A Soldier's Wife Journey
Helen Satter's Pre and Post War Experiences
Helen Satter
Helen Satter’s memoir is an amazing story told by an America soldier’s wife who spent three terrifying years (May 1942 – May 1945) in Terezin, the massive concentration camp located near Prague in Nazi Occupied Czechoslovakia during World War II. A true Holocaust survivor, Helen married America G.I. Warren Satter who she met in Occupied Germany after the war and who enabled her to begin a new and fulfilling life in America.
Phase I — World War II Years in Europe, 1939 — 1945
The postwar era was probably the most interesting part of my life. Before describing these years, I must go back to the beginning of my life.
I was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in the spring of 1923, the second daughter of Oskar and Annie Klein. World War I had
ended in 1918 with the establishment of Czechoslovakia as an independent state. Tomas Masaryk was the first president of the new republic which was highly industrialized and enjoying economic growth. My father's business, which he had started in 1911 and took over again after the war, prospered and my family enjoyed a comfortable life. My father was the distributor in Czechoslovakia for a German ball bearings manufacturer (FAG in Schweinfurt, Germany) and he also sold machinery and equipment for the beverage industry.
We had a large extended family, as my father who was born and raised in a small village in southern Bohemia, was one of 14 children. My mother came from a city in the Sudeten (the German part of Czechoslovakia) and had four siblings. Strange as it may be, only very few of my uncles and aunts came to live in Prague. However, several of my cousins came either to study or serve in the military and my family always welcomed them. Our Friday night dinners always included my uncle Joseph and any cousin who happened to be around.
Our childhood was a happy one. My sister was four years older and I tried to emulate her in every way. I must have been a
pest always trying to follow her and her friends, but she was quite tolerant of me. I was a good student and enjoyed school as well as many after school activities which included gymnastics, some sports like tennis and skiing, going to the movies with my friends, and music. Taking piano lessons was not one of my favorite things, as I had little talent and there were many other things that I would rather do than practice the piano.
My parents also enjoyed the good life. My father worked hard in the business and my mother helped with keeping the books and financial records. They had a beautiful marriage and enjoyed travel, theater, opera, concerts, and socializing with their friends.
From spring to fall they played tennis every morning on nearby courts and on weekends sometimes I would join them.
While Czechoslovakia was still enjoying prosperity, the situation in neighboring Germany was getting difficult for the Jewish population. Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party came to power and the persecution of Jews was advancing rapidly. The first sign that affected my family was when my father lost the distributorship of the German company he had represented for many years. It was quire a rude awakening for us. This happened in 1935 or 36. My father was able to secure the same position with a Swedish Company and his business continued. However, the happenings in Germany were scary and much too close to home. Yet my father felt that "it's not going to happen here" and so we continued to live the best we could until the fateful day, March 15,1939.
On that day German tanks rolled into Prague and Czechoslovakia as a democracy ceased to exist. It became the Protectorate of Hitler's Third Reich_ Less than three weeks later when I celebrated my sixteenth birthday, I knew that the life I knew would no longer exist.
Within a year we had to move out of our large apartment into a small one. Our housekeeper who had been with us for many years could no longer stay with us, as any contact between Jews and Christians was forbidden. As the Nuremberg laws went into effect, my father was no longer allowed to own a business. The firm "Oskar Klein" was aryanized meaning that my uncle who was a German Aryan became the new owner and my father was no longer permitted to work there. Many other rules and regulations were enacted by the Nazis' in their persecution of Jews. My sister and I could no longer attend public schools. My family had to give up our fox terrier Mickey, as Jews were not permitted to own pets. We were banned from going to parks, movies, theaters, restaurants, museums. We could only shop for food between the hours of three and five p.m. when there was hardly anything left. Using public transportation, we had to ride in the last car. Also, we had to be at home at eight p.m. which was the curfew for all Jews. The Nazis collected radios, jewelry, gold and silver, anything of value from the Jews. Life was difficult and so was emigration. There were very few countries willing to accept the many Jews who tried to escape from the Nazis. Once World War II started, it was virtually impossible to get out.
And so for the next couple of years we lived under the constant threat of the Gestapo (the German secret Police). On September 1, 1941 all Jews were ordered to wear the yellow star with the word "JUDE" printed in black letters. (I still have mine as a memento.)
