My mother survived Terezín and Auschwitz. It was taboo at home
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Michal Štěpánek was born on 13 October 1953 in Pilsen. His mother Marie Ehrlichová came from a local family of Jewish merchants. The Nazis deported her, her parents and her younger brother to the Jewish ghetto in Terezín in January 1942. From there they were gradually taken to the extermination camp at Auschwitz. Marie Ehrlichová was on the last transport before the end of the war and was the only survivor of her family. His father, Zdeněk Štěpánek, who worked as an advertising copywriter, was imprisoned by the Nazis for resistance activities. Michal Štěpánek grew up in Pilsen. In the early 1960s, the family moved to Prague. He graduated from the grammar school there and trained as a photographer. Until the end of the communist regime, he worked mainly as an advertising photographer. At the same time he was employed also as a boiler operator. After the fall of totalitarianism in 1989 he started his own business. In 2023 he was living in Prague and took care of a number of his companies. Among other things, he was a co-owner of the College of Creative Communication in Prague.
