reading

The history of the Jewish family Getreuer
from the Bohemian Forest
between 1938 and 1942

Imprint

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

The original German title “Auf Nachricht warten” was published in 2015 by lichtung verlag GmbH, ISBN 978-3-941306-20-2.

Preface

It began with a wedding announcement

Over 20 years ago, an elderly man living in Canada received mail from Europe. This letter, sent by a business friend, included the wedding announcement of a Dutch couple, with the same rather unusual last name as the Canadian gentleman: “Getreuer”. Originally Paul Getreuer had come from Bohemia. After the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938 (“Anschluss”), Paul Getreuer spent most of his lifetime in Singapore having fled the Nazis in Vienna. Then he moved in with his daughter in Canada. He found out that his family had become victims of the holocaust. After having unsuccessfully spent decades on end searching for people with his family name, in city directories and phonebooks all over the world, Paul Getreuer was convinced he was the only survivor of the Getreuer family from Bohemian Libochowitz (Libochovice). Knowing this, Paul Getreuer’s friend had sent him the wedding announcement from the Netherlands.

The letter Paul Getreuer wrote to the Getreuer family in the Netherlands had an unexpected effect: the Dutch family had in fact come from the very same village and was related to him. Following this, an entire network of family connections was uncovered. A considerable number of family members were found to be in Germany, Austria, Israel and in the USA, all descendants of survivors and emigrants.

The family relations were confusing, only the family tree made it all clear. Gé and Edgar Getreuer, the parents of the Dutch groom, put together a family tree including 10 generations and approximately 400 members of the Getreuer family, using matriculation registers of the former Jewish-Bohemian communities from the National Archives in Prague. Their work spurred the wish for a family meeting. Relatives from across the globe met in Prague, Israel and Vienna to get to know each other, to share whatever they knew about previous generations and to contribute documents of the family history. Thus, my maiden name being Getreuer, I received a pack of around 170 letters, written in Prague between 1938 and 1942. A Jewish couple, Heinrich and Frieda Getreuer, had sent them to their adult children, who had fled abroad, until, after having suffered for years, both were deported and murdered in a concentration camp. The letters were preserved by their US descendants for over 60 years, to commemorate their murdered ancestors. Unable to read the letters written in German mostly in Kurrent handwriting the grandchildren asked me to tell them about their content. Upon holding the papers in hand, I had no idea where to start. That which lay before me was but a bunch of unorganised, indecipherable, badly copied fragments of the family’s preserved correspondence. Their content seemed to be monotonous and with little meaning. The people they talked about were not to be put in relation and the hints they gave on certain events I could not understand. Only after I deciphered, decoded and linked for quite a while, little by little I started to understand the connections. Descendants in the USA and Israel supported me by giving me more information on the family history: they did so with many historic photos, a diary, handwritten childhood memories, memoirs, private official documents, more historical letters written by friends and relatives as well as stories they remembered.

By and by a family history unfolded, set in the 30s and 40s of the 20^th century: A Jewish family lives peacefully and undisputedly in a little Bohemian village called Schwanenbrückl (Mostek) in the Bohemian Forest, until their home country is annexed into the German Reich (Deutsches Reich) by Hitler’s power politics. Step by step they become victims of the National Socialists’ policy affecting Jews (Judenpolitik). They are forced to surrender their property and flee to Prague, the supposedly safe heartland. The parents stay behind in a desperate situation and are separated from their children who emigrate. Living with a small group of relatives, they are constantly at risk of being persecuted by the Nazis, their sad existence balancing between the hope to be able to follow their children abroad and the fear of getting deported into the unknown. Eventually they are murdered by the Nazis in a concentration camp in the then occupied Poland. In vain and for years on end their children search for their relatives and wait for news.

The letters reflect the family’s three and a half years of suffering. These years are shaped by the waiting for news: the children wait for their parents’ letters from Prague, the parents wait for news from their beloved ones overseas. Those who stay behind wait to be notified that they too can finally leave the country. As their hope dwindles, they wait for the end of the war, assuming this will end their misery, and they wait fearfully for the day they might get deported, which must inexorably be coming closer and closer. Finally the relatives wait for news from those who have disappeared without any trace, or at least for news about their fate.

