, butter and jam and boarded a third-class train. Nevertheless, these are terribly luxurious here. We rode for about two hours. Táňa and I barely had time to wash the children before we arrived at Liverpoolstreet Station. People were already waiting for some of us, but we couldn't go to them. They took us to some sort of gym hall with chairs in it - we sat there very long. Our future "parents" were waiting in an adjoining room. It took way too long before we were all matched up - I was somewhere halfway through, and Mr. Pamment was already standing at the door. He signed something and I caught a glimpse of Gusta Fantl - I talked with him for a while and relayed the greeting from Mrs. doctor Fantl. He was probably waiting for Robert, but he didn't even come to London - he was assigned to some special group, which stayed in Harwick (might be of interest to the Fantls). Aunt Marianne was waiting for us in another room. We came out and asked what became of my luggage, but they told us they can't give them to us till tomorrow. I went to wash up a bit with Auntie, and then up to the Olympus. Mr. Pamment gave me 6 d. We were looking for some 'tea - room', but it was Saturday afternoon and everything was closed. I can talk with the Pamments very well. They are all very pleasant and both of their children are beautiful. I think you could buy Erik the car from the Růžička's, the one that doesn't fall off the table, and perhaps an airplane, too. […]
[…] I spoke on the telephone with Zuzi and she was very surprised to hear that Lilli doesn't want to come - she says she's dump. But then, home sweet home, isn't it, Lilli?
[…] Many, many kisses for all of you and best regards to all our friends and to Růženka, from Eva.
Hana Fanta
December 18, 1923, Pilsen or Jablonec nad Nisou - unknown

She came from a middle-class family - her mother owned a textile shop in Prague Street, her father worked as a shop assistant. On September 1, 1934, Hana begun her first grade at the "First Czechoslovak State Real School" in Pilsen, and switched to the "Second Czechoslovak State Real School", where she studied till half of the 1938/1939 school year. "She was among the brightest students, she dressed very neatly; she was, how would I say this, translucent, or something," her former classmate Karel Kabát from Renč "and on Saturdays, she would go to the synagogue instead of school."
Hana used to share her desk at school with Jarmila Lodl, who recalls: "She had typically Jewish hair - black and curly. She wasn't allowed to go anywhere, only in winter, when she probably used to go ice skating. She was cheerful, sociable. A good girl, she was. I used to go out with her, wearing the star, and we would ride our bicycles to the "Židovák" pond ("Žid" is the Czech word for "Jew"). I used to think nothing could happen to me. Nobody ever policed us. Mr. Franta used to tell me: 'you shouldn't meet with us.' But I paid him no heed." On January 31, 1939, "student has dutifully reported that she is leaving the institution", signed Jaroslav Deveter, home room teacher.
When she left the school, Hana began to learn to become a seamstress, in order to help her mother mend clothing. The family went poor and they weren't allowed to own the shop or much of anything: "They took everything from them; when I knew them, they only had a small shop in Poděbradova Street, mending shirts. They couldn't be employed and they had nothing to live from. It was a catastrophe," Jarmila continues, "there could have been three families in a single apartment."
It seems Hana, despite all the prohibitions, attended a dance school in Beseda - she is caught on a group photo on the stairs into the dance hall. Jarmila also remembers often sleeping over at the Fantas', when she missed the connection to Tymákov. "She had sown my prom dress. Sometimes, they had to sew till nightfall, even on Saturdays." she adds.
In early 1942, the already unbearable situation further escalated: "They locked up the father first, even before deporting them, and they beat him up. I went to visit them - they lived just under the theatre back then, where the House of Technics is now. Mr. Fanta came - he had been interrogated by the Gestapo. He sent everyone out and told me that they would never come back. He said they beat him up and treated him so badly, that he knew. He knew they wouldn't survive. He told me not to tell them, though, so that they would have at least some hope. The next day, they had to leave. There was nothing we could do, nothing that would help." The Fanta's were forced out to Terezín and then to Izbica. From what we gathered from the "Terezín Studies and Documents 2003" (by Robert Kuwalek), where the "vacating" of Terezín is mentioned in connection to the constant influx of Jews from Terezín, we assume the family might have stayed in Terezín for at least a month, before the second wave of transports came (as the first was exclusively for Polish Jews). We must take into account the appalling conditions of hygiene and lodging, an absolute shortage of food, lack of employment... "I used to send her packages to Izbica. I remember that the limit was a quarter kilo. I made caramel for them, so they'd have sugar. It was a package for documents - an envelope, just closed with a spring. I just got back a short note, something along the lines of 'we're fine'."

Jews in Pilsen

The first recorded mention of a Jewish population in Pilsen dates back to 1338. In the 15th century, there was a Jewish community and a synagogue in Pilsen, but the municipality was granted the right to evict the Jews in 1504 and the community didn't reform until mid-16th century and till that time, Jews weren't even allowed to spend the night in the city. The first Jewish merchant was allowed to buy a house here in 1790. In 1850, there was a prayer house with a rabbi. Jews formed 5 percent of the population of Pilsen in 1870 (1207 individuals). Since 1918, Pilsen had two rabbis, one preaching in Czech, the other in German. In 1930, 2 percent of the population were Jewish (2773 people). After the occupation, they were affected by prosecution based on the Nüremberg Laws, just like all Jewish occupants of the German Reich. Between January 17 and 26, 1942, 2605 Jews from Pilsen and nearby were deported to Terezín in 3 transports. 2092 of them perished before the end of the war. These transports were among the first to be sent to Terezín. Only 204 Pilsen Jews survived the war.

The Jewish community was renewed after the war. The prayer room in the Great Synagogue was used until 1988, when the new prayer room was built. The Great Synagogue now houses an exhibition dedicated to Jewish history and culture, and the hall is used for concerts and other cultural events.

