… not to expect sensible news… this is one crazy mess… there is barely enough food to half feed you and he who does not have a way to supplement will die of hunger, unnoticed. Housing and hygiene conform to that of antiquated POW camps… Here, man becomes a hopeless, selfish animal that does not care about anything else but, at the expense of a fellow sufferer or even the closest relative, to gain some little advantage.
In the short time since our separation I have somehow forgotten all that I left behind with you, what used to be important seems now inane… I know you will not understand me as I, myself, nowadays, do not understand the life I left with you… It is all like a terrible dream… “Live life well,” this can only be appreciated by someone who has sunk so low into humiliation as I have… You don’t have to worry about me… I am quite active, in order to get out of the—hopefully—initial difficulties and to adapt to the unreal local circumstances. Please be patient with me, brain cells do not work with the same accuracy as in normal circumstances. If I were not to write, it would be out of fear and nothing else. Think of me as little as possible… Life from 14 days ago has disappeared into darkness.
Lotar and Hans must have felt a profound sadness at reading Otto’s first letter from the camp, one that echoed across the years when my father’s sobbing rocked the fence near Bubny nearly half a century later. Those few words Hans could manage in 1990—This is where we said goodbye—allowed me a glimpse of the separation and the sorrow of the months that followed. Yet the full meaning of the words was not clear to me for another twenty-five years.
There was a small rectangle of very thin paper among the others in my father’s box. At 8.5 cm by 6 cm, it is by far the smallest item. The letters CC are inked in red in a black box. On the line below is my father’s name. Three large black digits, 449, are printed above.
This tiny relic was an official transport ticket, the slip of paper that a deported person would hand in to the officials just before boarding the wagon to a camp.
I know now that Otto’s transport was CC and his number was 448. Spared this journey with his father, Hans held on to his transport ticket. He could have torn it in pieces, burned or crumpled it in relief at his reprieve. But Hans had done no such thing. Amid the dozens of typewritten A4 documents, official identity cards, and photos, this wisp of yellowing paper stands out, minute and immaculately preserved. Perhaps a reminder of his survival. Perhaps a hallmark of his guilt.
CHAPTER 10 The Shadow Beneath the Candle
A second telegram arrived for Hans on November 18, 1942, hours after the message that had been his salvation from the transport. This new missive demanded that he report at once to the “Central Office for the Regulation of the Jewish Question in Bohemia and Moravia.”
This entity, originally known as the Central Office for Jewish Emigration, sat atop the SS command structure in Prague. It had been established and led by the notorious Adolf Eichmann, who held ultimate responsibility for the logistics of the Final Solution, the plan to exterminate the Jews.
In November 1942, when my father was asked to report there, the department was led by Hans Günther, who managed a staff of thirty-two SS men and reported directly to Eichmann, by then back in Berlin. The office oversaw all the activities of the Jewish Councils in Prague and in Terezín and remained tasked with the deportation of the Jews from the Protectorate. It was uncommon for a Jew to be summoned to the Central Office, and my boxes and archives offer no evidence that might explain the summons.
Nonetheless, each document in the box was kept for a reason, sometimes sentimental, often practical, and, on occasion, both. Each paper yields a story, a reason for its inclusion as a memento or clue to the puzzle that was my father’s life during the war. Hans would have had some purpose in keeping this telegram. The document itself or the event it recalled must have been important to him. Perhaps he believed that proof of that visit might be useful later. The consensus among the experts with whom I have spoken is that the most likely explanation is my father was called in to pay a bribe. This might have been agreed upon for his retrieval from the transport or perhaps was settled in the hope of sparing his parents’ lives.
Whatever the reason for the meeting, Hans must have attended that SS office quite alone, utterly shaken by his time at Bubny and his father’s departure just hours before. He had to muster the courage and calm to handle whatever was presented to him by the SS officer in charge of his case. It must have been a risky and delicate encounter, carefully transacting with people who held his fate, as well as that of his parents, in their hands. Though the SS officer had the power, he too must have been apprehensive, facing chastisement, demotion, or worse if his actions were discovered.
Hans and the SS man would likely have trodden this strange and frightening path together. Hans could not afford the slightest error of judgment. If he uttered the wrong word, if he hinted at insubordination, if his composure slipped, if he refused whatever was asked of him, it could have been disastrous. We can only assume from the lack of repercussions that Hans conducted himself with perfect deference and concluded his business without incident. The man who gave this performance was not the unfortunate and chaotic boy prankster who was always late. This Hans was punctual and punctilious, at the mercy of the world about him but entirely in control of himself. This was the man he would have to become in order to survive the war.
In a letter dated December 1, 1942, Ella wrote to her boys:
Jointly we will get through anything. Distance cannot separate us. I have the strong will to last at any cost You too, my golden darlings, have to use your head and give up all sentimentality. We have won the first two rounds and as we approach the final, the stronger we need to be.
Hans, at twenty-one, was certainly finding a new strength and maturity. But he was far from being led solely by his head.
He refused to stay in Libčice now that Otto had been transported. Jews were required by law to reside in their registered abode, but Hans did not. In Libčice, he would have been alone in the large house, heavy with memories. He would have been away from Lotar and Zdenka and his friends in Prague, without radio, telephone, bicycle, or car. At the prospect of this isolation, he decided to ignore Ella’s plea for steely rationality and risk breaking the law.
He determined to spend weekdays in the city. He arranged for a friendly Libčice neighbor, Pajmas, to visit the house daily. Pajmas had also been caring for Gin, the fox terrier who had outlived their beloved older dog, Jerry. In July 1941, the Nazis had prohibited Jews from keeping pets but the neighbor had agreed to declare the Neumanns’ fox terrier as his own. Hans traveled back to Libčice on weekends, sometimes driven by Zdeněk, Míla, or Zdenka but often alone by train. Lotar, by then remarried to Zdenka and officially registered as living in the city, did not have a permit that allowed him to travel by train.
Zdeněk and Míla had both offered to help hide Hans during his days in Prague, but he did not want to endanger them further. Things with Míla were difficult; her parents were worried about the risks created by a relationship with a Jew and were doing their best to persuade her to spend less time with Hans. Zdeněk had, along with other Czechs of his age, just received a summons to report for war work, in his case to a factory in Berlin. Zdeněk would not be able to help Hans in Prague for long. The evenings and weekends when Zdeněk and Míla sat with Hans laughing, reading poems, drinking, and smoking were already dangerous enough.