CM: Camera's rolling.
IV: 1: Today is Friday, April 25, we are in Weiden in the Upper Palatinate, in Hotel Admira and are conducting an interview today with Helga Kinsky, who now lives in Vienna.
She was born on May 28, 1930.
Miss Kinksy, could you tell me a little about your childhood, youth and family so that we have a sense of your background.
HK: Well, as you stated, I was born in Vienna.
Uh, my father was a war invalid from the First World War.
He only had one leg.
Uh, and my parents married in a temple in 1928.
In the 15th district.
My father had a large concert cafe in the 15th district that many well-known people frequented such as Leah Tauber and many others.
Yes, and,not much later Hitler came, and in 1938 I was not allowed to go school.
And then, like every year, I spent a part of my holiday with my grandmother and aunt and their children in Kyjov, called Gaya in German, in southern Moravia.
Yes, and afterwards, my father thought it couldn't last long.
I simply had to go to a German school.
So I went to live with strangers, in a strange family and sent to the German school.
But I cried so much that I was brought back to my aunt and uncle.
And then I had to go to a Czech school, but I couldn't speak Czech, so I had to repeat a grade.
That was only a year and a half of school and then it was the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and again I wasn't allowed to go to school.
Well, I recall, I went to Brünn again, to the Jewish school but I was only there for a few months.
Because then there was the ban on Jews traveling with trains and public transporation.
And when I heard this, I quickly got permission, packed my suitcase and surprised my family with my arrival {laughing}.
Without sending anyone a message.
And then I lived for a few years in Kyjov without school, no school at all.
Romped around with other children my age.
Until we were disposed to Theresienstadt in an Zlín transport, that is the Bat'a city.
And I arrived in Theresienstadt, uh 23rd, I think it was January 23, 1943.
IV: That means, I'll just ask a few things
HK: Yes.
IV: Well, others, they need a half hour for this story {laughing}. You are fast.
So when you came to Theresienstadt, you were almost 13.
HK: Twelve and a half, two...
IV: Just about, approximately.
HK: Yes.
IV: And so in the time before this, you described a situation which early on led to your separation from your family, as a result of this persecution.
HK: Yes.
IV: How did you experience this as a child, what was happening, that you had to go away, and couldn't really go to school anywhere.
HK: Yes, I did indeed realize this...
But since I was so happy with my family in Gaya, it didn't really bother me, of course I worried about my father.
And I always wanted him to come to the Protectorate too, which he did manage to do.
Late '41 but my mother had gone to England on a domestic workers visa in March 1939 .
IV: So she had already gone into exile {unclear}?
HK: Yes, I basically didn't have a mother for eight years, I didn't see her again until '46.
IV: Uh, so what was happening, this threat from the leaders in the Third Reich, was it spoken about at home?
Or could you, you said "I was a child, I could romp around."
Or was it more that you were not that aware of the approaching danger...?
HK: I think I didn't understand the danger approaching.
But I always felt that when I was with my family I was safe.
That nothing can happen to me as long as I am with them.
IV: And I know about the discrimination, either from other classmates or other people?
So many have said that they noticed early on that people were saying things when they passed, that...
HK: No, no, that was only once for a very short time in Vienna when a gendarme or a policeman, whatever he was, who lived in our house took me by the hand and said:
"Come, Helga, we are going home," so that was just once.
Of course bombs were planted in the coffeehouse, there was that.
Um, my mother says it was in '36, I say '34, well I am not exactly sure, {laughing}, it was supposed to blow up the building but was planted badly.
So only the windows burst all around.
So there was that.
That the cafe was boycotted.
But I didn't think about the consequences.
Back then I was little, I was terribly startled by the noise.
And once a soot bomb went off in the area where people hung up their clothes in the coffeehouse so the clothes turned black and were ruined.
Of course few people dared to come to our coffeehouse.
IV: Was your home, your family, was it a traditional, religious Jewish family or was it more cosmopolitan, or how was it?
HK: It was a cosmopolitan, not a religious family because my parents had divorced.
So no real household was being kept {laughing}.
Because my father had to be downstairs in the coffeehouse.
Until late at night, until 3 o'clock in the morning.
IV: You began to say, before I interrupted you, "and then we came to Theresienstadt"
How did that take place, how did you experience it?
You said you felt protected by your family
What happened then?
HK: Well, we wrere brought to the attic of the Hamburg barracks and it was terrible, the first impression.
But someone, a cousin, was there too.