This study gives the murdered one last chance to speak. Their letters give us a glimpse of the living conditions as Jews in Prague under the Nazi rule. They speak of weakening hope and oppressive fear, but are also documents of their great love for their children and their moving trust in God.

After their death more than 70 years ago, only one contemporary witness is still alive, the oldest granddaughter. The younger descendants know of their grandparents’ fate only from stories told by others, although not a lot was told. The survivors’ generation did not want to burden their children with memories – an attitude very common amongst traumatised families. Many biographies and autobiographies have been published about the lives of Jews during the persecution. Quite often they tell about people who escaped annihilation. Frieda and Heinrich were not so lucky. Their life and their suffering is similar to that of millions of other victims. But nevertheless each single fate is unique and worth acknowledging.

Out of respect for the heartbreaking letters serving as an authentic source, as many quotes as possible were included in the text. These are complemented by narrative and explanatory passages. Uncovering the family’s faded traces of life was a task marked by small and big successes. Now and then I was grasping at nothing, when history had already pulled its curtain, or when searching for details had become too intricate, Thus, mistakes, misunderstandings and errors could not always be avoided.

This text covers the story of an unknown family “only”. But based on the still existing private sources, it answers the great-grandchildren’s questions and keeps the murdered family members from being forgotten.

If one calls the following generations “great-grandchildren”, Martin Doerry’s prologue about his grandmother Lilli Jahn in “My wounded heart” could have been written for this book as well: “Each new generation, each authentic source from the Nazi area reaches new readers. And that alone is a gain for the political culture of the present and the historical awareness of coming generations.”

Illustration: Getreuer family, around 1930. At the bottom (from left): Else, Walter and Louise Getreuer; above (from left): Josef Abeles, Frieda and Heinrich Getreuer, Rose Abeles nee’ Getreuer

Prologue

Hitler needed relaxation

Hitler needed relaxation. On the 17^th of September 1938 he watched a “nice, funny old movie”as he sat in his teahouse.

In the previous weeks he had been gambling dangerously to achieve a great goal in foreign politics: The Sudetenland was to be seized from Czechoslovakia without risking war. Now the Munich Agreement (Münchner Abkommen) was soon to be completed, legalising the Sudeten German regions to become part of the German Reich (Deutsches Reich). Hitler was gleeful and enjoyed the charming old movie…

On this Saturday in Schwanenbrückl, a small village in the Bohemian Forest in Sudetenland, a family left their house with only a few possessions. They hastily loaded their furniture, bedding, household contents and clothing onto a truck and shocked villagers watched them then leave their home forever. They were the only Jewish family in the village.

What had caused these proceedings? It was a fatal situation the Czechoslovakian government found themselves in this autumn. Many German speaking citizens lived in the Czech country, founded in 1918 from the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy’s bankruptcy assets, and with its territorial integrity granted by the UK and France. Most closed German settlements were along the border to Germany and Austria. The term Sudetenland had emerged between the World Wars to name these areas. Many of the approximately 3 million Sudeten German citizens were not comfortable with being Czech citizens. A strained situation that played into Hitler’s hands, whose goal was to enlarge the German sphere of influence to the East. He supported the Sudeten German Party (Sudetendeutsche Partei), which strived towards unification with the German Reich and had many Sudeten German followers. Anti-Czech campaigns orchestrated by Hitler’s Germany became more and more frequent and aggressive. As long as he could trust the support of Great Britain and France guaranteed by the contract, the Czechoslovakian State President Beneš did not have to be afraid of Hitler’s threatening gestures nor of the Sudeten German Party followers’ machinations. As these countries feared nothing more than another war, they were willing to appease Hitler’s claim for annexation. Even more so, as the majority of the Sudeten German population apparently wished to be separated from Czechoslovakia.

