"When did peope start talking about the Shoah?" - "I think it was at around 1952, 1953. Information about all people who died was being filled in. People were searching. You know, there is something called the Jewish Agency. Every couple days, they had 15 minutes on the radio during which people were looking for their relatives. They sought people whom they lost contact with. This is how it began. Gradually, we were learning how much was lost. How many people died. I recall that at high school history classes, it all ended in 1914. We hadn't learned anything beyond that."
"For instance, my mum had a friend who was like her sister. Her name was Hanička Němcová. They grew up together in Mělník. Hanička Němcová was a Christian. She put a yellow star on, and made her way to the Terezín ghetto. She brought my grandma and grandpa some food, collected their letters. They stayed in touch for a long time. Two of my uncles - Zdeněk and Jirka, both lawyers - were also held there. That is a sad story. They made it through the war because they served with the fire brigade. This allowed them to get out of Terezín and get some food for themselves and their parents. They made it till the end of the war. But after its end, one of them contracted tuberculosis and the other one typhus. Both died shortly after the war."
"It was horrible. I recall that my parents went for a tourist visit to Europe. I was put in charge of our whole farm while my parents left for Europe for two and a half months. They brought me a transistor. Nobody knew it in here back then. It was something. And so I sat and listened to the Eichmann trial. It was terrible and it made me really angry. I was asking myself why didn't the people flee, why hadn't they done something? Alright, today we know there were also the partisans. But the Jewish nation always has hopes. It had hoped throughout its history. Even when things were really bad, it had hoped for things to get better. They don't do anything actively. We know about the Jewish partisans in Yugoslavia, Poland, Slovakia, Russia, everywhere. But these were just a small fraction of the people. Most people continued to hope things would turn out fine."
Daniel Morgenstern was born on 3 December 1942 in Palestine. Prior to the war, his family lived in Mělník where his father worked as a lawyer. The family was of Jewish origin and so they decided to flee from the growing anti-semitic sentiments in Europe. On 13 March 1939, they managed to leave Czechoslovakia. On the way from Prague, they were already meeting German army vehicles going in the opposite direction. The family went through Italy to Palestine where they made a living as workers in agriculture. As a child, Daniel often helped his father work the field. He studied economy and political science and became a state official . He worked at the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Labor, also chairing a department responsible for the operation of ports and railways. He served for two and a half years as a soldier of the Israeli army. He was deployed in the Six-Day War, defending Israel against the Arab countries‘ invasion, and also in the so-called Yom Kippur War. He was in the army reserve for fifty years. Many of his relatives who stayed in Czechoslovakia, died in concentration camps. He was always very much interested in the topic of the Holocaust and spent years searching for the fates of his ancestors murdered by the Nazis.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