And she took me away from the attic, so that I could play with children.
So, well, I was very well looked after.
And then I was brought to a home for girls.
L 410 for Czech girls in room 28.
In the first two months I had difficulties integrating there, but as one writes {laughing} after 3 months I was totally integrated into this home.
Because some of these children knew each other from Prague.
IV: So the living conditions, also beforehand, I mean it was war, there was hardship already.
Or what did you, what were you allowed to take with you to Theresienstadt?
Well, I mean, fact is, I think most people today can't really imagine: you are sitting at home and {unclear}
HK: Uh...
IV: {unclear} There must have been orders to go on a transport or a deportation.
HK: We knew that we were going on a transport and I remember, I think we had started to pack in summer '43.
What can you fit into your luggage when you are only allowed to take 50 kilos with you.
Uh, well, my aunt baked cookies because they keep for a long time.
But I have to say, in Theresienstadt I didn't find any cookies that we had baked {laughing}
Preparations were made.
For instance, all the bed linens were dyed blue.
So that the dirt wouldn't show as quickly as on white linens.
So these things, I knew they were being prepared.
IV: And was there a sense of what was meant by Theresienstadt.
HK: Well, we didn't know whether we were going to Theresienstadt or to the east.
They said we are being transported to the east, but we didn't know what was waiting for us in the east.
IV: So you said that you were then put in a home for girls.
What were the social and living conditions like in '43 when you arrived there?
HK: Yes, we were 28 or 30 girls on about 28 square meters with three-level bunk beds.
We had a crudely constructed table.
And two crude benches, but not everyone had room there.
Uh, yes, between the rooms we had constructed something with a curtain where we could hang coats and clothes.
But there was never enough room for 30 girls.
Behind our heads there was a small storage area where we could store the suitcases that we had brought with us to Theresienstadt.
We had 3 caretakers, ours was a pianist and music teacher and two younger women helped her.
Yes, and...
IV: Your daily life,what was your daily routine like?
HK: Well, we had to wake up very early, it was strictly organized, how we aired out {laughing}. After all we only had the two windows.
For up to 30 girls.
And someone had to volunteer to go get the pot with the acorn coffee.
And if we had a piece of bread then we ate that with it.
And class was held secretly.
IV: Right in the home?
Hk: Yes, right in the home, yes.
IV: And the rest of your family, as a girl you were {unclear} in the girls' home.
HG: Uh, we were lucky at first that the rest of the famly, except for one uncle, everyone who lived together, they all stayed in Theresienstadt.
And so I wasn't scared because if my father was sick, then my aunt visited me.
So there was still a degree of cohesion.
IV: And it was possible to visit each other?
HK: That was possible, if there wasn't a curfew.
Of course if somebody escaped from Theresienstadt the punishment was usually a month-long curfew.
That meant lIghts off.
IV: For everyone?
HK: For everyone. Lights off at a certain time, no recreational activities and so.
IV: And you mentioned, you began to keep a diary at some point, didn't you?
HK: Uh, on the last day before we went away, when the apartment was already empty, my father handed me a notebook.
And said: "Keep a diary now."
So I began to...had two of these notebooks. I had the third one made into a book in Theresienstadt, for bread.
But unfortunately it got lost.
And, yes, I think I stopped writing when the many transports began in fall '44.
It happened so quickly, that all my friends and teachers disappeared and people that I knew and loved.
I didn't have the time or peace of mind to write.
IV: The living conditions in Theresienstadt, they continued to worsen.
How did you, how was that, how did you experience that?
You said that many people were leaving on transports.
How did your everyday life, .... in the beginning it sounds like, secret school, waking up, everything regulated. How did that change?
HK: Well, there were always transports, we were always saying goodbye to some girls, or to 3 or 4.
And we were very sad.
But like children are, the empty beds were filled up with other children and we quickly got accustomed to them.
Uh, we looked for a new friend to lie next to, since there wasn't a lot of space to move around in the room.
Yes, but in September, after the Red Cross and after "The Führer schenkt" film, "der Führer schenkt uns eine Stadt" that was all over.
And then there was one transport after the next.
And then there wasn't time to take a deep breath.
IV: Can you remember this film or the making of the film and how it came about?
Can you talk a bit about it?
HK: No, I remember it because our building was right next to the church on the main squaire and a lot played out just below the window.
And I recall how the appearance of the square was improved and the fences were removed by SS.
And that the SS moved out into a different building and the square was made available.
And then I remember about the film, uh how Kurt Gerron stood on the stairs in front of the church.
