The Girls of Room 28

by Hannelore Brenner

Eva Landa tried to get tickets for as many performances of Brundibár as she possibly could. Although she was still sorry that she had not been chosen to play one of the schoolchildren, and although she envied her close friends—especially Ela, Maria, Flaška, and Handa—because they were part of the ensemble, she was still happy just to sit in the audience in the Magdeburg Barracks alongside one of her girlfriends or her boyfriend, Harry.

  By now she knew every scene and every song, as well as many of the actors and musicians. The moment the first measures of the opening song rang out, the boundaries between her and the brother and sister on the stage fell away, and Eva lost herself in the performance as if in a wonderful, recurring dream. She eagerly awaited the lullaby, which sounded as if it was being sung by angels. “Maminka kolíbá, détátko houpy, hou, myslí si co bude, až děti vyrostou.” (“Mama rocks the cradle and thinks, my, my, what will become of the children when they are grown?”) It always grew very quiet in the audience, everyone holding their breath in expectation. “Každý kos ze hnízda jedenkrát vylétá.” (“Every bird will one day fly from the nest. Must leave, not knowing why, and fly out into the world.”)

  “For me it’s one of the most beautiful songs,” Eva says today. “It’s about saying goodbye to childhood—and that had a very deep meaning for us back then. We were twelve, thirteen years old, and our childhood was coming to an end. We were facing the adult world, the world of bakers, ice-cream vendors, policemen, and Brundibárs. And the better world, the world of the children, defeated the adults and Brundibár, who underestimated us. During the time that we were caught up in the opera, we firmly believed in our victory.”

  Why should what was happening in the real world be any different from what was happening onstage, where a dramatic example of the united strength of children and animals—a dog, a cat, and a sparrow— was played out before their very eyes? Why shouldn’t everything turn out all right? “Panta rhei” (“Everything flows”), Eva Weiss had written on one of the motto cards she hung on the wall of Room 28, and now the choir of schoolchildren was singing the lullaby’s refrain: “Roste strom, teče proud, plyne cas mraky jdou.” (“The tree grows, the river flows, time flows, clouds pass. Year after year, step by step.”)

  On the stage, the visitors to the market are tossing coin after coin into Pepíček’s cap. He happily shows them to his sister, Aninka. Then suddenly Brundibár appears, snatches the cap from the boy’s hand, and runs away—along with all the money! “Children, children, catch the thief!” Pepíček cries, and the entire chorus of schoolchildren chases after Brundibár.

  The hunt begins. Because Brundibár represents the evil that has brought misery into the lives of the children, because they see him as Hitler, as his Nazis, and as all the hangers-on and supporters of his dictatorial regime, they pursue him with furious determination. The wellspring of sudden energy that fuels their common cause against Brundibár seems inexhaustible. It is an energy that flows from all sides—from the audience, from the musicians in the orchestra, from the very streets and barracks of Theresienstadt, and, of course, from the hearts of the performing children. All these energies are united to strike a single blow against the evil organ-grinder. The children finally catch up with Brundibár, who flings the cap away and flees. “Brundibár poražen!” (“We have defeated Brundibár!”) cry one and all. He is defeated by the children and their friends—the dog, the cat, and the sparrow. Good has triumphed over evil.

  It was like a fairy tale, yet for the moment this was reality. It was a vision of the future transported to the stage, borne up by the principle of hope and belief in the victory over Hitler. “When at the end we all sang ‘Brundibár poražen,’ we firmly believed in ourselves and in our victory,” Eva says. “At that moment we looked optimistically into the future.”

  Tuesday, September 28, 1943

  Ela is going with Honza (from Home 9, he used to go with Lenka). Every evening she tells me about their rendezvous. My last thoughts here in Theresienstadt are about boys. At home they had been my first thoughts—for the simple reason that after 1941 I was no longer able to attend school and I had little opportunity to find a girlfriend. And so I made friends with boys. I had a lot of free time and was bored. Here, things are different. Every noon and every evening I go visit Papa for a while, and I have to spend the rest of my time in the Home, even when there are no classes. When we have a free day I use the time for drawing. When would I go out with boys?

