“I remember that we took these circular stairs down into the cellar. I was frightened, but there was an official there, and an officer, who jumped straight up as soon as he saw Mum and he kissed her hand and clapped his heels together - that was how all Germans reacted when they saw Mum. He asked what the ‘gnädige Frau’ wanted. She said: ‘I’m married to a Jew.’ So he sat down and told her to sit down. She said that she has two children, and he asked whether they were baptised. Mum said: ‘Yes.’ ‘When?’ ‘[19]36.’ He said: ‘That’s a Jewish Mischling,’ and he looked at me. Mum said: ‘Yes.’ Him: ‘And the other one? The other child?’ ‘She’s a girl as well, but she was born in March 36.’ ‘A Jewish Mischling. According to the law, you’re three Jews to one.’ Then he looked at her and asked: ‘And madam, are you sure that these children were sired by the Jew?’ Mum got angry, she snatched up her handbag, said: ‘Peggy, I won’t be insulted,’ and left. When she came home, Dad looked at her and said: ‘You know, you are a dolt. That German told you what we have to do. We have to divorce and we have to find someone who will say they’re the father."
“He called Dad over, he let us talk for about half an hour, I must say that Dad looked very good because he was working outside, and my dad was never the nature type. So he was suntanned and looked good, I guess they ate some nature stuff now and then. The foreman told me, I don’t know if he told it to me because I spoke such good German, I spoke with a kind of Austrian accent, or if it was just because he was a good man - he was a good man, that became clear later on - but he said for me to tell Mum that they’ll be taking the Jews to some water on Sunday. I can’t remember any more, I don’t know Czech geography, I don’t know if it was a lake or a river, but either way it was somewhere by the water, I remember that. They’d be taking the workers there on Sunday afternoon, and that I should tell Mum to tell the other women that they could come and they could have intercourse. So I’d say that for the whole of summer, until winter, Dad could see Mum, and I would accompany her.”
“This youngster, I don’t know his name, he stopped me one time and said: ‘Peggy, you’ve been visiting the American information service on National Avenue.’ I said: ‘Yes, I borrow books there.’ Because I had decided to leave, and so I stopped reading and writing in Czech and devoted myself fully to English. He said: ‘I want to warn you, because we take pictures of the people who go there.’ That was the first sobering shock. The second time he came to me, it was around the end of summer 1949, and he said: ‘Peggy, you want to leave. You have to leave by the end of 1949. In 1950 the borders will close.’ For which I am very grateful to him.”
“When I received the letter, well, Mum received it, saying that I had to report somewhere, she ran straight to Lavatschek. Lavatschek said: ‘Peggy can’t go. That would mean death.’ He must have known something. So he wrote a letter, and what irony, stating that I could not arrive at the given place where the gathering point was - I don’t remember where - because I had inflammation of the pleurae. Even as a child, I found it somewhat ironic that the Germans said: ‘Of course, she must stay at home until she recovers.’ And yet all the children went straight into the gas chambers. They told us that later on, that all those children went straight on and were destroyed.”
Life isn’t always rosy, but it doesn’t have to be bleak either
Peggy Croydon roz. Štědrá
photo: Současná: Post Bellum, dobová archiv pamětnice
photo: Současná: Post Bellum, dobová archiv pamětnice
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Peggy Croydon, née Štědrá, was born on 9 September 1930 in Prague as the first of two daughters. Her father, František Štědrý, came from a Jewish family, her mother Miroslava (née Kotková) was a Christian. The family was sustained by her father’s stamp dealership. Before the onset of the war the family considered emigrating, but in the end they decided to stay. After the so-called Nuremberg Laws came into force, her father’s business was aryanised and both his daughters were declared Jewish “Mischlinge” (“half-breeds”). Her parents undertook a pretend divorce and lived separately from each other. Probably in spring 1942 her father was summoned to labour on the farm of the Heydrich family in Panenské Břežany - Peggy and her mother visited him there. During the war Peggy looked after her mother and sister, mainly by obtaining food. She herself was to be deported to Terezín when she turned 14, but she avoided the transport thanks to a note from a friendly doctor. Her father was deported to Auschwitz (probably in autumn 1944), where he died. After the war Peggy trained as a milliner, in July 1949 she married, and in December 1949 she and her husband - of Bulgarian descent - emigrated via Austria and Switzerland to France. After a year and a half in Paris they moved to Canada in April 1951. She later earned a degree in history, she worked for a radio station and then as a teacher. Her younger sister and her family also immigrated to Canada in 1968. Peggy Croydon lived in Canada until 2011, when she definitively returned to the Czech Republic. She is widowed and lives in Prague.
