– which was big enough for her school atlas.
Stanislav Kauder, who was forty-seven when Anka was born, was ‘an unbeliever’ and a committed Czech. He did not agree with the concept of Zionism and was intensely patriotic. Jewish by birth, the family was not at all observant and considered themselves freethinkers. ‘I was brought up without any religion whatsoever,’ Anka said. ‘I went to school in a very small place where there were Jewish children and a Jewish teacher came sporadically to teach us about history, but I never learned how to read Hebrew and in my parents’ house kosher wasn’t kept.’ In defiance of tradition, the family frequently enjoyed the Czech national dish – roast pork with sauerkraut and dumplings – even on the Sabbath. And Anka’s brother Tonda once ruined his chances of marrying an eligible young Jewess by lighting his cigarette from the family menorah as her parents looked on, appalled.
Stanislav loved his children but was a self-contained man who rarely spoke to them. As was the custom, he let his wife take charge of the children’s upbringing. He adored his wife, whom Anka described as ‘an angel’. Ida Kauderová was slightly more observant than her husband and was driven ten miles to the synagogue in Hradec Králové on the highest Jewish holidays. It was, however, more out of ‘piety for her parents’ and to please her large family – she was one of twelve children. The best part, she always said, was to go to the local Grand Hotel afterwards with one of her sisters for coffee and cake. And she never forced her religion on her children.
‘We happened to be Jewish and that was that,’ said Anka. ‘It didn’t hinder me in any respect.’
There were only a handful of Jewish families in Třebechovice but she experienced no anti-Semitism amongst her friends and could do pretty much as she pleased.
As the political situation in Europe began to worsen, those around Anka became increasingly nervous. When her German-speaking mother heard Adolf Hitler’s inflammatory speeches on the radio, the normally optimistic woman became overwhelmed with fear and insisted to any who’d listen that no good would come of him.
Like so many of her friends, though, Anka was blasé almost to the point of ignorance and felt that they lived too far away to be directly affected by Nazi ideology. ‘We never thought anything would happen to us. We felt invincible,’ she said. She was the first of her family to go to university, something that made her parents very proud, especially her mother Ida, who was bilingual and a frustrated academic especially fascinated by history.
Anka couldn’t wait to move to Prague, which was two hours away by train. It was a city she knew well, as she would stay there as often as possible with her aunt Frieda, a milliner who had an apartment on Wenceslas Square. Whilst studying at Charles University, Anka lived there too.
Even after she moved to the city in 1936, she continued to remain largely immune to growing concerns about Hitler. Funded by an allowance from her father, she was on holiday skiing in the Austrian Tyrol with friends in March 1938 when the Anschluss happened. Overnight, Austria was in the hands of the Nazis and Czechoslovakia was surrounded. Red flags bearing Hakenkreuze or swastikas appeared on the streets of Salzburg, and Anka watched in amazement as Austrians greeted Hitler as a hero while the country’s Jews became outcasts. This first direct contact with the Nazis was ‘something that we couldn’t grasp’. She added that although she personally didn’t see any attacks on Jews, ‘it was in the air somehow’.
Still, she didn’t think that the German Chancellor with the funny moustache (whose birthday she happened to share) would directly affect her gilded life. Only when her first serious boyfriend, Leo Wildman, announced that he’d decided to move to England to join the British Army did she begin to reconsider. Leo’s father had
Stanislav Kauder, who was forty-seven when Anka was born, was ‘an unbeliever’ and a committed Czech. He did not agree with the concept of Zionism and was intensely patriotic. Jewish by birth, the family was not at all observant and considered themselves freethinkers. ‘I was brought up without any religion whatsoever,’ Anka said. ‘I went to school in a very small place where there were Jewish children and a Jewish teacher came sporadically to teach us about history, but I never learned how to read Hebrew and in my parents’ house kosher wasn’t kept.’ In defiance of tradition, the family frequently enjoyed the Czech national dish – roast pork with sauerkraut and dumplings – even on the Sabbath. And Anka’s brother Tonda once ruined his chances of marrying an eligible young Jewess by lighting his cigarette from the family menorah as her parents looked on, appalled.
Stanislav loved his children but was a self-contained man who rarely spoke to them. As was the custom, he let his wife take charge of the children’s upbringing. He adored his wife, whom Anka described as ‘an angel’. Ida Kauderová was slightly more observant than her husband and was driven ten miles to the synagogue in Hradec Králové on the highest Jewish holidays. It was, however, more out of ‘piety for her parents’ and to please her large family – she was one of twelve children. The best part, she always said, was to go to the local Grand Hotel afterwards with one of her sisters for coffee and cake. And she never forced her religion on her children.
‘We happened to be Jewish and that was that,’ said Anka. ‘It didn’t hinder me in any respect.’
There were only a handful of Jewish families in Třebechovice but she experienced no anti-Semitism amongst her friends and could do pretty much as she pleased.
As the political situation in Europe began to worsen, those around Anka became increasingly nervous. When her German-speaking mother heard Adolf Hitler’s inflammatory speeches on the radio, the normally optimistic woman became overwhelmed with fear and insisted to any who’d listen that no good would come of him.
Like so many of her friends, though, Anka was blasé almost to the point of ignorance and felt that they lived too far away to be directly affected by Nazi ideology. ‘We never thought anything would happen to us. We felt invincible,’ she said. She was the first of her family to go to university, something that made her parents very proud, especially her mother Ida, who was bilingual and a frustrated academic especially fascinated by history.
Anka couldn’t wait to move to Prague, which was two hours away by train. It was a city she knew well, as she would stay there as often as possible with her aunt Frieda, a milliner who had an apartment on Wenceslas Square. Whilst studying at Charles University, Anka lived there too.
Even after she moved to the city in 1936, she continued to remain largely immune to growing concerns about Hitler. Funded by an allowance from her father, she was on holiday skiing in the Austrian Tyrol with friends in March 1938 when the Anschluss happened. Overnight, Austria was in the hands of the Nazis and Czechoslovakia was surrounded. Red flags bearing Hakenkreuze or swastikas appeared on the streets of Salzburg, and Anka watched in amazement as Austrians greeted Hitler as a hero while the country’s Jews became outcasts. This first direct contact with the Nazis was ‘something that we couldn’t grasp’. She added that although she personally didn’t see any attacks on Jews, ‘it was in the air somehow’.
Still, she didn’t think that the German Chancellor with the funny moustache (whose birthday she happened to share) would directly affect her gilded life. Only when her first serious boyfriend, Leo Wildman, announced that he’d decided to move to England to join the British Army did she begin to reconsider. Leo’s father had
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