Our life had truly changed. Being a teenager who loved life and wanted to live it fully, I tried my best to keep up my spirits as well as those of my family. While I was not allowed to continue to attend public school, my parents thought that it would be best if I learned a trade and arranged for me to become an apprentice in a millinery shop. I hated it. My sister at the same time learned to be a cook, another trade that my parents felt may be useful. They also made arrangements for me to study English and found a private English teacher. I took to English like a duck to water, as if I knew that my fate will be eventually to emigrate to America. In 1940 my sister met a young man from Hamburg, Germany, who came to Prague to study. A few months later they married hoping to join Kurt's parents who left Germany for Shanghai where they spent the war years. My sister and her husband never made it out of Czechoslovakia. I also met my first love, an eighteen year old boy named Joe. Our romance lasted a few months until he was deported with his parents to a concentration camp and I never saw him again.
That brings me to the start of deportation of Jews to concentration camps which occurred in October 1941, when the first 5,000 people were sent from Prague to Lodz, Poland. My best friend Dolly was among them and I never heard from her again. The next transports were destined to the newly established camp in Theresienstadt (or Terezin), a former military fortress about 50 kilometers from Prague. Beginning in January 1942, each week one thousand Jews were notified to report for their deportation. Every week some of our friends or family members were called. It was in May 1942 when my parents and I received the notice to report for our deportation. My sister and Kurt since they no longer lived with us were called several months later.
Each of us was allowed to carry one suitcase with our possessions as we were leaving our beloved Prague for the concentration camp where I was to spend the next three years. What does one take along for a journey to the unknown? Besides clothes and necessities, I tried to decide what would be a good thing to bring with me. Being practical and my father's daughter who believed in learning, I took my English book (English for every day life) and a book on stenography.
After having spent two nights in an assembly hall with close to one thousand people we boarded a train to our destination,
Terezin. Actually the train stopped some distance from the camp and we had to walk carrying our luggage. Once we arrived there, men and women were separated and directed to different barracks. We now became numbers. My number was AU 878, my mother AU 877. She and I were ordered to the "Dresdner Kaseme" (one of the military barracks assigned for women); my father was marched off to another barrack. For the next few months I did not see my father, as we were not allowed outside of our barracks except to report for work. Eventually the residents of the town were evacuated and all of Terezin became a concentration camp surrounded by barbed wire fences and well guarded by the S.S. guards. The houses now became residences for the inmates — a one family house became a "home" for some 40 people or and many as could be squeezed in.
Each house needed a manager to look after the inmates, to distribute the meager food rations, namely bread, sugar, and oleo, and to keep records. My father was chosen as a"Hausaelteste" (house manager) and one of the privileges was that my mother could move in with him. Unfortunately, this arrangement did not last long, as my mother became ill with typhus and was quarantined in a small hospital. Shortly after, my father who had suffered from dysentery died at the age of 62. A few months later my mother succumbed to her illness. She was 51 years old.
I will not go into many details of life in the concentration camp. Many books have been written on the subject. At that time there were no gas chambers in Terezin, however weekly trains were taking people to Auschwitz and other death camps in the East. It was pure luck not to be put on the list for the next transport. Miraculously, my sister and I escaped that fate, however her young husband was sent to Auschwitz where he died.
Somehow the three years of my incarceration passed. During the first year while working in a crate factory (nailing together crates) I became ill with hepatitis. After a few months I recuperated and for the next two years was assigned to work in the fields and vegetable garden growing fruits and vegetables for the Germans. Being outdoors and having access to some fresh produce (when the guards were not looking) restored my health. There is really very little that I remember about the day-to-day life during those years. We all had to work long hours, were mostly hungry, dreamt of strawberries with whipped cream, and wondered whether life would ever be normal again_ I made good friends with several young women, and to this day, my friendship with Eva and Hanka has deepened with every year.
News of the outside world and the war managed to trickle into the camp. We heard of D-Day and the Normandy invasion, the progress on the Russian front, the air force bombings of German cities, and the passing of President Roosevelt. Still, we did not dare to dream of our liberation. And yet we tried to be optimistic in spite of it all.
Finally, on May 8, 1945 the Russian Army came and liberated Terezin. Fortunately my sister also survived. Because of an outbreak of typhoid we were quarantined for another month until we were at last free to leave. My sister and I returned to Prague where we tried to resume our life.
Looking back now, some sixty years later, I feel that the world and the human race have not learned much from the Holocaust. Atrocities, torture, cruelty, deprivation, and genocide still go on in all different parts of the world. I only wish there was still hope for lasting peace and cooperation among all the nations and religions.
