It’s hard to remember much but what I do remember, I tell to my grandchildren and anyone else who will listen so that the stories can be remembered. My father, Eric Jahn, was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia. My mother, Marta Jahn, and I were born in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Before the holocaust began, my family was, you could say, rich. We had money, nice cars, good food on the table, I had a nice nanny, and we lived in an exclusive house. When the holocaust started, I was two years old. Everything was taken away. Most of our money, jewels, artifacts, art, everything. We had gone from rich to almost poor within a matter of days.

Things were not as bad for me as they were for my parents due to the fact that I was too young to really realize what was going on around me. There was a whole list of ‘Do’s and Don’ts’ that we had to follow. The Germans didn’t just destroy our lives, they took control of them. When my mother went to the market to get food, she would have to lie about being Jewish just to get enough food to support us. If you were Jewish, you lived like a slave to the German government. I was no longer permitted to go to school. You had to got special permits, be fingerprinted, and have your photograph taken just to go outside the city to see other relatives. You were given a certain amount of time to be outside of the limits. If you weren’t back in that time limit, well, you don’t want to let that happen.

My father worked against the Germans with a group of people in an organization called the Underground. He was friendly with them, though only to get more information and more food.

You weren’t allowed to play outside with non-Jewish children. Since I wasn’t allowed to go to school anymore, any education I got was from my mother. If you got sick, too bad. There were doctors, but they weren’t allowed to see you. They had doctors for the Jews, but they had no access to the kinds of medication that they would have needed. The Germans forced us to wear a yellow Star of David at all times. Especially when you went outside.

We ate once a day, due to lack of food supply, but we were never really hungry, so it didn’t matter that much. Clothes were hard to get. We never wore shoes during the summer. It was warm so we really didn’t need it. The shoes were reserved for the winter when it was too cold to go barefoot. As for the rest of the clothes we wore, they were usually made out of curtains or other old clothes that we got from people who were too big for them. My mother would take them and cut them up to make new clothes that would fit me.

There were many family quarrels between my mothers and fathers side of the family. My fathers family was pro-Nazi. They supported what they were doing 100%. My mothers side, however, were all orthodox Jews. When my fathers family found out that he had married a Jew, they were upset, and thus began the quarrels.

We used to go down to the river sometimes with a basket of food. Often it was thin oats and cinnamon. I don’t remember much about these trips except for the fun that we had down in the river swimming and splashing around. We were only allowed down there at certain times, but when we did go down there, we all had lots of fun.

My father was the first one of my family to go to the camps. After that, all heck broke loose. The next to go was my mother. After that, I was taken as well. My father was taken to a political POW camp by the name of Benesov. The work was the same, but there was little mistreatment. No executions were made in this camp. It was more like a prison than and actual camp. The reason behind him being sent to a POW camp was because he was technically not a Jew, just Jewish through marriage. They were forced to build railroad tracks for many hours a day. They had to walk miles some days just to get to the sites.

After my father left, my mother had to work to support me and herself. She would work for about twelve hours every day, so I was left alone for half the day. My mother, she would lock the door from the outside so that I wouldn’t be able to open the door. She gave our neighbor a copy of the key so that she could check on me if anything happened. From what I can remember, she never came over, though.

My mother, the next to go, was taken to a camp by the name of Terizin. This was an actual concentration camp. There were executions, beatings, shootings, cremations, and extreme mistreatment all around. Every one of my family members was sent to a camp except for one. My mothers side was exceptionally big. She escaped to Israel before there was time for her to be deported.

I was the third to go; the last. I, as well, was taken to Terizin, where my mother was. When I was taken, I was about six and a half years old. There was about a six month gap between the time she was taken and the time I was. For a long time, we didn’t know that we were in the same camp. I saw a lot of things in that camp, some too gruesome for this story, but there were some things in that camp that a six-and-a-half-year-old kid shouldn’t have to see.

There were many differences between my mothers and fathers sides of the family. My fathers family were pro-Nazi. His mother worshiped Hitler. My mothers family were orthodox Jews. There were many quarrels between them just due to that. My mother and father thought about leaving the country. If they had, a lot of things might have been different. My family might not have been taken to the camps, a lot of them may not have died. But my mother did not want to leave her family behind. So we stayed.

Most of the Czech’s liked the Germans, but the Germans were against us. Anyone who was Jewish was looked down upon. Sometimes, during the war, you would hear the Americans, or one of their allies, bombing different areas of the cities. They would get so close sometimes, that you would wonder if you would live to see another day. Bombing like this would sometimes last for a full 24 hours. It was hard because the bombs would fall so close that you could feel the ground rumble beneath you feet and the whole building would shake. When things got that bad, you would pray that everything would be alright.

My father’s cousin brought Russian spies to Paris. They were all women. I didn’t ask why the spies were only women and not men. After the war was over, nobody really said much about it, so I never asked. The Germans were constantly after you. They called being Jewish a disease. “Don’t touch one of them, or you’ll get sick.” That’s just how life became for us. They wouldn’t touch you, but if a German officer was walking down the street and you happen to be walking right at him, you better move out of the way because they would likely bump into you before it would even cross their mind to move.

My mother, father, and I were the only ones who survived the camps. When it was over, no one really talked about what had happened during the war. It was almost as if they were pretending that the war had never happened. I left the camp before my mother. I was taken to my fathers’ best friends’ mothers’ house. The Danish Red Cross liberated the camp. The day before the war ended, my mother and one of her friends escaped. She came, saw me, and left. Two days later, she came back with my father and picked me up. I never quite new how they knew where to find me and I never asked. When the war ended, I was almost eight years old. There was eventually a book published with a psychological interview in it about my family. The whole thing was just to get money back from the Germans due to the war. The amount of money you got depended on what camp you went to, how long you were there, haw many family members died, and other things like that. When the war ended, I would like to say that things went back to normal, but, then again, what is normal?, and if I said that, it would have to be a lie because that war and my experiences during it, changed my life forever. The best I can do now is pass my story on to my children and grandchildren to keep the memories alive. Remember the holocaust, for if we forget, history is doomed to repeat itself.