  Soon it will be Rosh Hashanah. We’re going to have a celebration.

  Rosh Hashanah, the two-day observance of the Jewish New Year, was approaching, and the counselors made every effort to create an atmosphere of contemplation and introspection appropriate to the holiday. According to Jewish tradition, it is time when the books containing the deeds of all humanity are opened and the fate of each person is determined for the coming year. This is why people place special emphasis on the wishes and dreams they hope will be fulfilled. “May you be inscribed for a good year,” or simply “Shanah tovah” (“A good year”), was the greeting on everyone’s lips.

  Of course, it was impossible to celebrate Rosh Hashanah in Theresienstadt in the traditional fashion. There were neither apples nor honey to dip them in. There was no fish, whose head meat is customarily eaten (the literal translation of rosh is “head”), because just as we are directed by our heads, we pray that the good fate set down for us on Rosh Hashanah will direct our actions for the entire year. And there was no “new fruit” over which to say the traditional blessing of thankfulness for having been kept alive and healthy so that we can celebrate the holiday.

  Yet most of the girls did not miss these rituals. Until now they had never known them. Like Helga, Ela, and Handa, they came from assimilated families. It was not unusual for their homes to be decorated with Christmas trees in December. Handa recalls just such a moment—it was right after their flight from Olbramovice. She was living with her aunt in Prague. Christmas Eve was drawing ever closer, and there was still no Christmas tree in the house. Finally she grew very nervous and asked her aunt about it. “My aunt pointed to the Hanukkah candles and said, ‘That is our Christmas tree.’ And I was very disappointed. I didn’t even know that there was such a holiday.”

  In 1943 Professor Israel Kestenberg wrote about the goals of the Youth Welfare Office at Theresienstadt, pointing out that it was everyone’s duty to familiarize himself or herself with Jewish traditions and customs. “This is a prerequisite for any connection with a Jewish community. To celebrate the Sabbath and the High Holy Days, to behave in synagogue in traditional fashion, is a basic requirement for Jewish communal life. It is especially important to learn about our people’s past. Only in this way can our young people learn to value our nation, which has always been prepared to sacrifice like no other.”4

  Flaška and Lenka did their part in helping to prepare for the feast in Room 28. They wrote a comedy about two old maids titled Amalka and Posinka and presented it as a prelude to Rosh Hashanah. The performance was a great success. They subsequently presented Amalka and Posinka with new variations and sequels, sometimes in other rooms of the Girls’ Home.

  AMALKA AND POSINKA

  Two old maids are sitting on a bench fast asleep. They are dressed in very funny clothes. One has a stocking on her head.

  Posinka (suddenly wakes up): Amalka!

  Amalka: What is it, Posinka?

  Posinka: It will soon be Rosh Hashanah. Shouldn’t we buy something good to eat?

  Amalka: A goose?

  Posinka: That’s too expensive!

  Amalka: A pig?

  Posinka: That’s not kosher!

  Amalka and Posinka together: Let’s buy a turkey!

  Amalka and Posinka go off to buy a turkey and soon return with one. They tug it in by the wings and pluck all its feathers. Suddenly the turkey comes to life—but alas, without feathers! And since it’s so cold, the turkey starts to shiver. So Amalka and Posinka decide to knit it a sweater. They knit and knit, and keep tr
ying the sweater on the turkey, and finally pull it down over it.

  All of a sudden, someone comes bounding in and calls out:

  “All Jews have to hand over their warm winter clothes!”

  (There was, as Eva Landa recalls, always applause and laughter at this point.)

  Amalka and Posinka take the turkey with them to the Council of Elders and ask for permission to let the turkey keep its warm sweater. They negotiate with the chief elder. Finally Amalka says to him: “You have hair on your body. But our turkey doesn’t have a single feather!” And the chief elder takes pity on the turkey and allows the two women to keep the sweater.

  Very happy now, Amalka and Posinka return home, pulling the turkey by the wings and shouting: Long live Poppi—our turkey!

