Lotar and Zdenka took him in. A small apartment of Zdenka’s, a little way from the center of town, had just become vacant, and to keep him safer, Zdenka and Lotar moved in with Hans. They pretended to be a family of three, two brothers and their older sister. Despite increasing difficulties, Zdenka had managed to purchase another set of identification papers on the black market. Zdenka, Zdeněk, Lotar, and Hans worked on changing the name and the photograph. They chose the fictitious name of Jan Rubeš. Lotar’s own faked identity was in the name of his friend Ivan Rubeš, so the fabricated identity was created to pass Hans off as Ivan’s younger brother.
The caretaker of the building had been happily employed by Zdenka’s family for decades. She did not ask questions and was trusted to keep their secret. I do not know how they came and went, whether they wore their yellow stars as they entered the building when they returned from work, passing into a hidden world, or if they took the risk of not donning the stars. There are no photographs from this period. The documents left behind reveal little, indicating only that Hans lived in secret with his brother and sister-in-law at an apartment in Prague 5.
Zdenka later recounted one memory of her time living with Hans in 1943. He had been left alone in the apartment, as she had to go to the farm and Lotar had been called in to Montana. Zdeněk had already been dispatched to Berlin. Míla was away with her family.
Hans had two days off from work and had promised Zdenka that he would be quiet and behave responsibly. It was a very cold day, and the heating in the apartment suddenly broke down. Hans was freezing but did not want to attract attention by asking the caretaker for help. He decided to fix the heating himself, starting with the kitchen radiator. He had never been very good at manual tasks. As he grappled with a valve, it broke. Water poured from the radiator onto the wooden floorboards and seeped down to the floor below. Hans grabbed all the sheets and towels from the bedrooms and bathroom and threw them down in an attempt to stanch the leaking.
Zdenka returned to find Hans completely drenched, on his hands and knees. She called the caretaker and went downstairs to offer her apologies to the neighbors for their cracked and dripping ceiling. Her younger brother had just arrived from the countryside, she explained, and was not used to modern plumbing. Always charming, she offered to pay for any repairs. She presented them with a bottle of plum brandy and, for good measure, added some black-market bonbons that had been intended for Otto and Ella. When she was satisfied that the risk of suspicion was removed, Zdenka went back upstairs and instructed a shivering Hans to change into his warmest clothes. She affectionately wrapped him in a thick wool blanket and admonished him. As Hans warmed his fingers by nursing a cup of tea, instead of being angry Zdenka teased him: “I always knew it was risky to live with two Jews but never imagined that it was because one of them was going to flood the building. I now see why they call you the unfortunate one.”
Zdenka and Hans both laughed in relieved amusement. Lotar was less entertained by the occurrence and fretted for days that the flood had aroused speculation about the unusual trio among the neighbors. His anxiety turned out to have been unfounded, and had Zdenka not written it down many years later, this incident would have been forgotten.
As the Prague winter took hold, life continued for the three of them, their efforts focused on keeping their heads down and working. The days revolved around obtaining goods for the illicit packages for Otto and Ella and ensuring that they were delivered. News from Terezín trickled out both through the Council in Prague and in the letters. The boys learned that their uncle Rudolf Neumann had died of heart trouble and that his wife, Jenny, had been ordered on to Auschwitz, beyond the reach of parcels and letters. Uncle Josef, with his wife and two children, had been sent farther east as well.
In early December, Otto and Ella’s names were included in a transport list for Poland, but Lotar and Zdenka did everything they could to ensure that they were removed. Lotar would later write that their efforts to keep them near Prague in Terezín were superhuman.
In reality, this meant sending parcels with a surplus of food and currency for bribes and also beseeching Pišta for help from the Elders. It is not clear whether it was thanks to their efforts or down to luck, but the transport to Auschwitz was postponed, and Otto and Ella spent their first Christmas in Terezín. Letters from the camp started arriving almost weekly in December, and while Otto reported that the contents of many of the parcels had been looted in transport, what reached them was enough to keep them fed and protected. Otto and Ella were delighted to receive the packages and described how they used the food, clothes, other items, and money for themselves and to help others. Their letters were filled with news of family and friends inside the camp, to be passed on to relatives outside. They were also crammed with requests for more food, more currency, and all the everyday household things that were so crucial—dark shoe polish or hair dye, lighter fuel, currencies, sturdy boots, batteries, soap.
Otto and Ella wrote separately. They lived in different buildings, segregated by gender and job. Otto explained that he tried to have dinners with Ella, as she had access to cooking facilities, but this was not always possible.
The new distance between them was not solely physical; they also differed in their attitude toward their surroundings. In the senseless world of the camp, they coped differently, and the words in their letters reflect this.
Otto was dour. He persisted in being appalled at the conditions, outraged and burdened by the immorality and inhumanity of the place. He wrote that, even after a short time in the camp, the typical inmate had grown numb and was like a chased animal that only seeks food and rest. It will be difficult for those who return from here to recover any sliver of their humanity. No one reads or engages in conversation, it is all bitter arguments about places in queues. All feelings of emotion, sensibility, or sexuality have been extinguished. Women here suffer from early menopause and the men are rendered impotent.
And yet he tried to maintain a degree of positivity when he added: But it all seems like paradise compared to the alternative in Poland.
In another message, Otto implored Hans and Lotar to love each other, that is the only way you will be able to overcome the evil that lies ahead.
Otto managed to keep his sense of irony despite it all. He wrote of his happiness at being assigned a bunk bed and no longer having to sleep on the floor. He was thankful that his dormitory, unlike the ones infested with bedbugs and fleas, housed only fleas. A later letter says: Oh Zdenka, how you would laugh! I queued up for a dumpling for lunch and it fell to the ground but the new me nevertheless ate it with delight. It did make me miss dear Mrs. Novakova’s dumplings at Montana. What an artist she was!
In her communications with the boys, Ella continued to be more optimistic than Otto and was also pragmatic about life in the camp. This was perhaps due to the fact that her living conditions were marginally better, but it was also her nature to take a sunnier view. Her letters were brisker, more concise, less descriptive and critical of her surroundings. They were heartfelt and lacked irony. She worked to remain positive about both her environment and her ability to withstand it. She concentrated on an imagined future together with her boys and on practical ways to attain it. She wrote that she was working hard to obtain better jobs and protection from the transports to the east for both her and Otto. She remained focused on ensuring that Otto stayed healthy and did not lose weight. Ella also asked for supplies but emphasized that her strength was holding up and the parcels should not be sent if doing so presented a risk. I have lived here for so long without anything that I can do without it all for a while longer.