already been arrested and imprisoned as a subversive and his family feared for the future. She was sad to see Leo go and waved him off at the railway station. Just as the train departed, his father – who’d just been released from prison – ran up the platform to say goodbye to his son, but he was too late.
Although the couple had been quite serious about each other, it never occurred to Anka to go with Leo, even though she’d been given the chance. ‘Two English ladies came to Prague to offer work to Jewish girls as domestics or in nursing. I applied for a job in nursing and got it. They provided me with a valid visa and exit papers and I could have gone then but … I procrastinated so long … I had all the papers in my hand and then war broke out in Europe … and I couldn’t have been happier that I [had] managed to prolong it so long that I couldn’t go any more … How stupid was that?’
Others given a similar Durchlassschein or special exit permit did leave, but they were in the minority. Among them was Tom Mautner, the husband of Anka’s sister Ruzena, who seized the chance to flee to England on one of the last trains to London. He’d pleaded with Ruzena to go with him and bring their son Peter but she’d refused to leave her home and family. ‘It was so much nicer to stay there than go to England so she stayed, and she paid dearly for it,’ Anka said sadly.
Like Ruzena, many more remained, hoping for the best. Soon afterwards, she must have regretted her decision. Hitler seized control of Sudetenland after the signing of the Munich Agreement, adding more than two million Germans to his domain. It seemed that nothing could be done to stop his march across Europe. Later that same year he repeated his intent with the vow: ‘I will continue this struggle, no matter against whom, until the safety of the Reich and its rights are secured.’
Jewish refugees from the border towns flooded into the city, bringing with them only what they could carry, as Hitler’s intentions became frighteningly clear. With no help from Britain or their allies, the Czechs felt terribly betrayed.
Then in March 1939, German tanks rolled into Prague. Just as in Austria, Anka looked out onto the streets one day to find them teeming with soldiers while people stabbed the air with salutes. She wasn’t the only one who watched aghast as wave after wave of steely-eyed Nazis marched through Wenceslas Square that grey day. ‘It was the height of winter with snow on the ground, and it was a catastrophe.’
Nazis invade Prague, 1939
From the ninth-century Pražský Hrad or Prague Castle, Adolf Hitler proclaimed the partitioning of Czechoslovakia as they knew it into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the (first) Slovak Republic or Slovak State. While Hitler waved to crowds from thewindows of the castle high above the city, twenty-one-year-old Anka and her family suddenly found themselves citizens of a Nazi-administered territory and part of the Greater German Reich. ‘I didn’t have a care in the world until Adolf Hitler came,’ she said. ‘You don’t give [your home and your country] a thought until it disappears … which it did after twenty years and it was the biggest shock.’
Initial student demonstrations against the occupation were quickly crushed as troops stormed the university where Anka studied law. Nine student leaders were executed and 1,200 professors and students rounded up and sent to concentration camps before all the universities were closed. Following further random arrests, the imposition of the Nuremberg Laws began, restriction after restriction systematically stripping the ‘enemies of the Reich’ of their fundamental human rights. People had no choice but to grow accustomed to the gradual loss of freedoms they had previously taken for granted.
Among numerous strictures, Anka’s family car was taken. A commissioner appointed by the Reich took over the factory of Kauder & Frankl and threw
Although the couple had been quite serious about each other, it never occurred to Anka to go with Leo, even though she’d been given the chance. ‘Two English ladies came to Prague to offer work to Jewish girls as domestics or in nursing. I applied for a job in nursing and got it. They provided me with a valid visa and exit papers and I could have gone then but … I procrastinated so long … I had all the papers in my hand and then war broke out in Europe … and I couldn’t have been happier that I [had] managed to prolong it so long that I couldn’t go any more … How stupid was that?’
Others given a similar Durchlassschein or special exit permit did leave, but they were in the minority. Among them was Tom Mautner, the husband of Anka’s sister Ruzena, who seized the chance to flee to England on one of the last trains to London. He’d pleaded with Ruzena to go with him and bring their son Peter but she’d refused to leave her home and family. ‘It was so much nicer to stay there than go to England so she stayed, and she paid dearly for it,’ Anka said sadly.
Like Ruzena, many more remained, hoping for the best. Soon afterwards, she must have regretted her decision. Hitler seized control of Sudetenland after the signing of the Munich Agreement, adding more than two million Germans to his domain. It seemed that nothing could be done to stop his march across Europe. Later that same year he repeated his intent with the vow: ‘I will continue this struggle, no matter against whom, until the safety of the Reich and its rights are secured.’
Jewish refugees from the border towns flooded into the city, bringing with them only what they could carry, as Hitler’s intentions became frighteningly clear. With no help from Britain or their allies, the Czechs felt terribly betrayed.
Then in March 1939, German tanks rolled into Prague. Just as in Austria, Anka looked out onto the streets one day to find them teeming with soldiers while people stabbed the air with salutes. She wasn’t the only one who watched aghast as wave after wave of steely-eyed Nazis marched through Wenceslas Square that grey day. ‘It was the height of winter with snow on the ground, and it was a catastrophe.’
Nazis invade Prague, 1939
From the ninth-century Pražský Hrad or Prague Castle, Adolf Hitler proclaimed the partitioning of Czechoslovakia as they knew it into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the (first) Slovak Republic or Slovak State. While Hitler waved to crowds from thewindows of the castle high above the city, twenty-one-year-old Anka and her family suddenly found themselves citizens of a Nazi-administered territory and part of the Greater German Reich. ‘I didn’t have a care in the world until Adolf Hitler came,’ she said. ‘You don’t give [your home and your country] a thought until it disappears … which it did after twenty years and it was the biggest shock.’
Initial student demonstrations against the occupation were quickly crushed as troops stormed the university where Anka studied law. Nine student leaders were executed and 1,200 professors and students rounded up and sent to concentration camps before all the universities were closed. Following further random arrests, the imposition of the Nuremberg Laws began, restriction after restriction systematically stripping the ‘enemies of the Reich’ of their fundamental human rights. People had no choice but to grow accustomed to the gradual loss of freedoms they had previously taken for granted.
Among numerous strictures, Anka’s family car was taken. A commissioner appointed by the Reich took over the factory of Kauder & Frankl and threw
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