Garden of Memories - a memorial to the Pilsen area Holocaust victims

The year 2002 was declared the year of memories of Holocaust victims in Pilsen. Between April 16 and 19, the "Write one name" event took place in the Old Synagogue. Volunteers from the Pilsen public, mostly secondary school students, came to the Synagogue and wrote the names of local Holocaust victims on pebbles. Each volunteer wrote a single full name and the person's date of birth on a pebble. The pebbles were then laid on what used to be the floor of the adjoining auxiliary synagogue (called the "Jewish school"). Eventually, a reverent memorial was formed by almost as many people as there were recorded victims. The author of the idea and the main organizer of the project was Radovan Kodera of the regional specialised office of the National Memorial Institute.
The following students were forced to interrupt their studies at the 2nd Czechoslovak Real State School due to antisemitism:

Emil Ehrlich (December 24, 1923, Pilsen - May 18, 1944? Auschwitz)
His parents owned a shop with bed linen. He joined the Real School in September 1935. He was short and often got ill, he was a good student but weak at French. He was expelled from the school in September, starting his 10th grade. He then worked as an assistant labourer, until he was deported to Terezín along with his parents on January 18, 1942. He was moved to the Terezín Family Camp in Auschwitz on May 18, 1944. No family member survived.

Jiří Stein (January 16, 1923, Pilsen - September 1, 1942? Raasiku)
He had a sister named Hana. He joined the Real School in 1934, but had failed his 8th grade and had to repeat it, making him Emil's classmate. He was a member of the "Stopa" ("footprint") Boy Scout troop. He left the school at the end of the 1938/'39 academic year. The family owned a shop with textiles; Jiří and his father made a living as assistant labourers before their deportation to Terezín on January 22, 1942. They were deported to Raasiku, Estonia on September 1, 1942 and neither of them lived through the war.

Eva Brummel (June 20, 1923, Pilsen - Bristol) the date of birth doesn't agree with that in other documents

Hana Fantová (November 18, 1923, Pilsen - March 19, 1942? Izbica)

Mirko Lauterstein (July 24, 1923, Pilsen - 1996, Pilsen)
He was born into a mixed marriage and had an older sister named Helena. His father worked as a traveling businessman. Mirko joined the same class as Eva Brummel, Hana Fanta, Hana Porges and Egon Löbner in 1934. He was the only one of them who was allowed to finish his studies there. He was incarcerated in the Postoloprty labour camp towards the end of the war. His father was deported to Terezín on February 4, 1945, and was freed there at the end of the war. He got married later and had three children.

Egon Löbner (February 24, 1924, Pilsen - December 30, 1989, Palo Alto)
Egon had a brother named Vilém, who was two years younger. Their father was a successful businessman. He joined the sixth grade at the Real School in the 1934/1935 academic year. He had excellent grades, but his father wanted him to study the more practical industrial school of machinery, to which he transferred in 1938. After he was expelled in 1940, he worked as a draftsman in an electronics company. The entire family was deported to Terezín on January 18, 1942, but Vilém managed to escape to Palestine. Egon and his father were moved to Auschwitz on September 1944 and his mother less than a month later. Egon's parents died before the end of the war; Egon emigrated to the USA in 1946, and became a successful scientist.

Hana Porges (March 11, 1923, Pilsen - June 13, 1942?)
She joined the Real School on September 1934, but quit the school after one year for unknown reasons. She had an older sister named Gerta, and their father was a master butcher. Gerta married and moved to Prague, from where she was deported to Terezín and later Auschwitz, where she likely perished. Hana was deported from Plzeň to Terezín with her parents, on January 22, 1942. From there, they were probably taken to Sobibor on July 13, 1942, where they were all killed in a gas chamber.

Arnošt Epstein (March 1, 1923, Pilsen - March 23, 1999, Pilsen)
and Charlotte Epstein (November 4, 1925, Pilsen)
The were born to a mixed married couple. Their father worked as an executive director. Arnošt attended the Real School from 1934 to 1941, when he graduated. Towards the end of the war, he was held in the Postoloprty labour camp with his father. He worked in a construction company after the war, but never married.

Hanuš Deiml (June 6, 1922, Kožlany - July 31, 1972, Prague)
He left the Real School in 1938, during his 10th grade. He worked as a forest worker with his father. The entire family was deported to Terezín on January 18, 1942, and they were moved to Auschwitz on December 18, 1943. Hanuš was freed in Altenburg, but the other family members perished. Hanuš got married after the war and had a son named Pavel.

Hanuš Löw (February 14, 1922, Pilsen)
He attended the Real School till May, 1939, when he was expelled. He survived Auschwitz, but was the only one from his family who lived to see the end of the war. He managed to escape from Blechhammer, a satellite camp of Auschwitz, cross the eastern front and join the army of Ludvík Svoboda. He got married in 1947 and moved to Chile with his wife, who died in 1952 of a heart disease. He remarried in 1955 and had a son named Miguel with his second wife. They live in Santiago de Chile to this day, although they briefly lived in Canada between 1973 and 1975.

Jiří Schanzer (October 22, 1921, Dolní Lukavice - January 1945?)
He had a half-brother named Joseph; their father remarried after the death of Jiří's mother. The family had a grocery store in their house. Jiří transferred to the 2nd Real School from the 1st in 1934 and graduated in 1939. He started studying chemistry at a university in Prague, but joined the resistance in January 1940. He tried to cross the Hungarian border, but was captured by the Gestapo and taken to Dachau and Buchenwald - from there, he sent a letter to his father. The only information of his fate are witness accounts of his death in a death march in January 1945.