Hanna Ramras - January 26, 2008
Germans Invade Sudetenland
Do you remember when the Germans invaded the Sudetenland or the rest of Czechoslovakia?
I remember, I was there. No, Sudetenland? Sudetenland--you can't--you saw it everywhere. In--almost in the same street where we lived which was called Dr. Goebbels Strasse that eh, eh, that's where we lived. Opposite there was Gestapo headquarters and the, the man in charge was called Henlein. And yes, I do remember once that Hitler came to town and we were amazed because that was before they threw the Jewish children out. And he came and he was in his open car and the kids all had flags with swastikas on them and I was waving one of those flags too. I didn't know what it was about.
Do you know what happened to your mother?
I didn't want to know. I know that it was in Theresienstadt. Now, I didn't want details because the thought of it--which gas chamber, which smoke stack, what ashes--I couldn't take that. I just couldn't take it. I shied away from it. I have access here to the greatest museum that there is. My daughter has gotten all sorts of information from her computer that up 'til today I do not want to know all the details. That's where I became a coward. I have a grave to visit in Bratislava. It's my father's grave and I go there.
You've been back to Czechoslovakia.
Oh, yes. Uh, just to Slovakia.
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