And gave the order for us to march.
We had to sing with shovels and rakes.
Walking by and then back again and again {laughing} and again.
And that is {?} about 2 seconds in the film.
IV: When watching the film, one can probably see you in it {unclear}
HK: I don't think so, I, I don't think so {laughing}
IV: And in addition to this propaganda, many of the witnesses with whom we have spoken here, also spoke of Theresienstadt, that there was also cultural life there.
That there was a theater, a theater group that performed, that people sang.
That there were many artists there who still, somehow there was a piano, were you aware of this cultural life?
HK: Of course I participated a lot.
Because all the rehearsals were held in the basement of L410.
From Rafael Schächter, for Verdi's Requiem, for Kiss by Smetana...
And since our main caretaker also played accompaniment on these pieces, and operas...
As long as there wasn't an orchestra, the orchestra began when the Red Cross came, to the film, we were aware of quite of bit.
And two or three children who were very talented sang in the chorus of the operas.
And then there was the big story with the Brundibar children's opera, where girls from my room sang in the main roles.
And well, I don't know who gave me the tickets, but I wrote it down in my diary, to how many concerts I went and who performed {unclear} Elias from Mendelssohn, Mozart concerts, uh...
The Creation, Gogol, Franz Savignon {?}, ballads, I saw all kinds of things.
I took that in...like a sponge {laughing}
IV: And many others were probably also in this situation {unclear}
HK: Yes, not all the girls, that is why I got the tickets so easily, but there were a few.
IV: Uh, to hear you talk, it all sounds kind of nice, not so terrible.
Uh, does that also have to do with how you experienced it, as a child, that you experienced it differently?
HK: No, I had, I ha...
IV: Or that you have gained a distance to it now...
HK: Well, the memory is always there, of how Theresienstadt looked.
The old people lying on the ground, how the people starved, how they begged: "please, a top ... take the ladel from the bottom so that some pieces float up."
Uh, somehow I lost myself in the music and the cultural scene.
And I knew the Czech composers and, and the Aust...VIennese concert pianists and a few university professors.
I had grown up with all that, and I was lucky that {laughing] my father saved everything edible for me and made me a thick soup.
So that I had regained all the weight loss after a few months.
But he lost 14, 15 kilos I think.
But it wasn't like that. I was indeed aware that my father lived in a home for invalids in the courtyard.
Uh, there were 6 in.., war invalids there, so crowded that they didn't even had a bench or table where they could sit.
So, so it wasn't that I wasn't aware of it.
I remember in the Sudenten barracks, how potato peels were thrown onto to a pile...and how the people fought to get these potato peels, I was lucky there too.
Because we had a Christian cousin.
And in the early period in Theresienstadt one could send small packages up to 2 kilos.
And she biked all over the countryside.
And all the things that we had left behind, bed linens, table cloths, and other stuff, she tried to sell them for food.
IV: And then sent it to you in packages?
HK: Yes, but later it was banned and we were only allowed to have one 20 kilo package a year.
And hardly anyone could fill that, not even those who lived in the village.
CM: Stop please.
IV: OK, one moment.
CM: The power went off.
IV: power went off, we have to {unclear}
CM: The camera has to run, too.
CM: Yes.
IV: So you just put a bit into perspective that Theresienstadt was not just a bed of roses, perhaps you could speak a bit more.
HK: Yes, only old people lay on the ground, they had nothing.
They only had these poor rations and a bit was taken away from them and given to the children.
So that the children's kitchen had more.
Since the future lay with the children and they also wanted to protect the children.
They, the children's welfare, did everything to protect these children.
And of course I saw everything, that people died, had terrible diseases.
I had encephalitis, two kinds of jaundice.
Uh, I was in the ... room for a month with an ear infection and high fever.
Well, this get forgotten after being in Auschwitz, no?
It is the positive memories of Theresienstadt that stay.
I don't know if you are familiar with Jehuda Bacon, the famous, uh, witness from Israel.
He said once in a film in which I also appeared as a witness, that if you were in Theresienstadt, you dreamed of home.
And if you were in Auschwitz, you dreamed of Theresienstadt.
IV: Beforehand we were at the point, recapitulated the moment when more and more transports were leaving.
Hk: Yes.
IV: So, You were aware of this, was there any sense of where the journey was heading, also figuratively?
Did you know what going on a transport might mean?
HK: I think everyone knew that it would not be better but where they were going, maybe a few in the elders' council knew.
