The right side was the side of life

Dostupné v: English | Česky

Helga Hošková-Weissová arrived to Auschwitz with her mother from Terezín. It was in October 1944. “We couldn't understand where we were. We could see a large area of wooden barracks, barbed wire, people in striped clothes and smoking chimneys in the background. SS-men burst inside, dogs were barking. They shouted at us: 'Los, los, schnell raus!‘ And they made us stand in a long line. An SS-man was standing in the front. The prisoners who were helping (with the transports) were whispering pieces of advice to us: ‘You’re all healthy! You’re all able to work! Don’t report that you belong together! Tell them that your age is such and such!’” The line winding in front of the two women was being divided by the SS-man into two groups. He pointed with his finger either to the right or to the left. Old people and mothers with young children went to one side. Those able to work went to the other side. “I hadn’t reached the age of fifteen yet, so I had to say that I was older. And my mother was 38. She had to say she was younger so that they would choose us for labour. It was one of the worst moments in my life. I quickly counted what I was going to say, in case I wasn’t asked for my age but for the date of my birth. My mother had to subtract a few years from her age. So we went forward. I even started to pray at that moment, I didn’t want the two of us to be separated. He showed my mother to go to the right and then he pointed at me... I was to go to the right too! At that moment, it was the side of life. Since all the others went straight to the gas chambers. Children under the age of fifteen couldn’t stand a chance, they were never chosen for labour, so from the platform they went straight into the gas chambers. In Terezín there were about 15 thousand people under the age of fifteen and almost all of them ended up in gas chambers. About a hundred of us who had not yet turned fifteen managed to pass the selection.” Everyone who passed the selection was then herded into barracks, where they had to strip naked, have their hair shaved off and go into the showers. “Then we got out all wet and from this pile we could take a piece of something that couldn’t even be determined as clothing. Me and my mother kept holding hands to avoid separation. Then they herded us into the barracks. There were three-tier bunk beds without mattresses and blankets, ten of us had to sleep on one of the tiers, which was originally meant for four people only. So we all had to lie on our side and whenever somebody wanted to turn to the other side, everyone had to do so too. There was one bowl for ten people and no spoons. We only sometimes got a so called ‘soup’. Without the spoons the ten of us had to drink the soup from that single bowl.

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Helga Hošková-Weissová

Academic artist Helga Hošková-Weissová, Dr.h.c., was born November 10, 1929 in Prague-Libeň in a Jewish assimilated family. After the occupation of Czechoslovakia, the family became victim to a number of persecutions by the Nazis, and in December 1941, they were transported to the Terezín ghetto. They spent nearly three years there, and during this time, Helga drew over a hundred of drawings depicting everyday life in Terezín. The picture-cycle, known as Draw What You See, is a precious work and a valuable historical testimony. At the beginning of October 1944, the Weiss family was transported to Auschwitz. While her father died in a gas chamber there, Helga and her mother were later selected to work in an aircraft factory in Freiberg, Germany. In April 1945, they set out on a death march to Mauthausen, where they were liberated on May 5. After the war, Helga simultaneously studied at a secondary graphic arts school and a grammar school. In 1950, she enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, where she studied in the studio of professor Emil Filla. In 1965, she went on a study trip to Israel, which helped her to brighten her palette of colours as well as her outlook on life, and the resulting series of paintings, which she exhibited in spring 1968 in Prague under the title Pictures from Wandering Through the Holy Land, became a great success. This opened the door to the world of artists for her; however, shortly after, this door was slammed shut by the invasion of "brotherly armies" the following August. She stopped painting for several years and in the meantime taught at a school for amateur artists. She gradually returned to painting - as well as to the motifs of war, Holocaust, disaster, and catastrophe in general. In her art, she strives to pass the message to the young generation so that they may never commit what had befallen her. In 2009, she was awarded the 1st class State Medal for Merit in the field of culture, art and education, and the Josef Hlávka Medal.

Další informace

Osvětim II-Březinka (Auschwitz II-Birkenau)

Dostupné v: English | Česky

Výstavba jednoho ze tří osvětimských koncentračních táborů byla zahájena v říjnu 1941 na území vesnice Březinka. Prošly jím statisíce vězňů z celé Evropy. Dne 7. října 1944 v něm vypuklo povstání židovských vězňů z tzv. sonderkomanda, které bylo krvavě potlačeno, ale podařilo se při něm zničit jedno z krematorií. Ve všech osvětimských koncentračních táborech zavraždili nacisté v plynových komorách přes milion lidí, většinou židovského původu. Od roku 1947 zde najdeme muzeum k uctění památky obětí.