"I have dreams about the stay in Terezín. In the morning, when I wake up, I'm happy that I am at home. I dream about the life in Terezín. I worked among those bastions, there were various gardens and fields, and then I worked in warehouses. Mainly in food warehouses, mainly food, in warehouses for hygiene needs, like a child."
"In order to be rescued from the transport [Dad and Mom], because they were scratching themselves with their brushes and Dad claimed they had a scarlet fever, and whoever had a contagious disease was not allowed to be transported to Auschwitz, because a scarlet fever was a contagious disease, and since the German police officers accompanied them the transports so that they would not get it. So [Dad and Mom] simulated a scarlet fever by brushing themselves with brushes.”
"It was at the Veletržní palác, there was a gathering place. There we gathered, there we walked from our place of residence and there we got ... for example, they brought a tub of goulash there, because there were many people, and the goulash was in the tub. We spent one night there and then we went in personal wagons (because people were transported to Terezín in personal wagons so as not to cause a commotion here) to Terezín. And from Terezín to Auschwitz we already were in wagons for cattle."
"I went to school until the Germans came. Then the principal came and called me from class that he had to talk to Jirka Koref, and there he told me everything he needed. He told me that he needed to know something about my family and that I could no longer go to school because I was Jewish."
"Who traveled with you in the transport to Terezín?" - "Mom and Dad." - "And some of the relatives?" - "They took other transports. Twenty-three relatives went to Terezín at that time and mostly went to Auschwitz afterwards."
MUDr. Jiří Koref was born as an only child on April 14, 1932 in Německý Brod to the house of his grandfather Alois Koref. His father, Oskar, was a general practitioner, and his mother, Marie, took care of the household. In Německý Brod, the witness entered Rubeš’s school, but after the German occupation of the republic and issued decrees, he was forced to leave the school due to his Jewish origin. The Koref family moved to Prague, Vinohrady, in 1940, and Jiří began attending a Jewish school in the Old Town. From 1942, his relatives and acquaintances were gradually transported first to the Terezín concentration camp (ghetto) and later most often to Auschwitz, where they died. Jiří Koref and his mother and father were transported to Terezín in July 1943 and met several other Jewish families from Německý Brod. The Koref family survived World War II there and in May 1945 returned to Prague, where the witness finished the burgher school and began studying at the secondary grammar school. After two years, his father got a primary job at the urology department at Havlíčkův Brod Hospital and they moved back to Brod. Jiří Koref entered the third year of the Havlíčkův Brod secondary grammar school, where he graduated and then studied at the Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Králové for six years. After graduating, he joined the oncology department in Trutnov in 1957, from where he returned a year later and began working at the Havlíčkův Brod hospital in the dermatology department, where he remained until his retirement (1992). As the last living witness to the Holocaust from Havlíčkův Brod, in 2017 he took part in a public reading of the names of the victims of the Holocaust, Yom HaShoah, where twenty-three names of his relatives were mentioned. He lived in Havlíčkův Brod at the time of filming. Jiří Koref died on September 12, 2021.
House No. 157, which Alois Koref bought in Dolní Street in Německý Brod at the end of the 1990s. During his studies at the grammar school, Josef Toufar also rented this place/ Photo: Jews in the Havlíčkův Brod region (Michal Kamp, Alena Šarounová)
House No. 157, which Alois Koref bought in Dolní Street in Německý Brod at the end of the 1990s. During his studies at the grammar school, Josef Toufar also rented this place/ Photo: Jews in the Havlíčkův Brod region (Michal Kamp, Alena Šarounová)
photo: Source: Židé na Havlíčkobrodsku (Michal Kamp, Alena Šarounová)
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A merchant, Israeli and head of the Jewish prayer house Alois Koref (a grandfather of Jiří Koref, MD). At the age of 78, he was transported to the Terezín labor camp in 1942, where he soon died / Photo: Židé na Havlíčkobrodsku (Michal Kamp, Alena Šarounová)
A merchant, Israeli and head of the Jewish prayer house Alois Koref (a grandfather of Jiří Koref, MD). At the age of 78, he was transported to the Terezín labor camp in 1942, where he soon died / Photo: Židé na Havlíčkobrodsku (Michal Kamp, Alena Šarounová)
photo: Source: Židé na Havlíčkobrodsku (Michal Kamp, Alena Šarounová)
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