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Name of the exhibit: D’Vůr Králové Scroll / Czech Torah

Submitted by: Temple Israel (on loan to Temple Israel from the Memorial Scrolls Trust)

Description: An excerpt from “Thus we remember: Continuing Story of our Holocaust Torah from the destroyed Jewish community of D’Vůr Králové”

REMARKS BY EVA WEISS NOSKOVÁ AT THE DEDICATION OF THE HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL
ON THE SITE OF THE DESTROYED SYNAGOGUE IN DVŮR KRÁLOVÉ NAD LABEM
FEBRUARY 16, 2008/10 ADAR I, 5768

In 1850, the first Jewish settlers arrived in Dvůr Králové. No Jews had been allowed to live here before 1850. They began immediately to create a Jewish community. By 1885, they had built a cemetery and, in 1890, the synagogue, which was consecrated in 1891. They started to build the first textile factories for weaving, dyeing and printing cotton fabrics and jute. They achieved such great success in the textile industry that very soon our town was called the “Czech Manchester”.

The Jewish community was quite large. In 1910, there were more than 500 registered members. But by 1930, the number had fallen to 300. As had begun to happen around the country, the synagogue service, which had been in Hebrew and German, now started to be read in Hebrew and Czech, and the German Jewish families – unhappy with this change – moved to other places.

The Jewish families and their textile factories made the town a glorious place. Dvůr Králové became widely known not only in Czechoslovakia but across Europe and overseas. But that was before 1938-1939. When Hitler occupied the Republic, all the Jewish factories were seized by the Germans and the Jewish shops were closed or “Aryanized.” The Jews were discriminated against and were no longer allowed to take part in the public life of the town. They had to wear a Jewish star, visible on their clothing, to show that they were Jewish. In the end, in 1941-1942, the Jews were dragged away to concentration camps: first to Terezín and then, after selection, to other camps – Oświęcim/Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Dachau, Buchenwald, Mauthausen and others. Most of them were murdered in gas chambers. The Jewish children were sent to the death camps with their parents. None of them survived. Only the mixed marriage families, who were deported to concentration camps in 1944-1945, survived the war.

The decline of the Jewish community of Dvůr Králové started before World War II and continued after the war because only a few of the small number of Jews who survived came back home. And the survivors very soon decided to leave, to move abroad and start a new life in another country – Australia, England, Canada, the USA, Ireland. The continuity vanished.

The synagogue was demolished in the 1960s. Despite efforts, led by my father, to preserve the building and declare it a national monument, it was not possible to save it. The town leaders, Communists of course, decided to pull it down and a new road – this road in front of us – was built right through the site of the synagogue.

Our Jewish cemetery was vandalized and almost completely destroyed. Today there is only a small memorial, created out of a few remaining gravestones. It is a sad but interesting fact that the synagogue and the cemetery survived both world wars only to be destroyed by the Communist regime.

We are here today, standing on the site of the demolished synagogue, and now there is a Star of David memorial to commemorate all the Jewish citizens of DvĹŻr KrĂĄlovĂŠ who once took part in the life of our town and were then murdered in concentration camps. Thank you to those who lit candles and brought flowers to the monument on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, and to all those who helped prepare for this day.

Finally, I am proud that I can say: Yes, I live among people who care about me and the fate of my community, and I hope that this site will stay a sacred place not only for today but forever.

Note: Five or, perhaps, six congregations are custodians of scrolls from DvĹŻr KrĂĄlovĂŠ: Temple Sholom of West Essex, Beth El at the Wellington Jewish Community Centre in Wellington, New Zealand; Temple Beth El in Geneva, New York; Hillel at the Claremont Colleges, in Claremont, California; Temple Israel in Ottawa, Canada; and possibly Western Marble Arch Synagogue in London, United Kingdom.

Additional Information: Click to read the full story “Thus we remember: Continuing Story of our Holocaust Torah from the destroyed Jewish community of D’VĹŻr KrĂĄlovĂŠ”.

Voyage to Ottawa: The scroll is on loan at Temple Israel from the Memorial Scrolls Trust.

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Name of the exhibit: Records from the Ottawa Jewish Archives

Submitted by: The Ottawa Jewish Archives

Date of origin: 1940’s

Origin of the object: N/A

Description: Exhibit consists of textual records brought to Canada by Hans Reiche, Arie van Mansum, and Holocaust survivors Erwin and Edie Koranyi. It includes correspondence and identification cards.

Voyage to Ottawa: Arie Van Mansum was born in Holland in 1920, and participated in the Dutch Resistance Movement. He distributed an underground resistance newspaper and assisted in finding safe passage for Jewish refugees. He immigrated to Ottawa with his wife in 1958 and died in 1999.

Hans Reiche was born in Berlin in 1914. He was a Physics professor, and an associate of Albert Einstein, Otto Hahn, and Niels Bohr. In 1940, Reiche fled to Canada, but was detained in an immigration camp as an immigrant of German origin. In 1942, with the intervention of Albert Einstein to the Canadian government, he was released. Reiche died in 2000.

