Eventful Journeys: Auschwitz 1995

We never wanted to live in Czechoslovakia again. We would say: "We are not going back," when we were in Oxford during the war. People would exclaim: "But you speak proper Czech!" - for most Czech refugees only spoke German. "I hate them," I answered.

I liked visiting Prague, it is fascinating city. I can still speak the language but I feel like a foreigner. But in 1995, for the first time in sixty or so years, we visited my home-town. I had not visited Ostrava before because it was too painful. The trip was planned with Sigo and some friends - we hired a car and travelled through Czechoslovakia. We also intended to visit Auschwitz, for the first time.

I was shocked when I saw the city of my youth. It was empty of everything I remembered. All the parks I used to play in or the big coffee houses where Jews sat in the afternoon - everything looked so shabby, down-at-heel and neglected. The German theatre no longer existed and although there was still a Czech theatre, the programme was not very exciting.
We went to a Rosh Hashana service in a flat converted to a Jewish centre. It was a short service with about thirty congregants. I found out afterwards that not one person there had been born in Ostrava. There was no one there who had any connection with my family.

I felt like a stranger. This was a place which used to be full of people I knew. The memories came flooding back. On every corner I imagined seeing my aunts and uncles, my cousins, their friends and relatives. But a place without people is nothing. I visited our old apartment and stood outside on the pavement. I did not want to go in - I felt no connection. ..My grandmother had lived a ten minute walk away and Sigo and I went to look at her old house and the shop were I used to do her shopping. But nothing was as I remembered it.

The cultured, lively and extrovert Jews were missing. Ostrava was no longer Little Paris but a dowdy little mining town. I am glad I saw Ostrava but it was so distressing to see how it had changed that I made up my mind never to return. From Ostrava we travelled by train to Krakow in Poland. I would have liked to have seen where Tante Rosa, my father’s sister, had lived, but I thought, "What’s the point of looking at a house?"

From Krakow we travelled to Auschwitz. I did not want to go but Sigo encouraged me. We had a very good guide who was informed and gave us the facts in a clear way. We had seen many films but it was much more clean and tidy than we imagined. This seemed to make it all the more gruesome. I was devastated. It was a terrible experience to see the place where so many people were taken to be killed. I was glad to leave. For a few days afterwards I could hardly speak. The Holocaust has shaped my life. It got more and more horrible after the war when you heard details from talking to survivors. You get very selfish and you wanted to know what happened to your people. There was no other conversation - even today when we meet up with friends, the conversation comes back to the Holocaust. There isn’t a day when the camps don’t flash across my mind. You can’t escape, there is too much trauma. It is an ever-present thing - you can never forget. But I have always felt optimistic. We did not lecture the children about what happened to our family during the war. But they knew a lot - they could tell by conversations and by the company we kept that great losses had taken place. The only thing you can hope for is that it will never happen to your children.

I am not religious - I go to synagogue only two or three times a year. But I believe in being Jewish and doing anything I can to help. Zionism was my first love and Israel is doing fine without us. But we still want to support Israel and we give financial assistance to Israelis from Iraq, Iran and the Yemen.

Sigo and I always did what we thought best. We always tried to be decent and kind. If we could help, we could. Our friends could rely on us and we on them. We have been lucky to be able to help others - it’s a good feeling to have. If I had a message for future generations, I would say: