48 THENEWYORKER, SEPTEMBER 16, 2019
The author with her brother, Bobby, in April, 1937.COURTESY THE AUTHOR
our Terezín “household” and on
looking after my father and Bobby,
whom I was allowed to visit in the
hospital by that time. She was also
the only one to notice that while
she had been in prison I had slipped
up in one area: I had forgotten to
comb my hair. By the time she came
back, it was so full of knots that it
was impossible to untangle, and I
had to cut most of it off.
This was not the first
time I had cut my long
hair. Not wanting my
blond pigtails to lead any
one to mistake me for a
German girl, I had done
it soon after the Germans
marched into Prague.
M
y fear about includ
ing the story of my
mother’s imprisonment
in the diary is understand
able, but when I first re
read it I was stunned to
discover that it contained
no mention, either, of
Bobby’s illness or of my
parents’ marital situation,
two topics that never left
my thoughts.
One evening about a
week after our arrival in
Terezín, Bobby came to
visit my mother and me
in the attic. I was lying
down on my bed, because
I was tired. He told us
he was not feeling well
and lay down next to me.
When it was time for
him to return to his bar
racks and he tried to get
up, he fell and was unable
to move. His was the first
case in the camp’s polio
epidemic. Amazingly,
even though I had lain in bed right
next to him, I was never infected.
During the first weeks, we did not
know whether he would live. My par
ents went to see him every day; since
children were not allowed to visit the
polio ward, I waited in the attic for
news of his condition. For several
months, he remained paralyzed from
the waist down. I was afraid that he
would die, but gradually he got better
and began to regain the use of his legs,
although the polio left him with per
manently weakened stomach muscles
and a slight limp. A week after he was
released from the polio ward, he was
given a diagnosis of tuberculosis and
hospitalized again.
Once, when I was sitting with some
children in the courtyard on a high
horizontal beam used for drying laundry, my mother and Herbert walked
under us, holding hands. It was al
most dark, and they did not see me;
I could only hope that none of the
other children had recognized them.
I resented Herbert and his intrusion
into our family, and for a long time
I refused to speak to him. Herbert
frequently visited Bobby in the hos
pital, and Bobby seemed to accept
and even like him. My mother oncetold me that, when Bobby became
paralyzed and lost all will to live, Her
bert did more than anyone to restore
his spirit.
All I can remember about Herbert
now is his large brown eyes, mag
nified by his thick glasses, and how
sad he often seemed. I have forgot
ten when and why I stopped dis
liking him. I never had a chance to
get to know him well
enough to find out what
made my mother love
him. Nor will I ever know
whether my father was
aware of the true na
ture of my mother and
Herbert’s affair. On cer
tain occasions, instead
of addressing my father
as Viki or Vikínek (for
Viktor), she called him
Otylka—their half joking
code word for a jealous
spouse, as in Othello. But
the last time I heard my
mother call my father Ot
ylka was long before she
grew close to Herbert.
Although Herbert
could not get my mother
released when she was
jailed by the S.S., it is
very likely that on many
occasions he saved our
lives. When a transport
east was to leave Terezín,
the S.S. determined the
number and the cate
gory of prisoners (some
times only ablebodied
young men, sometimes
the sick and the old) to
be deported. But it was
up to the members of
the Jewish administra
tion, often including the
Council of Elders, to fill
in the names of specific individuals.
The council members were hated by
most of the other inmates; many par
ticipated in this dreadful process in
the hope that they could save them
selves and their families, since each
member was permitted to draw up a
list of thirty people who were to be
chránění—protected—from the trans
ports. My mother later told me that
she, my father, Bobby, and I were on