„I was a member of Bar Kochba Brno swimming unit. What Maccabi was for athletes Bar Kochba was for swimmers. I was not even five years old and I already knew to swim and was good at that. When I was seven, I joined Bar Kochba. When I was eight, I took part in the first race. It was in Zábrdovice – there was a big championship, a European one. We were eight to twelve years old girls and we were swimming fifty meters breaststroke.“
„I used to like ice skating a lot. Before I left for Israel, I was in Prague when Jews were already not allowed to go to the stadiums. There was a sign saying: ‘No entry by Jews.‘ So instead, when the Moldau river was frozen, I was doing the pirouettes and other dancing figures there. A Czech man who was passing by approached me and said: ’Girl, why don’t you go to the stadium? There are really good coaches there.‘ I told him: ‘You know, I am leaving for Israel in a week.‘ He replied: ‘Hopefully you will change your mind and go to the stadium.‘ He didn’t understand that I was Jewish and that I couldn’t have gone.“
“Our parents accompanied us and were about to leave the train in Brno, obviously. When we were sitting in the train, I knew there would be Babice, then Bílovice and soon after Brno where I would have to say goodbye to my parents. As they were leaving the train, my mother was crying a river. My daddy was standing there with her. And I was thinking: ‘Why do I have to leave? Shouldn’t I leave the train, as well?’ But then something told me: ‘If you want to live, you must go.‘ And that’s the way it was. I was 14 and a half years old and this was the last time I saw my parents.“
“I was occasionally teaching PE seminars in the place where I had studied, and was later hired as a teacher. In the afternoons, I would work with children with palsy and later with adults as well. Later, I became their coach and accompanied the disabled team to eight Paralympics. At the same time, I was teaching students who wanted to become PE teachers. Those were my two careers.“
Margalit (birth name Margit) Sonnenfeld was born on 26 November 1925 to a Jewish family in Brno. She had a twin sister Ruth and an older sister Lotte. Her farther Karel Sonnenfeld was a barrister, a representative of the Jewish community in Brno and a delegate to the Jewish National Council in Moravia. Margalit’s father was also an active athlete. He was one of the founders of the sports club Maccabi; between 1927 and 1928 he presided over the Maccabi World Union. Margalit became an active swimmer at the age of five and was a member of the sports club Bar Kochba in Brno. Following the 15 March 1939 occupation, Margalit’s father was arrested and detained for ten days. He did not want to leave the country himself but tried to send abroad his daughters. Thanks to the Maccabi sports club, Margalit received a permission to leave for Palestine, where she joined her twin sister Ruth in March 1940. In Palestine, she lived in a boarding house and later moved to a Kibbutz. Her parents and older sister Lotte were deported to Terezín in 1942. Her mother and sister lived to see liberation but her father died in Auschwitz in October 1944. In 1946 her mother committed suicide. Lotte left for Israel in 1949 as well. In 1958 Margalit moved to Tel Aviv and studied to become a teacher. She worked as a PE teacher and later also gave lectures to future teachers. At the same time she did swimming therapy for children and adults suffering from palsy. She trained swimmers with disabilities and accompanied them to the Paralympics from 1964 till 1992. She lives in Tel Aviv.
