MUDr. Pavel Pick

* 1936

  • "When I was in the cinema for the first time after the war, I saw a film, it was such a documentary, it was called Why We Fought. It was about English and American soldiers then. Documentary. I think I later had the opportunity to watch it on television many, many years after the war. And that aroused such a love for the cinema in me that since then I have been going to the cinema where we could. And now I watch movies on TV because I can't walk much anymore. I started going to school in Perunova street. Due to the fact that some acquaintances took care of me and Petr, we started going straight to the 4th grade. Petr Poláček and his mother moved to their former farm in Mcely and also went to school there for some time. Then they returned to Prague and we started going to the same class. I started in 4th grade. I didn't have any particular learning difficulties. What bothered me a little was that some of the boys were probably inoculated with anti-Semitism, so sometimes they hunted me and shouted, 'Get the Jew! Get the Jew! ' On the other hand, I must say that there were also boys who stood up for me and fought by my side. Who didn't stand up for me was the headmaster of the school, some Mr. Dubsky, to whom I told what was happening, and he said: 'Well, call them Czech, and there you have it.' But I think that was the last time I met openly anti-Semitism in person. "

  • "In elementary school, because I was baptized, the catechist found out that I was a Catholic. So she began to integrate me into the teaching of religion that was then. I really liked it, so I gradually became a passionate Christian. Avid. We also had religion in the first class of the gym, even in the second. But it was already a unified school. There we were taught by a kind of Gabriel, who was a very modern pastor like St. Dominic, as the film was. He rode a motorcycle, played football with us. But he actually got me out of religion, because I, even though I was a faithful religious Catholic who went to Mass every week and was offended when someone was making trouble, he didn't choose me as a minister. So he turned me away from the Catholic Church. Not to mention that I was a pioneer again for a while. And also kind of an ardent pioneer. We had good pioneer leaders who got common sense over time, so I befriended them, and they were very critical of the prevailing social order. So that changed my outlook, too. "

  • "My father worked in the kitchen. A guy from Vienna came to him once, saying he was a butcher and if they would take him to the kitchen. And Dad somehow arranged it then. The gentleman's name was Heinrich Horn and he was a butcher from Vienna. He and Dad became friends. This Heinrich Horn in Vienna, as he was a butcher and a strong man, went to the Club of Heavy Athletes. Rahm, Heindl and another SS man went to the same club. My father explained to me that they were once in the kitchen, washing boilers, and the biggest crook from Theresienstadt, Heindl, came there. He came and slapped Horn in the back from behind and said, 'Well, wie gehts, Heini?' He turned, slapped him, and said, 'Gut.' So why am I telling this? Thanks to that, I survived. Because when the last transport to Auschwitz was on October 28, 1944, we were all there too. Dad as a chef was important for the eventual operation of the ghetto. And so there stood those people, the important ones, which some were supposed to be taken back to keep the ghetto going. Dad was standing next to Horn, and he said to him, 'Don't worry.' And we were really dismissed from the transport. Grandma was not, she had to go. And she died."

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    V Praze, 06.02.2021

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In Theresienstadt nobody knew who would be first

Pavel Pick, 1970
Pavel Pick, 1970
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

Pavel Pick was born on July 25, 1936, into a middle-class family that had roots in the countryside on both sides: mother Gertrude née Schmolková in Jablonná near Neveklov, father Emil in Dolní Bousov near Jičín. The parents were of Jewish descent but had a lukewarm attitude to religion. Pavel grew up in Vinohrady in a harmonious, loving family, he often went to his grandmother in Jablonná. After the establishment of the protectorate, they first tried unsuccessfully to emigrate, then the family was baptized, but unfortunately, it turned out that baptism did not protect them. The Pick family faced several racial restrictions, Pavel was allowed to play with other Jewish children only on the playground in the Hagibor area. He met many of his friends at the time in Theresienstadt, where the Picks were deported in January 1942. He was allowed to stay with his mother in the ghetto and later with his grandmother, his father lived elsewhere. The family was lucky, they managed to avoid transport to the east, unfortunately, grandmother Olga on his mother‘s side was not so fortunate, she died in the Auschwitz concentration camp, as did grandfather Adolf from his father’s side. After the liberation, the Pick family returned to Prague, Pavel started going to school, quickly caught up with everything that was needed. Pavel was a good student, he studied medicine after graduation and became a doctor at the Faculty Hospital on Charles Square. He practised internal medicine and clinical biochemistry. In 1967, he received a scholarship from the Humboldt Foundation for research work in the University Hospital laboratories in Düsseldorf in what was then West Germany. During normalization, he was expelled from the Communist Party and affected by the ban on teaching. He worked at the Faculty Hospital all his professional life until his retirement and for several years after that, he also lectured to medical students at the university. In 1996, Pavel recorded a video interview for the USC Shoah Foundation, in which he tells in detail about three and a half years in prison in Theresienstadt.