Alžběta Dostálová

* 1936

  • “He was always a Jew. He was never anything else. After the war he wanted us to go to Israel, he had everything arranged. The mother’s side, her sisters, when they found out about it, they took us away. But not there, not to Israel... What a row there was.”

  • "I don’t know whether those were ophanages or not. Not at all. I know there were lots of children, and it was not so bad there. But then, when they took us to Theresienstadt: hunger, cold, and memories. We always wanted to go back home.“ Interviewer: "Do you remeber how you were seperated from your mother?“ I do. First, we thought we were going on holiday. But why were there all five of us? We were sitting on the train next to each other. I was holding Pavel in my arms because he couldn’t walk properly. We were in fact going to Theresienstadt. After the war we searched for it. Mr. Kárný wrote to us that he couldn’t remember exactly, but that we had been at the place for Jewish children. Everybody had to go because even Eva, who is now the head of the Jewish community in Ostrava, was going. So I knew some of the people going. You know, we spoke to each other as children.“

  • "There was the end: the nursemaids had not given us food for two days. We weren’t told by anybody about anything. Then my sister had a great idea: ´Let's leave for Loštice.´ We didn’t even know where we were! Can you imagine such small children walking from Theresienstadt to Loštice? So we escaped. There was a large gate and also a small door which wasn’t locked so we fled. They didn't look for us for two days. Nobody had given us any food. We were hungry and there was nothing to eat. Everybody was crying and swearing. So we left the chaos. We got to the road and went through the park. There were armoured vehicle, tanks and soldiers. We were just standing there and the soldiers were throwing cans and other things to people. We didn‘t pick up the cans, we only picked up biscuits and sweets – that was what we ate for the whole day. But it was a kind of help for us. But then it started to get dark and where should we go? We didn’t want to return, so we went to sleep on one of the benches. We held each other's hand and slept on one of the benches. Imagine, it was May, two small children but nobody took notice of us. Everybody was just looking after themselves. One day, two days and we were very sad. We cried: where we shall go, what will happen to us, who do we belong to? And suddenly a miracle – I still cannot imagine how it was possible; our father had returned from Germany and he had been looking for us and found out we weren’t in any of the buildings. Before he returned they had taken one of our brothers to Olešnice, and Pavel to Česká Kamenice. Pavel, the youngest one, had been adopted. Our father hadn't been able to find us because our names hadn’t been recorded by the Red Cross. When the Red Cross, Swiss and Swedish, arrived, we had already gone. So they claimed we were dead. Nobody knew where we were. And he found us there! After two or three days – crying and dirty, he embraced us and went to find a cart to get away in."

  • „They were some young boys from Žadlovice. They had white stockings. They arrived in a van and put us in the back, five children and took us away. Mother asked where they were taking us, and they answered: ´We will look after them very well.´ And right – how well they looked after us. The organizer of this explained to us how well they would look after us. They were Czech but had collaborated with the Germans. Young boys. I, a small girl, saw young boys and so I was smiling nicely at them.“

  • "My father was in Hagibor but he ended up in Theresienstadt. But he was not in Terezin. He was tall and slim and when a transport arrived at Theresienstadt he and other men had to take corpses to the crematorium. So he was in charge of the dead ones when the transports arrived. He said that in each of the transports there were several dead people."

  • "There were about thirty of us in that room. There were bunk beds - three above each other. Here there were the windows and here the beds. We spoke German. There were Polish kids, Slovaks, Hungarian children; all of us together and we couldn't understand each other, some children, not at all. The buildings in Theresienstadt had special names. The little children, toddlers, until the age of one. Our house was for six-year-olds to ten-year-olds. They marked it 410 to 418. Each of the buildings had its own number and according to this number, they knew how old the children were."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Mohelnice

    (audio)
    duration: 02:00:08
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
  • 2

    Mohelnice, 23.09.2010

    (audio)
    duration: 01:40:55
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
  • 3

    Šumperk, 17.07.2015

    (audio)
    duration: 01:35:44
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

We were terrified and wanted to go home.

Alžběta Dostálová (Morgensternová)
Alžběta Dostálová (Morgensternová)
photo: archiv pamětníka

Alžběta Dostálová, née Morgensternová, was born on October 11th, 1936 in Horní Studénky. Her father, Richard, was of Jewish origin, her mother, Božena, was not. Her grandparents, Julius and Laura Morgenstern, died in the Terezin camp. Her family hid in Vlčice u Loštic, but they did not manage to avoid antisemitism there. During the Easter of 1943, two members of the Henlein movement set their house on fire. Alzbeta’s parents lost all of their property and were forced to move to Loštice. In the autumn of 1944, Alžběta and her siblings were sent to orphanages as thier father was deported to Terezin. Eventually, the children were also deported to Terezin. Upon their arrival they were put into different buildings. Nine-year-old Alžběta and her sister Marie went to the so-called “kinderhaus”. There they suffered from hunger, exhaustion and fear, Alzebta remembers the horrifying moment they were forced to watch the execution of Hela, their Czech-Jewish governess. In May 1945, during the last days of the war, German soldiers and supervisors left Terezin. The sisters decided to walk to Loštice. For several days they slept in a park near the town, unnoticed by anyone. When the war ended and the concentration camps were liberated, their father, found them and took them home. He had to search for the other children all over the country; his youngest son, Pavel, returned home as late as 1947. After the war, Alžběta finished primary school and then studied at a secondary school in Brno. She worked for MEZ Mohelnice until she retired. Today, she still lives in Mohelnice.