Erwin Koranyi was born in Budapest in 1924, and was one of the estimated 100,000 Jews rescued by the Swedish diplomat Raul Wallenberg. Wallenberg issued Koranyi a special passport, declaring its holder a protectorate of the Swedish government. With this passport, Raul avoided wearing the yellow star, and was able to move to Sweden. After the war, Koranyi came to Ottawa, where he married Edie Rosenbaum, a fellow Holocaust survivor who was also from Budapest. Erwin passed away in 2012.

To listen to Erwin Koranyi’s testimonial click on the following link (bottom of the page):
/ches/ottawa-holocaust-survivors-testimonials/full-length/#1

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Name of the exhibit: Certificate of Identity Issued to Refugees

Submitted by: Emil Lander

Date of origin: June 30, 1948

Origin of the object: These certificates of identity were issued to my parents and me in the DP camp of Bindermichel, near Linz, Austria.

Description: After the Holocaust, my father and mother were settled in an American organized DP camp Bindermichel, near Linz, Austria where I was born on November 28, 1947. As a furrier, my father was accepted for immigration to Canada in 1948 under a special immigration project for fur workers. These certificates document our acceptance for immigration as furrier and dependents of furrier, as well as our arrival in Halifax on the ship General M B Stewart.

Voyage to Ottawa: These certificates are the immigration visas we used to come to Canada. They identify us as landed immigrants in Halifax on October 3, 1948, arriving on the transport ship General M B Stewart.

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Name of the exhibit: Postcard from the train to Auschwitz, June 4, 1944

Submitted by: Anna Hercz

Date of origin: June 4, 1944

Origin of the object: This is the goodbye postcard written by my mother to Karcsi, her future husband and my father, from Kosice en route to the unknown. My mother and her family, mother, father, sisters, and a 5-year-old nice, along with thousands of other Jews, were en route from Oradea, Romania (then Hungary) to Auschwitz. Written on the official Hungarian Army postcard addressed to Dr. Mozes Karoly (away in the Ukraine with the Hungarian Army Labour Service), was thrown from the cattle car in Kosice and was forwarded by a good-willed railway worker. My father brought this card home and I still have it. It was included in my mother’s book Remaining Human through the Holocaust published in English by the University of Calgary Press in 2005.

Description: The postcard is a unique reminder of my family’s tragic past. Grandparents from both sides, three aunts, and a 5 year old nice were murdered in Auschwitz. My mother, father, one aunt and an uncle survived. See the attached book and document for the photo of the postcard and the exert from the book offering more background on the significance of the postcard.

Voyage to Ottawa: My mother, Terez Mozes, author of the Holocaust memoir Staying Human through the Holocaust gave me the original postcard in 1997 to be included in the publication of her book in Canada. She is 99 years old and is living in Israel.

Additional Information: Click to read an excerpt from the book “Staying Human through the Holocaust”.

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Name of the exhibit: Photo, documents, and articles (maternal side of the family)

Submitted by: Les Grumach

Date of origin: 1942

Origin of the object: This is a photo taken in the Krakow ghetto in Poland. It shows my maternal grandfather, Salo Langer, and some other Jews being forced to shovel snow under the direction of the Nazis. He is on the side, holding the shovel over his shoulder.

Description: During the Nazi occupation of Poland, my grandfather and his family were warned a day before the liquidation of the ghetto. They managed to escape and take their niece Lily Broder with them as well. They all spoke German fluently as well as Polish, which probably helped them survive. In 1946, after the Kielce pogrom, they decided to emigrate. Fortunately they had some funds waiting in London as Salo had been an agent for a Swiss watch company. They managed to get to Marseilles and sailed on a ship called the Monkey to Sydney, Australia. My grandmother was a great business woman, trading in antiques and fine arts in Poland. When they moved to Melbourne, she started an antique business called “House of Art”.

Voyage to Ottawa: Salo Langer, his wife Guta (Katzner), and their daughter Alicia emigrated to Melbourne, Australia in 1946. The photo came into my possession after my parents died and has been with me ever since.

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Name of the exhibit: Last Correspondence

Submitted by: Mina Cohn

Date of origin: February 20, 1940

Origin of the object: Kanchuga, Poland. A Red Cross postcard and last correspondence from Yosef Pinchas, my Great-grandfather, sent from Kanchuga, Poland on the 2nd of February 1940, in response to his granddaughter, Zila’s inquiry about his wellbeing. (Zila was then living in Palestine). Those cards were originally sent from Palestine to Poland via the Red Cross and this is the response part that the Nazis allowed to send back (based on the explanation of the process by Professor James Casteel, ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University). On the right upper corner in his hand writing in German Josef Pinchas is saying that the family is well.