  In another version, Amalka has false teeth that she keeps in a glass of water overnight. One night she wakes up thirsty and drinks the water, and her false teeth with it. This gives her a terrible tummy ache, and she goes to the doctor (played by Zajíček), who prescribes a laxative for her and says, “Take Darmol now; you’ll soon feel—wow!” Amalka takes the medicine and suddenly her false teeth drop into her chamber pot. Still half asleep, she picks them out, puts them in her mouth, and scrunches her face into a grimace.

  At this point everyone laughed again, as did Amalka, who shook so hard that her false teeth fell out again.

  Helga’s diary continues:

  Thursday, September 30, 1943

  Yesterday evening was so beautiful! I’ll never forget it as long as I live. We had the most beautifully decorated room. Since we don’t have a chandelier, we wove a wreath of green leaves, red berries, and colored ribbons around the lamp. Our flag, which we hung on the closet, was decorated with wildflowers, and the large table was covered with a tablecloth, and was then set with wonderfully prepared food. We had three sandwiches, each one different, and after that a pudding with a delightful topping. There were candles in the middle of the table. We all wore white blouses and dark blue skirts. First we sang, then Tella spoke about the past year, about all the good things we experienced, and the sad things, too. But the happy moments out-weighed the sad, and as a way of promising that we will never forget the good things or our ideals, we sang our hymn. Frau Mühlstein lit the candles and said the brachah. And then we had our blow-out banquet.

  I thought: I really should hug Tella. She was so beautiful and winning, and far more radiant than usual. But it wasn’t that I was surprised by Tella—she was simply happy to see what she had made of us.

  On today of all days, we had to learn that Walter Deutsch had escaped from Theresienstadt two weeks earlier, only to be caught and sent to a concentration camp. What was that crazy boy thinking? It’s not so awful here. His parents are in Poland, and he’s twenty-three. But even worse is that we learned from a postcard sent by Frau Korschil that Walter Pollak and his wife died on January 27, 1943. Our whole family figures it happened like this: Walter left Theresienstadt along with Uncle Karl on January 26, 1943. On the 27th they were still en route, or might just have arrived at their destination. It definitely wasn’t suicide. That’s just not like them. So we think that maybe they were too old to do hard labor and so were murdered. We have no news from Uncle Karl, and we’re afraid he has met the same fate as the Pollaks.

  The escapee Walter Deutsch was a distant relative of Helga’s, the son of Gustav Deutsch from Prostejov, who was her father’s cousin. Why had he risked fleeing? What was happening to him now in the concentration camp? And why had Walter Pollak and his wife died under such mysterious circumstances as soon as they had left Theresienstadt?

  Hardly a day passed that was not darkened by such questions, by upsetting news and events. As always, the counselors tried to shield their wards from such daily horrors. But too much was happening, and they had reached the limits of their ability to cope with it all; they were often at their wit’s end.

  This atmosphere also affected relations among the counselors. Especially in the Girls’ Home, the antagonism between Communist and Zionist counselors became heated. Moreover, the building itself was in a desolate state. The plaster was peeling from the walls and ceiling. The beds were falling apart, the toilets were often clogged, and the doors and windows no longer closed properly.

  These poor conditions had to be tackled, and the leadership of the Girls’ Home reinforced. Gonda Redlich, the head of the Youth Welfare Office, decided that an energetic and prudent man should share the leadership role with Rosa Engländer. He gave the position to Willy Groag and entrusted him with the task of “bringing a breath of fresh air to the Girls’ Home.”

  Willy Groag, a handsome young man, was born in Olomouc on August 7, 1914, to assimilated Jews who were passionate monarchists, a sentiment that couldn’t help but creep onto their son’s birth certificate: Wilhelm Franz Mordechai Groag. “Wilhelm, in honor of Kaiser Wilhelm,” he liked to emphasize, “Franz, in honor of Kaiser Franz Josef, and, just so that something of the Jewish tradition remained, Mordechai, in honor of my grandfather Markus Mordechai Groag.”

