Regina Gottschalk
Waiting for news
The history of the Jewish family Getreuer
from the Bohemian Forest
between 1938 and 1942
Translated by Nicola Gebauer
and Beatrix Ziegler-Gebauer
edition lichtung
Imprint
2019 lichtung verlag GmbH
ebook-edition of the English translation
eBook ISBN 978-3-941306-87-5
Translation: Nicola Gebauer and Beatrix Ziegler-Gebauer
Review: Eva Bauernfeind
Cover image: collection Ruth Horwitz
Image processing: Gnter Holler
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
For information as well as ordering please contact
lichtung verlag GmbH
Bahnhofsplatz 2a
94234 Viechtach
Germany
E-Mail:
www.lichtung-verlag.de
The original German title Auf Nachricht warten was published in 2015 by lichtung verlag GmbH, ISBN 978-3-941306-20-2.
Contents
Title
Imprint
Contents
Preface:
It began with a wedding announcement
Prologue:
Hitler needed relaxation
I. Home in the Bohemian Forest
1. The lost village
2. Schwanenbrckl
3. The Getreuer family
4. Childhood memories
II. Waiting for news
1. Uprooted and torn
The escape
Searching for a future
The separation: horrified we think of our farewells
2. Life on call
Receiving mail: the only streak of joy during these difficult times
The laws affecting Jews: Judengesetze
Under the burden of such a life
Hoping to emigrate: patiently waiting for our turn to come
3. The lost
Skolska 30 the last address
Before the deportation
III. No more news
1. The deported
To Theresienstadt: we are humans for another two days
Izbica the final destination
2. The missing
Bad news
Waiting and searching: and still no one has written a single line
Comprehending the truth
3. The murdered
Epilogue
New tracks of life: survivors and descendants
Acknowledgements
Illustration credits
About the author
Preface
It began with a wedding announcement
Over 20 years ago, an elderly man living in Canada received mail from Europe. This letter, sent by a business friend, included the wedding announcement of a Dutch couple, with the same rather unusual last name as the Canadian gentleman: Getreuer. Originally Paul Getreuer had come from Bohemia. After the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938 (Anschluss), Paul Getreuer spent most of his lifetime in Singapore having fled the Nazis in Vienna. Then he moved in with his daughter in Canada. He found out that his family had become victims of the holocaust. After having unsuccessfully spent decades on end searching for people with his family name, in city directories and phonebooks all over the world, Paul Getreuer was convinced he was the only survivor of the Getreuer family from Bohemian Libochowitz (Libochovice). Knowing this, Paul Getreuers friend had sent him the wedding announcement from the Netherlands.
The letter Paul Getreuer wrote to the Getreuer family in the Netherlands had an unexpected effect: the Dutch family had in fact come from the very same village and was related to him. Following this, an entire network of family connections was uncovered. A considerable number of family members were found to be in Germany, Austria, Israel and in the USA, all descendants of survivors and emigrants.
The family relations were confusing, only the family tree made it all clear. G and Edgar Getreuer, the parents of the Dutch groom, put together a family tree including 10 generations and approximately 400 members of the Getreuer family, using matriculation registers of the former Jewish-Bohemian communities from the National Archives in Prague. Their work spurred the wish for a family meeting. Relatives from across the globe met in Prague, Israel and Vienna to get to know each other, to share whatever they knew about previous generations and to contribute documents of the family history. Thus, my maiden name being Getreuer, I received a pack of around 170 letters, written in Prague between 1938 and 1942. A Jewish couple, Heinrich and Frieda Getreuer, had sent them to their adult children, who had fled abroad, until, after having suffered for years, both were deported and murdered in a concentration camp. The letters were preserved by their US descendants for over 60 years, to commemorate their murdered ancestors. Unable to read the letters written in German mostly in Kurrent handwriting the grandchildren asked me to tell them about their content. Upon holding the papers in hand, I had no idea where to start. That which lay before me was but a bunch of unorganised, indecipherable, badly copied fragments of the familys preserved correspondence. Their content seemed to be monotonous and with little meaning. The people they talked about were not to be put in relation and the hints they gave on certain events I could not understand. Only after I deciphered, decoded and linked for quite a while, little by little I started to understand the connections. Descendants in the USA and Israel supported me by giving me more information on the family history: they did so with many historic photos, a diary, handwritten childhood memories, memoirs, private official documents, more historical letters written by friends and relatives as well as stories they remembered.
By and by a family history unfolded, set in the 30s and 40s of the 20th century: A Jewish family lives peacefully and undisputedly in a little Bohemian village called Schwanenbrckl (Mostek) in the Bohemian Forest, until their home country is annexed into the German Reich (Deutsches Reich) by Hitlers power politics. Step by step they become victims of the National Socialists policy affecting Jews (Judenpolitik). They are forced to surrender their property and flee to Prague, the supposedly safe heartland. The parents stay behind in a desperate situation and are separated from their children who emigrate. Living with a small group of relatives, they are constantly at risk of being persecuted by the Nazis, their sad existence balancing between the hope to be able to follow their children abroad and the fear of getting deported into the unknown. Eventually they are murdered by the Nazis in a concentration camp in the then occupied Poland. In vain and for years on end their children search for their relatives and wait for news.
The letters reflect the familys three and a half years of suffering. These years are shaped by the waiting for news: the children wait for their parents letters from Prague, the parents wait for news from their beloved ones overseas. Those who stay behind wait to be notified that they too can finally leave the country. As their hope dwindles, they wait for the end of the war, assuming this will end their misery, and they wait fearfully for the day they might get deported, which must inexorably be coming closer and closer. Finally the relatives wait for news from those who have disappeared without any trace, or at least for news about their fate.
