A TRIBUTE TO CHILD HOLOCAUST VICTIMS
(- II. Stage of Neighbours Who Disappeared project)
Jan Jirsík High School, České Budějovice
At the outset of our research, we began to gradually explore what for us was the unknown history of the Holocaust. We tried to find as much information as possible in libraries and archives. We were most interested in the magazine Klepy ("Gossip"), which was published clandestinely by young Jews in an attempt to find at least a shred of hope in their dire situation. We also discovered the story of Jan Freund, whose elder brother used to attend out high school. Several years ago, Mr. Freund came over here from Canada to familiarize young people of the area with his story. We had a unique opportunity to see a video recording of this meeting. Through this recording, we came to a better understanding of the extent of the suffering that Holocaust victims had to endure. We should definitely not forget this dark chapter of history, before it is buried under the dust of centuries. It is said that history often repeats itself, but we hope that this is not fated to happen in this case.
The Project Classmates was established at a High School in Pilsen - on Mikulášské Square
In 2003 as part of a literary seminar. Its aim was to find traces of former Jewish students who attended the school before the Second World War and whose lives
were adversely affected by the Nuremberg Laws. Among the first sources of information were school almanacs,
class registers, archival materials on the life of the Jewish community in pre-war Pilsen and, in particular,
the testimonies of former pupils of the high school. In the end, we managed to establish contact with some Holocaust
survivors or with their descendants. E. L. was the only one in his family to survive the extermination camps; at the end of 1945,
he left for the United States, where he became an important physicist. We met with his three children and grand-children in May 2005.
H. L. escaped from Auschwitz and joined Ludvík Svoboda's army in Slovakia. After the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948, he
emigrated to Chile where, to this day, he runs a family-owned company with his son. A. E., his sister Ch. E. and M. L. came from mixed
marriages and spent the war in a Nazi labour camp in Postoloprty, North Bohemia. Ch. E. is still alive and lives in Pilsen. In October
2004, memorial plaques were unveiled in the high school, recalling the tragic fate of former pupils and students of the school. Another
objective of the project is to publish a collection of papers that would bring together the acquired material. In cooperation with younger
students, we are also preparing a continuation of the project, entitled Room Pokoj 127.
Elementary and Middle School in Litomyšl
In 2002, our school research team began searching for pre-war Jewish inhabitants of Litomyšl, a town that now has no Jewish population.
We started out from a list made by Margareta Freyová, who died many years ago. After several months we had made dozens of people aware of
our project. We have managed to get permanent inhabitants to cast their minds back and to remember names, stories and fleeting observations.
People in Litomyšl have gradually started to talk again about people who were seemingly forgotten. Some have sent us to others to find out more
information, anonymous persons have told us information on the phone, others have come to school in person with old documents. Our "Jewish Archive"
has expanded to include photographs. Scraps of pre-war history have begun to make sense, slowly but surely falling into place. We have tried to verify
every piece of information by referring to at least two sources - an extremely demanding yet important task. In a number of instances, we have
had to discard some of the information using the above method of verification, although we may use it a later date. Perhaps somebody will remember
some details and contact us. Even if this does not happen, we have still managed to achieve something important: we have made the people of Litomyšl
aware once again of "their" Jewish fellow residents. Every school in the region - and the regional museum - now displays a poster with photographs of
local child victims of the Holocaust and, in addition, makes use of our collection of papers on the fate of Litomyšl Jews as part of its lessons.
Our website www.zmizeli-sousede.cz/litomysl is in Czech and English (we know how pleased relatives of victims living abroad have been with the project).
We are glad that we have managed to achieve this.