Conflicts purposely staged by Germany to suggest a Sudeten crisis (Sudetenkrise) were to make the world believe war was imminent. The annual Rally of the Nazi party (Reichsparteitag) was held in Nuremberg during the second week of September 1938. What was Hitler going to say about the “Sudeten crisis” there? Hitler did not let the cat out of the bag, but in his closing speech on the 12^th of September, one could glance into it: “Germans living in Czechoslovakia are neither defenceless nor abandoned.” To say this at the end of the speech seemed harmless. But in plain terms it meant: the German Reich supports the Sudeten Germans’ wish to unify. Great Britain and France caved in due to fear of war, indicating to the Czechoslovakian government that they would yield to the pressure. Before the end of September all paths had been paved to hand over the Sudetenland to the German Reich. With the Munich Agreement (Münchner Abkommen) signed on the 29^th of September, Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy decided to cede the Sudetenland to Germany. The Czechoslovakian government had to give in.

The world was relieved, as peace seemed to have been preserved. The German press, brought in line with Nazi goals, celebrated Hitler as the saviour of peace. In the Sudetenland, enthusiasts marched through cities and villages waving banners and making music. What the bell had tolled in reality, was common knowledge amongst the overpowered Czechs and the approximately 30,000 Jews who used to live in the Sudetenland. Heinrich and Frieda Getreuer from Schwanenbrückl with their children Rose, Louise, and Walter were amongst them.

I. Home in the Bohemian Forest

1. The lost village

Anyone who seeks Schwanenbrückl today will be very much reminded of the above-mentioned stanza written by Andreas Gryphius during the Thirty Years’ War. The village with a fairytale name can no longer be found on a map. Schwanenbrückl has gained a “lost village” status.

We will discover the meaning of this, once we begin to look for this village. Our journey starts at Schönsee, a bigger village, part of the Bavarian Upper Palatinate (Oberpfalz). We follow the trail of clues across the Czech boarder to our destination. At dusk we drive parallel to the Radbusa creek, on an unpaved road. Suddenly from the edge of the woods a glaring green sign leaps into sight. On it is written in Czech and German: Zaniklá ves – untergegangenes Dorf – Mostek/Schwanenbrückl. Next to the sign two gloomy cypresses stand like guardians, flanking a rusted crucifix. It is mounted on a stone pedestal bearing the date 1862. In the background of this eerie picture untamed forest grows rampant, the trees barely older than fifty years. In the dim light, between wall remnants and thicket, an elderly moustachioed man is picking wild garlic into a hamper. “All gone,” he tells us. “Communists village kaput – shame.”

All we have to find our way, is a hand-drawn map of Schwanenbrückl and an old picture of the village compound in winter. We tramp along a slowly ascending path angled to the West from the road, towards the Bavarian border. Ruins to either side of us, on the right the creek Johanesbächlein will soon become one with the Radbusa.

Left of the gently rounding trail, house number 14 must have stood, an estate once owned by the Getreuer family. We spy bricks and wooden beams overgrown with grass. We discover the ruins of a wall described as “Judenmauer” (Jewish wall) on the map and happen upon the torso of an ancient cherry tree. Just as it did decades ago, the view opens to grass planes and forests merging together in the soft, rolling landscape. It is hard to fathom that a lifetime ago, a village with two hundred and fifty people existed here.

Until 1918 the village was part of the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy, then became a part of Czechoslovakia and, in 1938, was incorporated into the German Empire. After the end of World War II, the Czechs reclaimed the region and drove out the Germans. During the Cold War the border villages were branded a restricted area and were not inhabited again. A double fence marked the divide between the eastern and the western world. All villages along the border deteriorated. People from the neighbouring regions took from the empty houses what they needed for themselves. In 1950 Schwanenbrückl’s village status was eliminated. Around 1957 bulldozers levelled what had been left of the village. To facilitate border control, no houses close to it were to remain standing. In no time the scrub had swallowed the wall remnants, only the trees will tell where paths once snaked through the town.