But I think most of the people in Theresienstadt did not know.
My father wanted to volunteer to go.
To go on a transport with me.
And my caretaker told him not to do that, that that would be the only thing we shared,
the journey together. And Dr. Altenberg, who was in the elders' council of Jews, also discouraged him.
But how many knew? I'm sure some knew.
IV: How did things progress with you and your family?
HK: Well, the first to go, I don't know in what order, but in the end only my father and I were left and I then I left.
So the family had been gone for a while and I thought I was going to be with my family.
But that wasn't the case.
IV: And where did you go and how?
HK: Well, my transport had more than 1700 people, about 200...210 young women were selected out for the work transport.
And all the others were gassed that very same night.
IV: In Auschwitz.
HK: In Auschwitz.
IV: I don't want to torment you, but I am also here for details, to encourage you to tell more, I don't find this, uh...
HK: I know.
IV: pleasant or anything, although I am interested.
But, if you like you could tell a bit more in detail about what happened to you or what you can remember.
HK: Well, we arrived at a ramp.
I was with my friend Hana Pollak, who we called Handa, and my main caretaker.
Well, there was, we were in a closed cattle car and it was very quiet and one of us climbed over the luggage in the corner to the cattle window.
She looked out and there was nothing to see except barbed wire and searchlights.
But a few minutes later there was a huge clamor.
The doors were torn open.
"Fast, fast, out":
And I thought how are the old people going to jump down from this height.
But there was not much time to think, we had to line up in rows of five.
We wanted to take our bread bag or something else with us.
Then they said: "Fast, fast, the luggage comes later."
And then we marched in front of an SS man.
When were were there, it was those who went to the right who got to live, those to the left went to their death.
IV: Which you of course didn't know at the time.
HK: No, but that I was at an outpost to hell, that I knew.
It seemed like that because this kind of contact, we never experienced anything like this in Theresienstadt.
IV: In this severity and {unclear}
HK: In this severity.
IV: With this ruthlessness, yes.
HK: With how orders were given, the desolation, barbed wire and search lights.
And we had never had .... such close contact to the SS... walking back and forth with the...club.
We had to say our name and date of birth.
I lined up with my caretaker.
She was in one of the first transports from Prague to Theresienstadt.
And we had to line up in the order we came from Theresienstadt.
If I had lined up in back with my transport, I don't know if I would be sitting here now.
I can't say when the ..., when the 200 women were selected.
And then we were chased into a building.
Where they took everything from us.
Shaved off all our hair, that was an awful shock.
My friend who stood next to me had an hysterical fit. We didn't recognize ourselves suddenly.
And we were thrown any old clothing that didn't fit, just a big heap.
And were chased to a barrack.
IV: Your possessions were gone, you were so to speak {unclear}
HK: We had nothing.
IV: Naked, no hair and then...
HK: Naked, and then we were thrown any old clothes.
IV: {unclear}, ja.
HK: Clogs and the next morning we were chased between barbed wire.
That is when we saw what inds of people were coming out of the barracks, it was very early, everything was gray in gray.
And then we got pushed into some barrack. I don't know which one.
And had to go inside quickly.
And lie down on the bunks, again three-levels.
Where 4 were supposed to be, 8 of us lay.
Like sardines but we didn't have any mattresses, no blankets, nothing.
And that is where we had to stay and it was pitch dark.
Because these were those horse barracks, just with slits above.
And now and then we were pushed out to roll call.
There we were given some sort of acorn coffee again, stood for hours in the cold.
We allowed to go the drafty latrines, some kind of open latrine.
Where it was full of drafts.
And then we were chased back.
But we didn't have anything to eat.
And none of us knew how long we were there.
Of course it could be researched.
When we arrived.
And when we drove to Oederan, but it felt like, someone said 4 days, another 8, the next 10, because we were all in a state of shock.
IV: So that one didn't realize {unclear}, you didn't have to work, nothing, it was.
HK: No, not day and night. It was always dark.
No food, it was always dark. It was cold.
Yes, and then one...day, I think it was 5 days, we were led somewhere in a fast tempo in rows of five, were showered and bathed.
But that was much smaller.
And the, uh, clothes were taken away again.
And then we became somewhat better clothes.
And shoes that were too big for me, and knee-high socks that didn't stay, that slipped down.
But I had a vest, but no undergarments.
No one had undergarments.
And again we stood all day in the cold but there was sunny.
And in the evening we were chased into these cattle cars in the dark.