Description: A Red Cross Postcard used by Jewish people in British Palestine to correspond with relatives in Poland after the Nazi occupation of that country, when regular mail service was not possible anymore. Seeing his hand writing on the card was very moving.

A Picture of my Great-grandfather Yosef Pinchas, who wrote the postcard, the only picture we had of my father’s family. I grew up hearing many stories about him from my father who admired him very much.

Included in researching my family was a trip to Poland in the footsteps of my Great-grandfather. The third picture is a place where Yosef Pinchas could possibly be buried: Jagiella Forest between Pelkinska and Jeroslaw towns, South East Poland at a Russian soldiers’ cemetery, where a mass grave (grave II) for Jews murdered in Kanchuga exists. (The bodies of the murdered Jews were left in the town in the location where they were murdered, they were exhumed and moved by the Red Cross to this Russian soldier’s cemetery after the war’s end).

Voyage to Ottawa: The Red Cross postcard was kept by my father’s sister throughout her life. I became aware of it for the first time when I saw it in my father’s memoirs book חלצת נפשי ממות.

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Name of the exhibit: The COHN family Loss of German Citizenship

Submitted by: Harry Cohn

Date of origin: February 6, 1940

Origin of the object: Bad Arolsen Germany Archive

Description: This is the photocopy of the actual Act sanctioning officially my family’s LOSS of CITIZENSHIP, as was published in the daily Official Gazette of the Nazi government (Reichsanzeiger) dated – Berlin, Tuesday 6 February 1940

The numbers:
35 – Cohn, Valentin – my grandfather
36 – Cohn, Gertrud – my grandmother
37 – Cohn, Rudolf – my father
38 – Cohn, Heinz – my uncle

By the time that this Decree became official, my family had already left Germany illegally, and settled in South America as refugees.
My family never returned to Germany after the war!

Historical background for this document:

In 1935 government authorities required the Reichsvertretung (German Jewish Representation), to change its name to Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland (National Representation of Jews in Germany), a nuance that exemplifies the Nazi intention to cut off the Jews’ German identity.
The first of the “Nuremberg Laws” (15 September 1935), as the decrees came to be known, was the Reich Flag Law, determined the official new colours of the German flag – The Nazi Flag.

The second Law was the Reich Citizenship Law, and the third Law was The Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor, both carrying Hitler’s signature, became centerpieces of Nazi Germany’s anti-Jewish legislation.

Henceforth Jews would only be subjects in Nazi Germany. Stripped of citizenship, deprived of civil rights, they would live as foreigners-if at all- in their German homeland. The Jews were returned to the legal position they had occupied in Germany before their emancipation in the 19th century.

15 November 1935: The German Churches begin to collaborate with the Nazis by supplying records to the government indicating who is Christian and who is not; that is, who is a Jew.

31 December 1935: The last Jews remaining in Germany’s civil service are dismissed by the government.

Voyage to Ottawa: During my research of my family past history, I contacted the USHMM and, among other documents, I received a copy of the official daily Gazette of the Nazi government (Reichsanzeiger).

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Name of the exhibit: “Jewish youth – Do you want to live?”

Submitted by: Sarah Bleiwas and family

Date of origin: April 28, 1939

Origin of the object: This is a speech that was written and presented by GĂĄl GyĂśrgy AndrĂĄs (George Andrew Gal) in Budapest, Hungary in 1939. We are unsure of where the speech was presented.

Description: Gál György András, or George Andrew Gal, was born on June 20th1921, in Budapest, Hungary. On April 28th1939, when George was 17 years old, he wrote and presented this speech in Budapest. It reflects the mood amongst Jewish youth shortly before Nazi Germany’s troops occupied Hungary. Excerpts from the speech:

“Towards what we are starting now, the future, near and far, places in front of us insurmountable and immeasurable tasks. The soulless prophet shouts towards us with an empty heart and a full throat: “Jewish youth – do you want to live?”

“My brothers in departure, the road is in front of us, the true and only one. It is full of steep hills and traps, but we go forward. Freedom is singing in our hearts and truth is pounding in our brain. In our hands the bible is our shield, and in our soul lives God.”

Five years later, on July 2nd1944, when George was 23 years old, he was killed in a forced labour camp in Hungary. Bombs exploded around him, and Jewish labourers were not permitted to take shelter in the bunker.

On Oct 20th1944, George’s father (Aladár Gál) was taken away by the Nazis, and he never returned. George’s mother and sister survived the Holocaust.

Voyage to Ottawa:George Gal’s sister (Susan Gál/Haydu, arrived in Toronto, Canada as a refugee in April 1957 with her husband (Zoltan Haydu) and daughter (Agnes Haydu/Bleiwas). The next year, in 1958, George and Susan’s mother, Helen Gál joined Susan and family in Toronto and brought the speech. Susan’s granddaughter (Sarah Bleiwas) brought the speech from Toronto to Ottawa.

See additional information about this speech here: George Andrew Gal Speech EXPLAINED