Grandma Hana's poem written in Terezin in May, 1943. "We are chasing time...turning the wheel of history; the wounded ship moves through the fog....
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Tribute to my family. Tribute to all families. Thank you for honouring us with your visit.
My mother told me that I was Jewish when I was 9 or 10. As a child performer in Theater Semafor (my name was Lenka Hartlova), I was invited to perform at the Prague Jewish Community's celebration of Purim. I didn't know anything at all...not even what "Jew" was. It took me a while to learn about my roots, as my mother did not say much about it; she did not know herself. My mother, while 100% Jewish, was brought up a Catholic by her family who left Judaism one by one. My great-grandmother described herself as "without faith" already in 1919, and my grandmother and grandfather left Judaism some 3-4 years later. There were no signs of Jewish roots in the households, Christmas was celebrated. Not a completely atypical Czech Jewish urban family, i believe; assimilation was wide-spread. Then the Holocaust... and my family was murdered. As an adult, I began learning. The activities of the past 25 years of my life, since my first trip to Masada, have all been an attempt to learn and to honour my heritage in ways available to me: as a Yiddish singer and musician, composer of music built in one way or another on Jewish traditions, a singer of beautiful liturgy. My current project "Songs for the Breathing Walls" is the latest milestone in a quest to honour and connect with the past. While the mementos found on this page provided the seed motivation, the concept reaches well beyond my own family, projecting hope into the future. You can hear it and read about it here: BREATHING WALLS In my virtual museum, I intend to collect the objects in my possession, a number of them from my mother's files that I am discovering over time in her place in Prague. I begin today, on Yom Hashoa, the Holocaust Remembrance Day, April 18-19, 2012. The first exhibit is a "savings book" that belonged to my maternal grandmother Hannah (Anna) Friesova in Terezin. Every month, she seems to have deposited Moses-decorated "money" into this "account". The song playing on this site, Child of Survivors, was my first attempt to come to terms with my heritage, and the path I suddenly felt that I had to take. It was written in 1988, recorded ten years later.       |
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Terezin
Wild, beastly water came, only heavy stones remained; it took away the harvest and the barren field, and extiguished all flames..." 
The flood has passed, it's a white morning.... 
Once I lose the last bit of bitter taste from the goblet, emptied to the bottom, with a smile on my lips I will come back to you, my native land. 
Covers of Grandma Hana's booklets of poems written 1940-1945, some of them in Terezin. 
Hana's ink drawing of the Terezin hospital. 
They played/watched soccer here. Also lined up for reports and deportations. 
My mom lived here for two and a half years. In the basement and in the loft, the famed music rehearsals and productions took place. 
The trains to Auschwitz left from here. 
Grandma Hana's Savings Book. 
Grandma as an athletic teen (early 1920s?) |
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