And we feared losing our group.
Because there were different trains.
That were filled at the same time to depart as work transports.
Uh, we were allowed to grab a piece of bread from the side quickly.
And some Mettwurst.
And I considered whether I dared to take it and not lose my people in the dark.
And I did it {laughing}, yes.
IV: And that was basically the first time in days that you...
HK: Yes {unclear}.
IV: received real food.
HK: I don't know whether it agreed with me, but I was very young and could bear quite a bit.
Yes, then we were on locked into a cattle car.
And a soldier was with us as guard.
There was a bucket next to him.
For our needs.
And that is how we traveled to Oederan.
IV: Uh, could you tell when that was, around, which month.
HK: Late October, around, we arrived around October 28, October 27.
IV: And when you were sitting in this cattle car, you probably didn't know where it was headed.
HK: No...yes.
IV: Just fast, fast go, however and...
HK: Even though some of the older ones dared to uh have contact to these soldiers.
I, as a child, was a ...insignificant part {laughing} of the group, I wouldn't have dared and no one would have taken notice of me.
We were only told we were several young people, we were registered in the barracks by a female SS clerk.
And when we stated our age, she said. "none of you can be born after '26"
And I saw that on the list from Flossenbürg and I saw the mistake again today but a whole heap of us were younger, but that would have prevented us from getting into a work transport.
That's why it is written everywhere in Flossenbürg born in 1926 {laughing}
But there were '31 among us, and '30 like me. There were lots of young people.
IV: And then the train departed at some point...
HK: It departed at night. I only know that we arrived early in the morning, around 8 o'clock.
At the station in Oederan we marched to the camp, again in rows of five.
That was behind the factory.
Uh, that was originally a twine factory.
Now it is the Agricola.
AGH or whatever it's called.
There was a big camp in back.
And they had set it up for, for the workers.
IV: As housing?
HK: Yes, and again there were three-level bunk beds.
And the mattresses were made of crepe paper.
But at least they were new.
And very thin blankets.
And two of us had to share a bunk.
Uh, but we were lucky that it was warm, because some ran pipes ran through, I think they brought heat to the Italians.
who were housed in the next house.
IV: And then you probably had to work?
HK: Yes, in a...
IV: {unclear} go ahead a take a sip {unclear}...
HK: In a munitions factory.
IV: The next day or immediately or {unclear}?
HK: No, no, there were still the machines {unclear}
We were so scared, these adults, me again, I was too dumb.
Uh, that we would be sent back...to Auschwitz.
Because the machines weren't there.
But then they arrived and then we worked in the factory.
It was a munitions factory.
I think it was casing for machine guns, but I'm not so sure what it was.
IV: What was the atmosphere like, compared to those few days in Auschwitz... from the guards to the food, sanitary conditions?
HK: It was a relief, of course. Uh, 300 women were already there.
In the beginning the food was bettern than in Theresienstadt but that was just a few days.
Until the SS from Auschwitz arrived, in the beginning we had a local SS:
Young girls who had wanted to become nurses, but then had to become SS women at the end of the war.
They had not been in an camp before this.
And the cooks were civilian cooks.
And that changed abruptly when the SS personnel from Auschwitz arrived.
But yes, we also froze there and we were very hungry there.
But compared to Auschwitz it was still different.
We had the feeling there that we could survive if we stayed there.
IV: So at that time you were already aware that it was about survival {unclear}
HK: Yes, yes, of course we were aware of that already in Auschwitz, that we only survived through the work transports, when we get into them.
IV: uh, how did things develop in Oederan, your time there?
HK: Yes, we worked night shifts, day shifts, and otherwise we lay in bed.
Or we talked to each other, we couldn't go anywhere.
Sometime we had to stand for roll call.
In the cold too, but it was not as bad as in Auschwitz.
Uh, we had only the same set of clothes for 6 months. I no longer remember how I washed them.
There were no undergarments.
We lost a lot of weight, but we held on to the idea that ... the war couldn't last much longer.
The airplanes flew over us, the ones that bombed Dresden.
Which we didn't mind, we were pleased.
Even if a bomb were to fall on us, but...
IV: But you had the thought that the war could be over soon.
And that you could be rescued then {unclear}.
HK: We could be rescued, but even if we got killed, as long as the German got killed, we would have accepted that too {laughing}.
IV: And how long, you said it was the airplanes that bombed Dresden, that was shortly before the end of the war.
HK: Yes, yes.
IV: What happened then?
HK: Well.
