“My arrival to Theresienstadt wasn’t that tragic. A good thing was that I lived together with the other girls in the Mädchenheim from the beginning. It was actually better than being together with my parents because they were desperate and miserable - for very good reasons. On the other hand, we were young, joyful and I guess irresponsible kids so we were still playing games and having fun, even in the ghetto. I was lucky to be placed in the Mädchenheim. Not everybody was entitled to that as there weren’t enough places for everyone. I worked pretty hard as an agricultural worker. Some girls worked in the garden which was a somewhat lighter work. Work was assigned according to age. The gardens were in the ghetto. I worked on a field outside the ghetto.”
“As I was young and irresponsible, I was naturally excited by the events that were taking place around me. But for my family, of course, it meant total disaster. It was the end of the life as we had known it. We had to move out of our flat, leave our toys, friends and past behind us and head out for a very uncertain future. It goes without saying that my parents were much more aware of the looming danger than I was. I was just excited about it. Secretly, I took my favorite book with me. As the weight of personal belongings to be taken with you to the ghetto was limited to 50 kilograms, books were not quite a priority. People rather focused on clothing – for the summer as well for the winter. Books weighed a lot, therefore just a few books were taken with us. My mom took some books with her as well and it turned out to be a very important thing for her. Other families must have taken a couple of books with them as well because we had an excellent library in Theresienstadt.”
“I didn’t really look forward to getting back to normal life. I was pretty much scared what it would be like. I didn’t know what to expect. There were also a lot of people who were close to me and who had died. The comeback was hard, it was no fun. I wasn’t really used to living a normal life because at the time I was growing up, the circumstances I lived in were rather unusual already. Basically, I had to learn how to live a normal life from scratch. I also lost many relatives and friends in the war and therefore coming back home was very sad.”
“I think that those who stayed in Theresienstadt didn’t experience the real misery of concentration camps. I think that they had Theresienstadt as a showcase for the rest of the world so that they could see how well they actually treated Jews. The extermination of Jews took place farther east. Later, most of the inhabitants of the ghetto were moved to the concentration camps in the east. Almost everybody left.”
“I remember an exciting moment in the ghetto. It was when we saw Soviet soldiers marching on a nearby street through a window. We were delighted, of course, but at the same time I was afraid of the end of the war. I was afraid to learn who survived and who didn’t. I was afraid of the end of the war, didn’t really look forward to it. I had no idea what’s waiting out there for me. It was a very hard time for me.”
“I was staying in the Mädchenheim, where I found true friendship. It was at the time of the transports when tension was high. Everybody was frightened and stressed out as he could find himself in the next transport eastwards. We kids found ways to relax and forget about the world but for the adults, it must have been much, much harder.”
Mrs. Jana Renée Friesová was born in a Jewish assimilated family in 1927. She spent her childhood with her grandparents in Mnichovo Hradiště. Since the outbreak of the war, she lived together with her parents in Josefov nearby Jaroměř. Her father was the owner of a liquor store, her mother took care of the household. The family was fully assimilated into Czechoslovakian society - they celebrated Christian holidays and spoke Czech. In December 1942, Jana and her parents were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto. In the ghetto she lived in the so-called “Mädchenheim”, a home for girls, and worked as an agricultural worker. During the autumn of 1944, her father was moved to Auschwitz where he was subsequently murdered. Jana and her mother managed to remain in Theresienstadt until the liberation of the ghetto by allied forces. After the war she studied journalism and then lectured at the department for a number of years. Jana wrote her biography called The Fortress of My Youth (Pevnost mého mládí). In the book, she tells the story of her pre-war life, the life in Theresienstadt and the destinies of her relatives and friends. Jana Renéé Friesová died on July 15, 2016.
