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  To the 1.5 million Jewish children who were killed during the Holocaust and specifically to all the Nesharim, not just to the few who survived, but to all the boys who lived with me in Room 7 in the school building L417 during my two-and-a-half-year incarceration in the Terezin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, many of whom were much more talented than I am and unfortunately most of whose lives and contributions to society were cut short by being gassed on arrival in Auschwitz. And to our leader, Francis Maier, a.k.a. Franta, who at the age of twenty overcame the most unimaginably difficult circumstances and became a father to some eighty rambunctious boys, teaching them how to survive by forging a team spirit which has lasted until today.

  —MICHAEL GRUENBAUM

  To the Gruenbaum family, past, present, and future

  —TODD HASAK-LOWY

  Introduction

  IN MAY 1945, A FEW DAYS after we were liberated from the Terezin concentration camp, my mother wrote the following letter to some relatives living abroad:

  This is my first letter in which the threatening, indiscreet eyes of the censors do not know my thoughts. I do not know where to begin in order to describe to you (without leaving anything out) everything we lived through during the years since we last saw each other. Each card, each package from all of you was a bit of warmth, a bit of the happy surroundings that we lost. I am writing to you as I remember you, and yet we have the feeling here that we will never be able to find a bridge to those who have lived on the outside and who fortunately will never be able to grasp what horror, fear, and deep sorrow we experienced through the years just passed.

  We hardly have the hope of finding anyone [of our relatives alive]. We ourselves were saved by a miracle. We were collected for a transport three times and Misha even for a fourth time! You cannot imagine the contrasts between life and death. We look well even though nourishment was very inadequate. To illustrate this, I want to tell you that we—the three of us—consumed three eggs in two and a half years. All of which we procured secretly. They cost 170 crowns apiece. Misha’s sister worked in the laundry, and Misha was a delivery boy—in place of a horse. He sometimes went to a friend with a notebook under his jacket to take some lessons, but it all failed because of the many obstacles and lack of time. We had to work ten hours a day.

  We do not yet know how the future will shape up for us. None of our old friends are alive anymore. We do not know where we are going to live. Nothing! But somewhere in the world there is still a sun, mountains, the ocean, books, small clean apartments, and perhaps again the rebuilding of a new life.

  What kind of place was my mother talking about? What kind of place forces a boy to work ten hours a day instead of going to school? What were “transports,” and why was a miracle needed to keep us off them? And what was the miracle?

  The book you are about to read answers these questions and many more. It’s a book about my experiences from the ages of nine to fifteen, when the German Nazi army conquered Prague, my hometown, and then did their very best to wipe out Prague’s Jewish community in its entirety. It’s a story I only thought to tell the world when I was already an old man. Why did I wait seventy years to tell it? Well, that’s a story in and of itself.

  * * *

  When my mother passed away in 1974, I inherited the album she assembled after the war, an album made out of the memorabilia she saved from Terezin. Terezin was a transition camp in northern Czechoslovakia to which most Jews from Czechoslovakia (and some Jews from other parts of Europe) were sent before they were later sent to Auschwitz for extermination.

  For sentimental reasons I kept her album well preserved all these years. It wasn’t until I also was reaching an “advanced age” that I decided to find a place that would take good care of it just as I did. I vacillated between the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, the Ghetto Museum in Terezin in the Czech Republic, the Jewish Museum in Prague, and Beit Theresienstadt, the kibbutz in Israel that collects and displays Terezin memorabilia. I decided to donate the album as well as my memory book (in which many of my roommates in Terezin wrote a commemorative page) to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, because I felt it was a safe place and they had the financial resources to preserve the two precious items in good condition for posterity.

  Ms. Judith Cohen, one of the archivists from the museum, came to my house and couldn’t believe her good fortune, because at this point the museum gets few such donations. And I was giving her not just a document or two, but an entire collection, all organized and well preserved. The museum was so elated with my donation that it decided to dedicate an entire page in the museum’s 2010 calendar to my mother and our family. Furthermore, Ms. Cohen took a couple of pages from my mother’s album and arranged to have them included in the museum’s permanent collection. Last, she made a short film for the museum’s Curators’ Corner collection that summarized our experiences under the Nazis. Incidentally, many of these same documents have been reproduced in the book you now hold.

  The resulting excitement inspired me to write a picture book for children. In that original version of the story I chose to have a bear narrate how our family avoided being transported from Terezin to Auschwitz, and thus to our death in the gas chambers waiting there. If you want to know why I chose a bear for that story, you’ll have to read this book; I promise you’ll find the answer there. I wrote a children’s story because I learned that there was a great demand for stories for this age. Also, many years ago I had written several stories spoken by various animals.

  After writing that story, I started out on the long process of trying to get my story published, a process that involved many letters to many literary agents and publishers. In the end, no one wanted to publish what I had written. One of the several reasons I was given was that children who play with teddy bears are not ready age-wise to learn about the Holocaust, or children who are ready to learn about the Holocaust don’t play with teddy bears anymore. So the feeling was that there was only a very small window of potential readers for such a children’s story.

  But, on the bright side, there was one publisher who wanted to know if I would be willing to work with another writer, a professional, to help tell my story for a middle-school audience, a suggestion I readily agreed to. What followed were another couple of years of working with one writer, and then another, until this book was produced. I must say that I’m very pleased with the results.

  The book is an amazing example of one person’s (my mother’s) courage, perseverance, ingenuity, resilience, and a strong desire to stay alive and hope that better times would eventually come. It took a while, but these times came, though they came on a different continent. After liberation in 1945 we settled back in Prague and tried hard to return to a normal life. But soon thereafter it started to look like the Communists were trying to take over the government. My mother, seeing the writing on the wall, wrote to friends in the United States to ask for visas for us. Six weeks after the official Communist takeover we left Czechoslovakia, but we had to wait in Cuba for two years before our quota number came up to enter the United States.

  Just as my mother dreamed, we were able to successfully rebuild our lives here. And we were rebuilding from almost nothing. On four separate occasions we lost a
ll of our property. At first the Nazis confiscated whatever they could. We then lost what we tried to save by sending it to a warehouse in London that was later bombed by the Germans. We were able to take only one hundred pounds per person to Terezin. We got very few of our other possessions back from neighbors and friends when we returned from Terezin. And what we shipped to New York City before our departure from Czechoslovakia was eventually auctioned off because someone forgot to pay the monthly rent. So we had to start all over again each time, but what we learned was that material possessions are replaceable and, in the overall scheme of things, not important. Both my sister and I were able to find wonderful lifelong partners, build new families, and thus bring my mother much well-deserved happiness.

  But you won’t find a lot about that happiness in the story you hold in your hand. This book is about the hardest years of my life, years that were so hard they almost ended my life before I even reached my fifteenth year. Some of this has already been described in my late wife’s book, Nešarim: Child Survivors of Terezín by Thelma Gruenbaum, which was published some ten years ago. But this is the first time it’s being told for readers who are the age now that I was way back then.

  When people speak about the Holocaust these days, they often say “Never forget.” I certainly agree with them, but before you can pledge to remember something, you have to know it to begin with. I’m hopeful that this book will serve as the kind of “bridge” my mother wrote about in that letter of hers from 1945. I believe that by reading this book you’ll be able to understand the world we lived in—and nearly died in—from 1939 to 1945. And, if I had to guess, once you truly understand that world, you’ll never forget it.

  —Michael Gruenbaum

  Part I

  Prague, Czechoslovakia

  March 11, 1939

  MY RECORD IS FIFTEEN.

  “Why are you rushing, Misha?” Father has been asking ever since we left our apartment. “Slow down,” he kept telling me, nearly laughing, while we were walking along the river. The Vltava. The best river in the world.

  He didn’t know that I was warming up, getting ready. Because today is the day; I can feel it.

  Father likes to take his time. “A person isn’t supposed to rush on Shabbat,” he’s reminded me about five times already. But I can’t blame him. He works so hard all week. I mean, he’s barely even around most of the time. Some nights he doesn’t come home at all. And he’s going to London tomorrow, because of his work. I hate it when he’s gone, but I guess when you’re one of the lawyers for the richest family in Prague you do what they say.

  But I have a job too. To break my record. Today.

  We’re almost at the bridge. The Cechuv. Seagulls are chasing each other along the river, playing their secret games. The castle pokes up at the sky like usual, high above everything. Maybe we can go up there once he gets back from his trip. See the changing of the guards and look at the city down below. I’ll ask Father when he’s not so annoyed with me.

  We turn off the quay and onto the bridge, busy with people and cars. Excellent. Here comes Pavel Goren, our doctor. Who just so happens to have the biggest belly of any doctor anywhere. But why is he walking away from the Old-New Synagogue? Who cares, this is perfect. He’ll distract father.

  “Shabbat shalom, Pavel,” my father says.

  “Hello, Karl,” Pavel says, and ruffles my hair, his stomach brushing against my ear. “Tell me something, Misha, have you been growing again?”

  But I don’t answer. Because the bridge is perfect right now. Old men and their canes. Girls chattering with their friends. A couple led by their dog.

  “It’s Madga; she’s ill,” Pavel tells my father. “Every year in March, it’s the same thing.”

  I guess I’m supposed to care, but I have more important things to worry about. Plus, I’m sure of it, in a moment they’ll be talking about Germany and Hitler and the Nazis, which is all any adult seems to talk about these days. So boring.

  Three boys pass us. Bigger than me, but so what?

  I’m off.

  One of the boys says, “The next World Cup is ours. You’ll see.”

  “No way,” the tallest says. “Brazil will beat us. Again.”

  “Are you crazy?” the third boy says. “Oldrich is only getting better.”

  “You’re both idiots,” says the tall one. They stop to argue, pointing their fingers at each other.

  Fine with me. I pass them.

  One, two, three.

  Next is an old man, shuffling along slowly. No problem.

  Four.

  And two women, one of them pushing a stroller. Unfortunately, babies don’t count, but still.

  Five, six.

  Someday this will be an Olympic event. At least it should be. Prague will host the Olympics, and I’ll be a national hero. Gruenbaum’s about to set a new mark! He’s passing the German. Thirty-seven! Thirty-seven people passed on a single bridge! A new Olympic record!

  But okay, I’ve got to focus. And no running allowed. If you run and they catch you, you’re disqualified.

  Here’s a family. Like ours. A boy and his sister. She looks about four years older than him, too, just like with us. I wonder if she tells him to stop acting like a baby all the time too. Doesn’t matter, they’re tossing bits of bread out to the seagulls.

  Seven, eight, nine, ten.

  Can’t get distracted in the middle. Not by that boat sliding underneath. And not by the urge to turn back to see the old castle, even though it looks best from this spot. Because it’s got to be the biggest castle anywhere. I swear, sometimes its four steeples—especially the tallest one at the top of the cathedral—they disappear right into the clouds.

  “Michael Gruenbaum!” my father screams at me. “What are you doing?” I pretend I didn’t hear him. He won’t be that mad; my father almost never gets that mad. Another reason he’s the best dad anywhere.

  Here’s a couple, holding hands. Piece of cake.

  Eleven, twelve.

  Four more and it’s a record.

  A woman walking her dog.

  Thirteen.

  Two men arguing in German. Walking fast, as if they know, as if they were sent here to discourage our nation’s best bet. But it won’t be so easy, gentlemen. My legs might be short, but my feet are quick.

  Fourteen, fifteen!

  I’ve tied my record.

  Only there’s just one problem. Oh no. There’s no one left. And the end of the bridge, fast approaching, is barely fifty feet away.

  Oh well, a tie is still impressive.

  But what’s this? Someone passing me!

  A tall man, in shorts. Mother would say it’s much too cold for shorts. And I have to agree, not that I’d say so. Gym shoes on his feet. Speeds past me. The bulge of a soccer ball in a bag on his back. I hear him huffing and see the sweat on his neck shining in the sunlight.

  He must be a pro, or will be someday. Probably knows Antonin Puc personally. A striker if I had to guess.

  But so what? Because I, Misha Gruenbaum (my parents only call me “Michael” when I’m in trouble), will one day represent Czechoslovakia in the Pass People on the Bridge event at the Olympics. It’ll be a sport by 1948 or 1952, and by then I’ll be in my prime.

  So I begin to sprint, because here’s a little known rule only the most dedicated competitors know: If someone else is running, you can run to pass them. That’s allowed. Father won’t be happy, me running like this in my clothes for synagogue. But so what? Someday, when the medal is hanging in our living room, when I’m a national hero, he’ll understand it was all worth it.

  Twenty feet to go. The man in the shorts turns his head, puzzled. Grins. Picks up his pace. But he’s no match for a sprinter like Gruenbaum.

  I break the finish line a moment before him!

  The crowd goes wild!

  The national anthem plays!

  Sixteen!

  A new record! I did it!!! Sixteen!!!

  “Misha! Misha!”


  I turn and hurry back to Father. Wipe the sweat off on the inside of my sleeves so he won’t see. Try to get my breath back to normal.

  “Look at the castle,” I tell him. Because maybe that will distract him.

  “Misha,” he says, concerned. “You’re only eight years old. You can’t just run off like that. I couldn’t even—”

  “Can we go?” I ask, pointing past his shoulder.

  “Go? What are you—”

  “To the castle.” Father opens his mouth, like he’s about to say something. “The first Sunday after you get back, from London. Please.”

  He puts his tallit bag under his left arm and turns toward the castle. It worked; I can see it in his eyes. He forgets about everything. Maybe even those stupid Nazis he and the rest of the adults won’t shut up about.

  “Sure,” he says quietly, still staring across the river. “I don’t see why not.” He puts his arm around me, and we continue along the bridge toward the synagogue. “So long as it doesn’t rain.”

  My dad’s like that. Always worrying a bit. As if something is always about to go wrong. But if he knew about my new record, he’d realize that things are only going to get better. Because sometimes I can just tell.

  March 15, 1939

  “MISHA, GET AWAY FROM THAT window already,” Mother orders from the kitchen.

  But I don’t. I can’t. Because it’s not every day that an entire army marches right past your building.

  First there were actual tanks. Dozens of them. Their treads whirring loudly, their cannons pointing straight ahead. And then the motorcycles with their sidecars. How I’d love to ride in one of those. Just not with a Nazi, of course. But with Father, definitely.

  Only he’s still in London, which is really unfair. Mother’s here, but it’s not the same, because she’d never drive a motorcycle. She did stand by the window with me for a few minutes, her hand on my shoulder, breathing deeply, like she was preparing to dive into a deep, deep lake. Then she shook her head and was gone.