IV: DId the mood change, and the contact to the SS or was it even possible to work, was there {unclear}?
HK: We worked, worked long, uh I think until the end, but you'd have to asked someone else.
But I think we worked up to the end.
There was less and less food of course.
Until it was just a clear soup.
Yes, and then...we knew then that the army was getting closer, that the end was near and then unfortunately we had to get on a transport.
Again, as always, in rows of five and this time were about 70in an open cattle car.
We couldn't sit, nothing, we could only stand.
Nothing to eat, nothing.
And an old man was locked in with us again, as a guard in a military uniform.
He railed against the SS the same way {laughing}.
Uh, he didn't have any news from his family.
Didn't know where they were.
And he had only gotten old bread, too.
Some marmelade.
While some SS men's rail car had been hitched to us {laughing} and the SS women and the SS men were celebrating together, with sparkling wine.
And jive.
And I didn't know what jive is.
And when I got to England in '46, the first thing I wanted..when I went shopping with my mother, I wanted jive.
Because I had no idea what it was.
IV: So the camp and the factories were evacuated, also the...
HK: Yes.
IV: All the SS had {unclear}
HK: All of them, yes.
IV: Withdrawn.
HK: Yes, we didn't know where to.
With us, because nothing was moving on the tracks.
I think they had wanted to go to Ravensbrück but nothing was moving anymore.
And we just stood in one place or were moved back and forth.
For about 8 days.
And then we were in, I think it was Sudentenland and some of the adults came from Sudetenland.
And they recognized it and said, the camp eldest, who represented us, she was supposed to tell the SS that Theresienstadt was close by.
And she can be rid of us.
And she agreed to this.
And we got out in Leitmeritz and walked to Theresienstadt and
IV: Unguarded, just well, well...
HK: Yes, one woman went crazy right when we were walking through Leitmeritz.
We made a large circle around her, because we still had some pride.
And started to sing Czech national songs.
But on the pavement there were still women with swastikas.
Well, and then we arrived at the Balken, in Theresienstadt.
And people were already standing there.
They were looking to see who was coming.
And the SS wasn't allowed in.
And for some funny reason the Sturmbannführerin {SS woman} said goodbye to me {laughing}.
And wished me all the best.
And that I should not remember.. her badly.
Yes, and Ella walked in.
Ella saw me first.
She had played the main role in Brundibar, had always sung the cat.
And she turned around and walked to my father.
"Helga is there, Helga is there"
Yes, but I couldn't go to my father.
Because in the meantime so many sick transports had arrived and spotted fever had come to Theresienstadt.
And we had to go into quarantine.
But somehow in the back of my head I remember that I was ...with my father once and that he had burned the clothes.
Because they were totally filthy because we had been in open cattle cars.
And there was smoke and I had never washed it before.
And on the back was written a large KL, concentration camp.
With my number.
Yes, I was in quarantine there.
And then, the Red Cross took over Theresienstadt.
But some of the SS were also still there.
Then the SS left, but the Red Cross left soon too.
Because the Russians were approaching and they didin't recognize the International Red Cross.
So the actual liberation came with the Russians.
But the whole time the mood there was, it was really chaos there because...
IV: Disorganization, too...
HK: Disorganization, also because so many transports had arrived.
Uh, suddenly the French there and such a babble of languages that there had never been before.
Yes, and the day, I describe...not me, I think my father writes a letter to my mother, that we had spent it together.
And I had already rim away from the quarantine, when the turmoil began.
The quarantine was outside {emphasis} of Theresienstadt in the barracks.
That had been built originally for the recuperating soldiers, Germans.
So I ran away from there to my father.
But exactly what happened in all that chaos {laughing} I no longer know.
IV: So your father and Edda had been in Theresienstadt the whole time?
HK: Yes.
IV: The whole time that you were in Auschwitz and in Oederan.
HK: Yes, yes.
IV: OK: so the memory of that day is, because of all the chaos...what happened next?
So then suddenly, it's a bit strange, suddenly you are free...
HK: Yes, it wasn't like that...my father, who only had one leg, could move as freely as the others.
And he wanted to wait until things had calmed down a bit.
Until an official transport left for Brünn.
Yes, and in the meantime, my cousin, the one who had sent the packages, had managed to get all the way from southern Moravia to Theresienstadt.
On Russian military vehicles, she took all kinds of risk, just to reach us.
And by then I had registered us for a transport to Brünn, because I had seen a bug on my polster.
And i thought it was a louse {laughing}.
