Hugo Marom - February 8, 2008
Family
It's a good answer. Uh, tell me a little bit about your memories in Brno before the war.
Um, in Brno is...first of all we come from...my father served, served in the uh, what they called the Czech Legion...the part of the...there were, there were four brothers and two of them served in the Austrian army under the...under Kaiser Franz Josef. And my father went to the academy...he was the third and his name was Paul...Pavel Meisl...and he um went to the academy...the officer's academy...was sent to the front line and was captured by the Russians and um, most of the units which were captured by the Russians became turncoats, if you like...if you want to call it that...and fought with the Russians in the Czech Legion against the Austrians. In fact, on the same front as his brother who was also in the artillery and who was injured in the war and uh, died in 1936...spent 18 years in, in hospital in Brno. So Brno is being the lar...second largest town was divided in the Jewish community between German speaking and uh, Czech speaking Jews. And uh, I think there were most probably split something around 60/40. Sixty Czech speaking and 40 percent...maybe it was 65 or something of that kind, I can't tell you...I mean, those records which most probably can be checked properly. But my father belonged and my family belonged to Czech speaking Jewish group, A. because of his background, secondly he continued serving in the reserves as an officer. In fact, he was called up in 1938 during the uh, during the uh, Munich debacle, you know, when the, when uh, the French and English under Chamber...under Chamberlain handed over the Sudetenland to the Germans. So, basically that finished the uh, uh, the defense lines that Czechoslovakia had, which were practically impregnable and there are theories that had they not taken the Sudetenland the Germans would not have been able to enter Czechoslovakia. But uh, getting back to my memories.
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