  Willy Groag had a doctorate in chemistry, and ever since 1938, when Gonda Redlich had recommended he read Heinrich Graetz’s eleven-volume History of the Jews from the Earliest Period to the Present, he had been a committed Zionist and educator for Hachsharah. From 1939 to 1942 he had been the head of the Prague branch of Maccabi Hatza’ir, a Zionist youth organization, and had taught chemistry, physics, mathematics, and drawing at the Youth Aliyah School, the Jewish middle school. Many of the children already knew this pleasant blue-eyed young man from their days in Prague.

  Once appointed to his new position in the Girls’ Home, Willy Groag lost no time in ordering remedial measures. Craftsmen were organized and the worst damages repaired. The young woman who was in charge of bread rations in the Provisions Office was relieved of her post on grounds of having “provided for her own stomach,” and was replaced by another woman. Several counselors, and even several children, changed Homes.

  But otherwise everything remained as it had been. Frau Roubiček, who was in charge of the registry lists, continued on in her office in L 410, right next to the main entrance, keeping a meticulous record in a large thick book of the daily count of residents of the Girls’ Home. In the infirmary, pediatricians Dr. Stern and Dr. Fischer worked alongside social worker Margit Mühlstein and nurses Eliska Klein and Ilse Landa to take care of the sick children. And Frau Salus, who was in charge of toilets, was still sitting outside the washroom, her basin of Lysol and a fine-tooth comb always handy, keeping a constant watchful eye on the girls’ hair in order to make sure that she didn’t miss a single louse. She also tried her hand at writing poetry.

  “That’s how it is here,” Helga wrote in her diary on October 2, 1943, “a poem for a piece of bread. One of the women in charge of the toilets writes poetry while sitting just outside the door. I asked her if she wouldn’t like to write one for me. She did so, but the next day she demanded I pay her for it with a slice of bread.”

  Such dealings were not appropriate for the Home, and presumably Willy Groag knew nothing about them. Had he been aware of what was going on, he would have intervened. Willy Groag and Rosa Engländer ran a tight but friendly ship. One of Willy’s easier tasks was making the evening rounds of the Home, casting a glance into each room to make sure no one was missing. There was trouble in store for anyone who was not there. Another escapee like Walter Deutsch would have been a catastrophe. To be sure, there was little danger of that in the Girls’ Home, but there were plenty of prohibitions, restrictions, and regulations that had to be observed, and if they were not, the result could be severe punishment, either by the Ghetto Court or, worse, by the SS itself.

  And so the children had to pay close attention to both daily orders and the General Order of the Jewish Self-Administration, including the rules for behavior on the street. They also had to be strictly reminded that:

  blackout regulations and times must be observed;

  open windows must be hooked a
nd closed during strong winds;

  it is forbidden to walk on the ramparts or on the grass;

  any unauthorized departure from the ghetto will be regarded as an attempt to escape, in which case the police are empowered to make use of their weapons;

  children, whether in groups or marching in ranks, are to use the street pavement and not the sidewalk;

  it is forbidden to enter streets, squares, or parks that are barricaded, or to jaywalk; streets may be crossed only at corners or intersections;

  it is strictly forbidden to make loud noise;

  corridors, courtyards, and streets are to be kept absolutely tidy, and no paper or garbage is to be tossed aside or left lying around; likewise any spitting on the street, in courtyards, or in corridors is strictly forbidden;

  everyone must be inside the Home at designated times and must observe nighttime quiet hours.

  Friday, October 8, 1943

  I would like to aim for greater self-control. I am going to fast all day tomorrow.

  Sunday, October 10, 1943

  I held out until a quarter to six. There was no unpleasant sensation in my stomach, no hunger, just a bad headache in the evening. Then I ate so much it made me sick. I wanted to freshen up, so I went for a bath in the Hohenelbe Barracks. Ela came along; we went together using one permission card.—Every young person in Theresienstadt had to write an essay. It was a competition.

  Friday, October 15, 1943

  Lea weighs 24 lbs 8 oz. Mimi is ill and is in the hospital at Hohenelbe Barracks. In the same room is a woman who tried to escape from Theresienstadt. She was caught and thrown into prison. While she was there she found several two-inch nails, smeared them with margarine, and swallowed a few. She was trying to commit suicide. They operated on her stomach. Papa says she’s not in her right mind. He could tell from her eyes. How strange that I don’t see it.