And then I said: "I have managed to stay alive up til now
I don't want to catch spotted fever. I want to get out of Theresienstadt."
And we, she was, I think, just one or two days in Theresienstadt and we went back to Kijow, where we had come from.
And we waited there for relatives.
Because there were also young relatives.
But after about two months only one cousin had returned.
Uh, all the others were dead.
Sixty members of the family did not return.
Then I took an acceptance exam for Gymnasium {high school}.
But my mother was trying to get me to come to England.
And in March '46 I flew with a military airplane, I don't know anymore whether it was the British Army or Czech Army, to England.
I only had a permit for 3 months.
But since I was a minor, I was able to stay there.
IV: And your father?
HK: My father stayed in Czechoslovakia until '48.
And then he came to Vienna.
IV: Since your parents were already divorced, there was no plan to reunite?
HK: Yes, my father didn't know languages, He didn't want to go anywhere else.
Yes certainly...losing me was very painful for him but I didn't think about those things.
Loss was something I was used too.
And I always wanted to be with my mother and I had probably become egoistic inside.
IV: But I think when it is always about survival, it can't be called egoistic.
You also have to make sure that you manage in the future.
I think your father probably also felt that you'd be better off with your mother.
HK: Yes, he did.
IV: And that for the future too {unclear}
HK: Yes, he certainly did because Vienna was occupied and bombed and nothing was returned to him and so we didn't have anything, nothing.
In England I was given a stipend for school and of course I had to learn English.
And then I completed my school leaving certificate.
And then I went to college for a year but my mother didn't have any money so I began working.
And I thought I would complete my studies later, and work part-time.
The director at my school had promised that, too.
But I had gotten married in the meantime.
To a German refugee, from East Prussia.
IV: Yes.
HK: He had come to Ethiopia as a young boy and went to Bangkok and in Bangkok he was employed by an international company.
And marriage brought me to Bangkok.
IV: That sounds good {unclear} when one doesn't know everything about your past, when you know little about someone.
Because that is exciting [laughing}
HK: Yes, then I...
IV: their life stories...
HK: I had a daughter in Bangkok.
Then he was transferred to Sierra Leone, which was called the death of the white man {laughing}.
He went there but he didn't expect me to live there
And so we went to Ethiopia where his brother had also fled.
But not until '39, by chance, help that my husband had organized through a Nazi journalist.
And he was also able to rescue his parents that way.
But he had meanwhile been expelled by the Italiens as an anti-fascist.
And so he went to Bangkok {laughing} and we returned to Ethiopia.
Because he had resigned and his mother and brother were there.
And that is where my son was born.
IV: How did you manage to deal with your past experiences?
Well, it is always a part of of you, there are the kind of persons where afterwards there is a break {unclear}
HK: There was a break.
IV: The previous witness who was here fell into amnesia, he couldn't remember anything for 6 years.
And some people practice a healthy process of repression. They say:" just don't think about it" and start a new life.
And the rest stays there.
You were relatively young, not really a child anymore, but a youth.
HK: Hmm.
IV: And when you were in England, it still affected you.
And your mother must have wanted to know what happened.
HK: No, we never spoke about it.
It wasn't until later that I began, I had difficulties coming to Austria.
But I had to go somewhere because my daughter was born deaf and there was no way to teach her the language in Ethiopia.
At first we wanted to go to England.
But my husband had a German passport.
And there were problems, although his company had promised to take him back..
And then in the end there was only the choice from his company: Germany and Austria.
And we chose Austria.
Because we found a good teacher for the deaf.
And because my father was there.
And I wasn't happy about it.
I wanted to go to Australia.
Or Canada, just far away from Europe.
And definitely not to Austria.
And for a long time I only spoke English with my husband. I didn't have any friends, was secluded.
And I wasn't really happy in Austria until '68.
We bought a little house there, a townhouse.
And my neighbors were very open.
And I became friends with them.
One was a half-Jew, but had concealed it.
She was the sister of Johannes Marius Simmel.
And he did not conceal it {laughing}.
And on the other side was a very liberal Catholic.
Who founded the "We are church in Austria."
And I worked through the past a lot with her, but my children say they alway knew {laughter}
So I'm not sure.
Eighty...sometime at the end of the 80s or early 90s I participated in a film in America as a witness.
And then I worked through the past a lot in the film.
IV: And before that with the family, even with your children, was it...
HK: spoken about directly.
IV: Not addressed.
HK: No, but they say they knew everything.