Varnsdorf - Episcopal High School - František Peter Kien - Why We are Searching
It all started with the "Neighbours Who Disappeared" project, which involved us and many other schools. We know that about 211 Jews used to live in
Varnsdorf, so we went to Terezín to explore what happened to them. We were interested in documents on the Jewish painter Peter Kien, having found out that
he lived in Varnsdorf. He even went to the same school as us. This is why we altered the project slightly and entitled it Neighbours Who Disappeared -
Peter Kien Discovered. We managed to acquire paintings for his very first exhibition in the Czech Republic, which was held this year in Varnsdorf. In the
future we intend to focus on the fates of other Jews from Varnsdorf. František Peter Kien was born on January 1, 1919 in Varnsdorf. At the end of 1929,
the Kien family moved from Varnsdorf to Brno, where Peter continued his studies and began to drawn, paint and write poetry under the influence of
Dostoyevsky and Kafka. In 1938 he met in Prague his future wife I. S. with whom he concluded what was known as a "Terezín Marriage". Peter was promised
that he would be given a U.S. visa, but he was too close to his family and his country to leave. In December 1941, Peter Kien was deported to the Terezín
ghetto, which was a transit camp for Jews en route to the extermination camps. During his stay at Terezín, Peter Kien was deputy head in the art room of
the Jewish self-government's Technical Office. In his spare time he drew still lifes and scenes from Terezín, using stolen drawing materials. As a result,
we can now see work that faithfully captures the cruel, inhuman conditions that prevailed in the Terezín ghetto. Also in Terezín, Peter Kien wrote poetry (the Plague Town series), plays (The Puppets) and a libretto for the opera Emperor of Atlantis. However, he did not live to see the premiere of his work, as he allowed himself to be included on one of the last transports to Auschwitz so that he could be with his close relatives. He died of an infectious disease in Auschwitz in October 1994.
A group of students at the Business Academy in Chotěboř (a town not far from Havlíčkův Brod in east Bohemia)
has focused for more than a year on the fate of the Jewish inhabitants of the town in which they live. At the outset, it was very difficult to gain the trust
of Holocaust survivors and witnesses and to get them to help out with the project. As part of the project, students had to complete a number of workshops
which introduced them to issues concerning the Second World War and the persecution of selected population groups, not only of Jewish descent.
These workshops were completed mostly as part of the activities organized by the Jewish Museum in Prague's Education and Culture Centre, but also
by the Terezín Memorial. In July of last year the students visited the death camps of Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Among other things,
they also arranged meetings between students (not only from their school) with Holocaust survivors and witnesses and put on an exhibition on Anne
Frank, which they organized at the school, together with an exhibition of children drawings from Terezín. The culmination of their activities was
the exhibition Chotěboř Neighbours Who Disappeared, which was held at the school in the first half of February 2005.
Children and Youth´s House and Otokar Březina High School, Telč
Notes: P. A., 13 years old: I'm interested in the history of World War Two, a period that cannot be seen separately from the fate of the Jews. I wanted to learn more about it, so I went to meetings with people who witnessed the war. I found several answers to the question: "What was it like in Telč?" K. O. 15 years old: I first heard about the Holocaust in a meeting with Mr. Spitzer. He was deported to Terezín when he was exactly as old as I am now. I can't imagine how I would manage in such a situation. O. K., 15 years old: I visited an old Jewish cemetery in a wood with my national history class and I wondered who were those people who had to stay apart from the others even after their deaths? K. K., 16 years old Of the several tragic destinies that I got to know, there was at least one with a happy ending. What's more, our searching helped two childhood friends - Mr. Hahn and Mr. Spitzer - to meet again after almost 70 years. J. A., 16 years old: Previously, I was very unfamiliar with Jews and their culture, even though I had learnt a lot about this topic from literature. Now I know about the fates of individual people. Many of them were students of my age. They had similar pleasures but their lives ended so differently. Leader - B. K. : The project "Neighbours Who Disappeared from Telč" started with only slight memories of the Taub family and their three children. After one and a half year of searching, our common knowledge about our families and our children broadened to such an extent that we have come to realise our research will be a never-ending story.
The project Tribute to the Child Holocaust Victims follows in suit of the project Neighbours Who Disappeared. Similarly to the latter it addresses young people aged 12 - 21 and proposes that they work independently on the stories of people who lived with their neighbors in harmony until WWII and who were then mostly marked, restricted, persecuted, and finally liquidated. This project's topic, however, is in the first place the life of the WWII students and children in the same schools children go to today. The output should be a memorial tablet permanently placed in school. Copy of that is often a part of a regional exhibition and can become a part of a new national traveling exhibition (until there will be a capacity for that).
The beginning of the project is often based on the list of those, who had to leave schools in 1938 - 1940 founded at school archives. What were the reasons for their sudden departure? Did somebody miss them? Did somebody help them before the transport? What was it like to be restricted, concentrated ….and if they have had a chance to come back? The preparation of the best pilot projects took more than several months and is enabled thanks to lot of voluntarily teachers and students work. Exhibitions and local projects are influencing people standing around (families, schools, state representatives etc.)
Education ond Culture Center of the Jewish Museum in Prague - Marie Zahradníková (marie.zahr@jewishmuseum.cz)
The Forgotten Ones - Marta Vančurová (martavan@gmail.com)
