While the Nazis, of course, retained ultimate control and set the laws, they established a Council of Elders in Terezín to self-administer. As in Prague, the Council was made up of respected Jews who had to organize labor, provide some degree of municipal services, ensure that the Nazi guidelines were obeyed, and ultimately, draft transport lists. This body consisted of inmates and worked in much the same way as the local Jewish Councils did throughout occupied Europe. While taking part might offer some protection to its members and families, it was only temporary. The organizational structure was a clever tactic, since it helped create the illusion that the Jews remained in control of their fate even as it pitted them against one another. Refusal to participate in this sham governing body was not an option. As the majority of Jews from the Protectorate were transported to camps in 1942, the center of power shifted from the Jewish Council in Prague to the Council of Elders in the camps.
When my grandparents arrived in 1942, Jacob Edelstein was the head of the Council in Terezín. Contemporary accounts say he believed, at least initially, that if the Jews of Terezín worked hard and made their value obvious to the Nazis, they would be allowed to live. Everyone between the ages of sixteen and sixty-five was required to work. Men found employment in one of the workshops or in construction or in the nearby fields or mines. Women tended to work in agriculture, food preparation, in the clothing warehouse, or as nurses and cleaners. There were hierarchies to these positions, and a few were prized, especially those that allowed some freedom from the constant watch of the SS, a little privacy, access to food, or some protection from being on a further transport list.
My grandparents hoped that Pišta in Prague could put in a good word with the Terezín Elders. Like them, thousands of other inmates hoped to attain a favorable nod from the Elders that might convey some form of sanctuary.
In 1942, with both Otto and Ella interned at Terezín, the family established a connection to smuggle clothes, food, and other useful items into the camp. They managed to secure the services of a Czech gendarme and a local woman. Each time a parcel went in, a letter or two was smuggled out of the camp.
Unlike “official” correspondence sent from the post office that served propaganda purposes, Otto’s and Ella’s letters were not limited in length or censored. Yet there was no guarantee that their letters would have been read only by the intended recipients, so they were guarded and coded with nicknames or initials often used for people or contraband. Bekannte, the German word for acquaintance, was clearly a reference to German marks. There were constant references to the fluctuating price of Robert or Roberty, most likely a foreign currency, perhaps Swiss francs. The letters returned time and again to the treasured parcels, the supply of which kept them fed, enabled them to help others in the camp, and gave them the means to barter. The letters often mentioned the kind gentleman, in all likelihood a friendly Czech gendarme, and Mrs. Rosa, a laundress who could enter and move freely around Terezín. In order to safeguard the couriers, their real names were never disclosed.
These letters, and Zdenka’s account, indicate that the family’s usual method of supply was to deliver a parcel to Bohušovice Station, two kilometers from Terezín. From there, a trusted intermediary would bring the parcel, suitably concealed, by wheelbarrow to the camp. This incurred great risk for all involved. If Mrs. Rosa or the kind gentleman had been caught assisting inmates in this way, they would have faced severe punishment. The consequences for Otto and Ella would have been far worse.
In January 1942, nine men had been publicly hanged in Terezín. Their crime had been to smuggle letters out to their families. The SS staged these public executions to set an example and show their sovereignty. Sending anything in or out of the camp was a risk for all concerned. Yet it was also an important emotional and physical lifeline for the family. Lotar, methodical and thorough, kept a record of the contents of every parcel that was sent to my grandparents in Terezín. The box that Madla gave me, that Lotar had stored for decades, contained the inventory for each of the eighty parcels: smoked meats, sugar, Ovomaltine, butter, soap, flashlight batteries, shoe polish, and chocolate bonbons all appear regularly. Lotar’s box also contained the dozens of pages of letters written by my grandparents to their boys that were smuggled out in return. The letters burst with their thoughts, emotions, and practical details of life at Terezín, as well as requests for food, clothing, currency, and messages from other inmates to their families outside. As a contemporaneous record, they provide an unflinching firsthand perspective on the conditions within the camp. For me, they also offer an intimate glimpse of the personalities of the grandparents whom I never knew.
An October letter from Ella to her boys, her golden ones, sent reassurance that her living conditions were better than those of many others, to the point of arousing envy, in fact. She wrote that she was lucky to have found a job as a housekeeper for a Czech man who belonged to the higher echelons of the Terezín hierarchy by virtue of overseeing the woodwork workshop. This role allowed her to benefit from his somewhat better circumstances and degree of influence and, critically, perhaps, allowed room for the hope that all would be fine except for those excursions to the East. Most inmates of Terezín did not know until later the precise consequences of those journeys east, but rumors abounded. My family was certain that they must avoid these journeys at all costs.
Ella cleaned and cooked for Engineer František Langer, or Eng. L, as she referred to him in the letters. He lived alone in the camp and had use of some rooms by the workshops. This meant that Ella could keep some of her belongings away from the desperate occupants of the bunk rooms, to which she had to return each night. The workshop rooms allowed her some precious privacy. A third letter from Ella, of November 1942, described her surprise at seeing Otto, joy at the reunion, and heartbreak at having to watch as he too endured the misery. She herself felt stronger and better able to handle their appalling circumstances, having been already introduced into those terrible secrets.
Ella announced that she had secured a greatly fought-over certificate with much effort to enable Otto to work as a chemical engineer, which might reduce the likelihood of the dreaded transportation east.
Some of Ella and Otto’s family were also interned in Terezín that fall. When Ella arrived, she had encountered Rudolf and Jenny Neumann, Erich and Ota’s parents. Rudolf Pollak, the widower of Ella’s sister, Martha, was there with his daughters, Hana and Zita, as well as his second wife, Josefa, and their teenage son, Jiří, a young poet. Some of Jiří Pollak’s poems can be seen today in the archives of Terezín and the Jewish Museum in Prague.
Finding and helping one another cannot have been easy among sixty thousand segregated by age and gender, but perhaps there was a little comfort to be had from the sight of a familiar face in the sad loneliness of those crowds.
Otto’s first letter, written in December, was markedly negative in tone and recounted that while the journey to the east was still postponed for the time being, Ella had a police Weisung, a pending criminal deportation order, hanging over her. Weisungs were issued for offenses like smoking, possessing prohibited items, or absconding from a transport, and had to be avoided at all costs. Rumors were they meant certain death on deportation. Otto added, We don’t see each other much. I miss her. He carefully cataloged all the things that he needed: Roberty in every form, lighter, batteries, clothing, shoe polish or hair dye, soap, and, of course, food. His letter warned them: