Helga Smékalová

“When Mum married, she converted to the Jewish faith. They thought they’d save me somehow by doing it, so in thirty-nine they had me baptised, and they both converted to Catholicism. Except it didn’t help. Looking back, I say it wasn’t a good idea, because they took me away from one group of children, and I never fell in with the second group, you could say.”

“I had my satchel, which contained a handkerchief and a slice of bread, and I went to Prague to a villa in Střešovice. They registered us there, but then they sent us off to Hagibor. There were wooden houses there, and we were supposed to stay there until the February transport to Terezín. I didn’t even have spare panties with me because we had reckoned that I was going for just the one day and that I would be back home by evening, like Mum. It was an awful shock for me.”

“Grandmother’s flat had its windows looking out into the street, so my parents were badly shaken when the Germans did their marching parades. We lived in Štefánikova Street, what’s now May Day Street, and that was one of the main thoroughfares of Olomouc. They held a big marching parade there. I can’t remember exactly when it was, but I know that we watched it happen and that my parents were badly shaken by it.”