(I meant to post this yesterday but an important appointment delayed me doing so. This is post I have published before, but I think I now have more readers who won't have read it)
I first met Emil Stein over 20 years ago. By then he was no longer working due, I believe, to health issues, and was starting to write down some memories of his early life, primarily for the benefit of his children.
Perhaps he did also hope to get them published, but I think his main drive was to record his memories so that people in the future would not forget the events leading up to the 2nd World war - and its horrendous consequences for the Jewish people in particular.
Emil died many years ago, but I do think of him and never more so than on Holocaust day...
He grew up in what many of us would consider quite privileged circumstances. I don’t recall what his father’s occupation was, but I do know that his uncle was a doctor and one of his cousins, Heinz, who was his idol - was at medical school.
Emil lived somewhere near Prague in Bohemia (part of Sudetenland - where ultimately one of my uncles was kept as a prisoner of war) where on March 15th 1939 Hitler’s troops marched in - bringing with them the Gestapo and the S.S.
The following day long queues formed outside the police headquarters which was where the exit permits had to be obtained. One of his aunts and a young cousin were among those who queued - and were fortunate to receive their permits.
Emil and his older brother were not so fortunate. For three days they had taken turns to queue, but were not successful as there were always thousands of people in line. They lived further away from the department and as they couldn’t leave home until after the curfew had ended they were never near the front.
In desperation they tried Czedok (the state run travel agency) which was where they had bought their tickets.
(This travel agency was how Nicholas Winton got so many children out of Czechoslovakia in his rescue efforts in 1939. They helped him take children out by offering him discounted rail fares. Without this help, his rescue mission would have been far more difficult)
However, for Emil and his brother, getting the passports stamped by a clerk at Czedoc didn’t come without a price - they had to pay 1000 crowns...’Life’ had to be paid for...
On March 22nd the 2 brothers waved one of their aunts and their cousin Ruth goodbye, but Emil had to wait at the same railway platform - between curfew - between the 28th and 30th of March hoping for his brother to return with the stamped documents.
On the 30th - ten minutes before train departure his brother came running through the entrance waving the passports in triumph - followed by their mother.
Somehow they managed time to kiss their mother, who pushed sandwiches into their hands and - with great difficulty - managed to board the overcrowded train.
Within minutes the train moved slowly out of the station and from the window they watched their mother waving a white handkerchief - tears running down her worn out face, with uncontrollable sobs shaking her thin frame.
For the rest of his life he would remember her that way...
His cousin Heinz also manged to escape to France where he joined the Czech army. He reached the rank of Colonel and was awarded the ‘Croix de Guerre’ First Class. After the war he continued his studies and qualified as a doctor.
As for the rest of Emil’s family... He never saw any of them again...
They all perished - many in the concentration camps. Prague was one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe. At least two-thirds of the Jewish population of Prague perished in the Holocaust (over 60,000).
It is estimated that nearly 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust - together with another 5-6 million non Jews (Gypsies, homosexuals, prisoners of war and those with physical and mental disabilities).
When I heard that Emil had died, although I was sad for his wife and children, I hoped - with all my heart - that finally he was re-united with all his loved ones...
Perhaps he did also hope to get them published, but I think his main drive was to record his memories so that people in the future would not forget the events leading up to the 2nd World war - and its horrendous consequences for the Jewish people in particular.
Emil died many years ago, but I do think of him and never more so than on Holocaust day...
He grew up in what many of us would consider quite privileged circumstances. I don’t recall what his father’s occupation was, but I do know that his uncle was a doctor and one of his cousins, Heinz, who was his idol - was at medical school.
Emil lived somewhere near Prague in Bohemia (part of Sudetenland - where ultimately one of my uncles was kept as a prisoner of war) where on March 15th 1939 Hitler’s troops marched in - bringing with them the Gestapo and the S.S.
The following day long queues formed outside the police headquarters which was where the exit permits had to be obtained. One of his aunts and a young cousin were among those who queued - and were fortunate to receive their permits.
Emil and his older brother were not so fortunate. For three days they had taken turns to queue, but were not successful as there were always thousands of people in line. They lived further away from the department and as they couldn’t leave home until after the curfew had ended they were never near the front.
In desperation they tried Czedok (the state run travel agency) which was where they had bought their tickets.
(This travel agency was how Nicholas Winton got so many children out of Czechoslovakia in his rescue efforts in 1939. They helped him take children out by offering him discounted rail fares. Without this help, his rescue mission would have been far more difficult)
However, for Emil and his brother, getting the passports stamped by a clerk at Czedoc didn’t come without a price - they had to pay 1000 crowns...’Life’ had to be paid for...
On March 22nd the 2 brothers waved one of their aunts and their cousin Ruth goodbye, but Emil had to wait at the same railway platform - between curfew - between the 28th and 30th of March hoping for his brother to return with the stamped documents.
On the 30th - ten minutes before train departure his brother came running through the entrance waving the passports in triumph - followed by their mother.
Somehow they managed time to kiss their mother, who pushed sandwiches into their hands and - with great difficulty - managed to board the overcrowded train.
Within minutes the train moved slowly out of the station and from the window they watched their mother waving a white handkerchief - tears running down her worn out face, with uncontrollable sobs shaking her thin frame.
For the rest of his life he would remember her that way...
His cousin Heinz also manged to escape to France where he joined the Czech army. He reached the rank of Colonel and was awarded the ‘Croix de Guerre’ First Class. After the war he continued his studies and qualified as a doctor.
As for the rest of Emil’s family... He never saw any of them again...
They all perished - many in the concentration camps. Prague was one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe. At least two-thirds of the Jewish population of Prague perished in the Holocaust (over 60,000).
It is estimated that nearly 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust - together with another 5-6 million non Jews (Gypsies, homosexuals, prisoners of war and those with physical and mental disabilities).
When I heard that Emil had died, although I was sad for his wife and children, I hoped - with all my heart - that finally he was re-united with all his loved ones...
3 comments:
Thank you for the reminder of The Holocaust. If only the national press and TV media did the same.
So many lives lost.Will the world ever learn by the past?.
My great grandparents came to England in the 1840s they were german jews and settled in the east end of London.
Irene
For those people whose family members had no links to the terrible events which occurred, I daresay it is forgotten history... there are also those who say it never happened - and that view I find astounding...
55 years ago, as a young child, I got out a book from the library on Auschwitz(goodness knows why it was in the children's section).I read it - and it had pictures - with growing horror. The sort of atrocities which were carried out should never be forgotten - or repeated.
Although throughout time there has been Jewish persecution I believe that in the 1840's many started moving out of Germany for economic reasons. The country was in financial chaos after the Napoleonic wars and Jews were barred from certain trades; so they migrated wherever they felt they could have a better life. Thank God your ancestors did move - otherwise the lives of their descendants could have been very different indeed - Mazel Tov!
What a story!
Horrible, horrible times....very frightening that one evil person had so much power.
Hopefully Emil was finally reunited with his family
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