I don't really know how it happened.
Whether they really knew and only think that they knew it from the film.
And then imagined they knew everything because they started reading books.
I can't say whether they imagined it or I did.
IV: But they, your children, they never asked you directy.
What was then {unclear}?
HK: Asked very little.
But three days ago I gave a reading in Vienna at the EU and I saw that my son had shed a few tears there.
He is a man, in his fifties, a pediatrician, I wouldn't have expected that.
That he is so moved, I was reading from my journal.
I wasn't reading. A young girl read.
IV: Read from your...?
HK: Read and the head of the EU office read the father and narrator and I answered questions.
IV: Do you know what moved you to face it so much later.
Between not talking about it at all and suddenly going public with a film, that is a big step.
HK: Yes, that was the first step, but not taken as a witness.
Then I made a second film.
It is called "Voices of the Children."
It is based around that fact that we were only three children who kept a diary.
It won a prize in America.
And then somehow Ella brought Hannelore Brenner-Wonschik to Prague where we all met.
And then we, who had met for a long time from Room 128, we wanted to write a book about the girls who didn't survive.
And who were our friends, but how should we do this?
And then Ella brought this journalist and the first book came out in 2004, and I have been a witness ever since.
IV: You had already been to Oederan, I know that you were interviewed there.
What was it like for you to return to this site? You were probably in Auschwitz too?
HK: No, I will never go to Auschwitz.
I was asked to go this year in January.
With President Fischer from Austria.
The Austrian ambassador in Poland even called me twice.
I won't go.
And now Mr. Either who often led the Austrian delegation, asked me to go with the youth. I won't go.
IV: But you did go to Oederan?
HK: Yes, to Oederan...
IV: What was it like for you go go there?
HK: It was suddenly a small Saxon vacation town that I had never seen.
I had never seen it.
Really, all I had seen was the factory.
And through the courtyard to the camp...and what one could see of the camp, out the window, a few houses.
I was quite surprised.
I didn't want to go there alone.
I didn't go very early, like the other witnesses. I came later.
Alone with Ms. Brenner-Wonschik.
I wouldn't have gone otherwise, but I was very surprised by the friendly welcome from the people involved with it.
And the year before, for my birthday, many of them came to visit me in Vienna {laughing}.
And someone else was there and on Sunday others are coming, so my memories of Oederan are not so terrible.
Besides, we were at the camp, but it all looks so different
It is not recognizable.
The director from the factory, whicch again makes ...
IV: Twine or {unclear}
HK: produces twine, he even brought the plans from the architects who had built it but I wasn't able to reconstruct it from them.
I knew exactly where everything had been.
But you can't see that today.
Those are huge machines and the stairs are torn off.
And there is no upper level.
There is nothing left.
Not even an immediate memory, no.
IV: No {unclear} memory, so no...
And why did you decide this now. You are here for the first time, I believe.
HK: Yes, for the first...
IV: Why did you come now?
And what is your impression now?
HK: Well, I thought it is the 70th anniversary of the end of the war.
And if I don't come now I will probably never come {laughing}.
And so I decided and since my granddaughter said she would accompany me, I said yes.
IV: And you are meeting people here who you...?
HK: Also Handa, who was with me the whole time, in the children's home, in Auschwitz with me, and [emphasis} Oederan and the death transport back to Theresienstadt, I was happy to see her again.
SInce we may never meet again in our lifetime.
IV: And this is now a memorial site, also a former camp that you never knew.
What impact does that have on you now, I mean, it is not a walk in the park.
Even for someone born afterwards, who visits a concentration camp.
HK: No, a walk in the park it is not, because I knew who was hanged here, Bonhoeffer and the Canaris and this whole group.
So really for me it was a hommage to Bonhöffer.
Although I am a Jew {laughing}.
Because I did a reading in Wuppertal where the first free church, or whatever it is called, had turned away from
the Protestants, who...
IV: who cooperated with HItler.
HK: Cooperated and so it was important to me.
And since this university professor, who was my neighbor, who died three years ago.
He had requested the famous song: "in you..." how does it go, "sheltered" be played on his death day.
IV: From Loving Forces {unverständlich}.
HK: So somehow it was important to me.
IV: I would like to thank you for this talk.
HK: You are welcome.
IV: I thought it was nice, if you can call it that. That sounds dumb.
But the talk was nice. The experiences are sad.
HK: Yes.
IV: But, thank you.
HK: You are welcome.
IV: And, yes, I had that feeling....