After the Cold War, some inhabitants of Schwanenbrückl ventured “over” to look for traces of their past life in their former village. None of the Getreuer family could return. However a former neighbour unearthed a broken jug from their land. Later “treasure hunters” found a rusted shovel, a child’s blue enamelled chamber pot, a glass bottle and shards of white and brown bowls and cups: the fragments of a once wealthy family’s household.

Ill. 2: View from inside the Getreuer house: the school (right) and the Sellner tavern (left)

Ill. 3: Sketched map of Schwanenbrückl, drawn in reference to the model by Johann Hauer and Franz Richter, made approx. 1985

2. Schwanenbrückl

“Village of 36 houses and 221 citizens, six kilometres to the west of Muttersdorf at 520 metres above sea level in the valley of Radbusa situated charmingly between river and forest”: So begins an old topographic description. The climate in the Bohemian Forest is rough, sometimes frost comes as early as September. During harsh winters the village of Schwanenbrückl was often cut off from the outside world for multiple weeks. The poor soil and soggy grassland did not leave the people luxuriously fed.

The settlement was far off from any well-trafficked roads, almost 5 km from the Bavarian border between the massive woodlands of the Upper Palatinate Forest and the Bohemian Forest. Since 1918 the only public transport was a local railway. It travelled from Weißensulz (Bělá nad Radbuzou), close to Schwanenbrückl, to Eger (Cheb). Churchgoers had to journey on foot to the neighbouring village Waier (Rybník nad Radbuzou) or walk 6 kilometres to Muttersdorf (Mutěnín). Here one could find a doctor, who also functioned as a dentist, as well as the next pharmacy. Those with greater errands who needed a bank, the post office or a hospital, had to travel on to either the district capital Bischofteinitz (Horšovský Týn) or the country town Taus (Domažlice). The next city was Pilsen, around 80 kilometres away, and the capitol Prague was around 120 kilometres away.

The citizens spoke German. Few Czechs lived in this area. People led a simple life without hardship, but also without any modern conveniences. The way of life was hardly any different compared to how it had been hundreds of years before, until late into the 20^th century. As in pre-industrial times, people lived off what forest, meadows, fields and waters provided. The gardens in which fruit and vegetables were grown were indispensable. The surrounding creeks and ponds were rich in fish and crayfish.

The villagers depended on self-sufficiency and were kept busy by this throughout the year. Most of them lived off their own little farm. The few traditional trades offered little paid work. Schwanenbrückl had two mills, a plank sawmill, a forester’s house, a school and a municipal building, a general store, a cobbler and a seamstress in the neighbouring village; also a baker and a butcher, a mason, a wainwright and a cooper practiced their trade. Even two inns were regularly visited. A peculiarity was the pattern-pricker, a skillful craftsman who made the templates for the highly sophisticated bobbin lace. The only way for women and girls to earn some money in the village was by working from home, making bobbin lace. At the age of 14, many other girls left for the city in order to work as maids in households or in a shop. Young lads also left home for Bavaria or Saxony to make some money as seasonal labourers. Social unity was crucial with these living conditions. Everyone knew everyone else, many were related, and they needed one another. A family could achieve whatever an individual could not, and the local community stepped in when the family could not cope. The village’s most important institutions were the school, founded in1789, the voluntary fire brigade and the general store. Schwanenbrückl owed the latter two to its citizen Heinrich Getreuer.

Ill. 5: Schwanenbrückl in an old postcard; the Getreuer family’s property was located at the upper fringe of the village centre

Ill. 6: A simplified map showing Czechoslovakia in 1937

Ill.7: Postcard showing Schwanenbrückl, residential and business building Getreuer-Klauber on the right

Ill. 8: Grandmother Fanny Klauber at her 70^th birthday in 1921 Standing behind her are her son-in-law Heinrich Getreuer (middle) and other members of the voluntary fire brigade

Waiting for news

Imprint

Contents

Preface

It began with a wedding announcement

Prologue

Hitler needed relaxation

I. Home in the Bohemian Forest

1. The lost village

2. Schwanenbrückl

3. The Getreuer family