Postwar Years 1945 — 1949
It was the best of times, It was the worst of times. "Tale of Two Cities' By Charles Dickens
It is June 1945. I am twenty two years old. Having been recently liberated and released from the concentration camp Terezin, where I had spent more than three years, I am back in Prague. Free at last! I feel that "the worst of times" is over and look forward with confidence to "the best of times". Yet it took some time before the best of times came. As I mentioned earlier, the postwar era was perhaps the most interesting part of my life. It was a time of becoming human again, an individual rather than a number, a young woman mature beyond her years facing an uncertain future.
My sister and I were the sole survivors of our family. Later on we found a cousin who spent the war years in England. The rest of the family who were deported did not survive. My sister was able to secure our apartment after the German occupiers were forced to leave. Our Aryan uncle who took over my father's business was glad to relinquish it and he and my aunt left Czechoslovakia and moved to London. My sister and I were now the heirs and owners of the firm "Oskar Klein", ball bearings and machines for the beverage industry. Neither of us knew much about how to run a technical business and we hired a very capable manager to revitalize the firm after the war. We agreed that my sister would take care of the books and oversee the business and I would go back to school and finish my studies in the gymnasium (high school). I completed the requirements for a diploma by the late fall of 1945 as the government gave us a special accelerated program to accomplish it. My interest has always been languages and I planned eventually to enroll at the University as a language major. I also felt that I had to earn some money and when 1 received an offer of a job as an English correspondent with excellent pay for a company that did business with England, I took the job. The only problem was that the company was in a small town in Moravia. I was not happy there and after a few weeks I resigned and came back to Prague. By now it was the winter of 1945. Finding another job was no problem. Again I worked as a foreign language correspondent for an import-export company. I liked my new job, enrolled in the British Institute in Prague, and little by little my life became almost normal.
Life in general was not easy in postwar Europe. Czechoslovakia was no exception. There were shortages of just about everything, especially food. I do not remember about how much food we were getting in our rations, I only remember that food was scarce and we learned all kinds of ways to stretch the allotments. I mentioned above that life became almost normal. There was a sense of surrealism in a way – mainly a feeling of being an outsider and not belonging, even though on the surface we lived like everyone else. However, we socialized primarily with people who went through the same or similar experiences as we. Our friends were survivors who understood.
One of my dearest friends, Eva, who after the liberation returned to Brno, came to Prague at the end of 1946. Together we tried to find male companionship, went to dances and parties, even on blind dates. It was on one of these dates that Eva met her future husband George. No such luck for me. At least not yet. My sister at this time was dating our business manager Paul and shortly after they decided to marry. Paul gave up his bachelor apartment and moved in with my sister and me.
In the spring of 1947 I planned a trip to England to spend a month in the summer as a student of English at the University of Exeter. Shortly before that I received a letter from my friend Hank informing me that he was stationed in Germany as part of the U.S. Air Force and that he would like to see me. I had met Hank in Terezin where we both worked in the "Landwirtschaft" (agriculture) and we became good friends. He came there from Denmark even though he was originally from Germany and as a result he was liberated a few months before the rest of us by the Swedish Red Cross. Hearing from him after a period of two years was a real surprise! I wrote to him of my plans of going to England for a month and he wrote back that he will meet me there. When we met, Hank asked me to marry him and we agreed that he would come to Prague in the spring of 1948 and we will get married. There is a saying that people make plans and God laughs.
It was during the summer of 1947 when the political situation in Czechoslovakia really took a turn towards communism. Until then we believed in our democratic government with free elections and general freedoms. It was during that summer when after having accepted the Marshall Plan, the prime minister of Czechoslovakia was summoned to Moscow and upon his return reversed the decision. It was a bad omen. Yet again we still believed that democracy will survive. However, on February 25, 1948 the communist faction took over and so for the next 41 years remained in power. Our lives once again changed. One of the first signs of oppression was that the borders to the West were closed. We could no longer freely travel to France, Great Britain, or the neighboring West Germany. Hank, who was supposed to come to Prague in March of 1948, was no longer permitted to and our anticipated marriage was off.
At the same time there was pressure on us to join the communist party. Friends and acquaintances were arrested. Our business was nationalized. I knew that I did not want to remain in communist Czechoslovakia. My decision was to leave by any means I could. As it was not possible to do it legally, I had to find some other way. I found it through the Prague Jewish Community who was helping former concentration camp inmates from Eastern Europe to emigrate to Palestine though West Germany. At first my request for assistance to get out of the country was rejected because this illegal operation was not intended for Czech citizens. However, on my second appeal the individual in charge relented and gave me instructions where to meet and what to take. I was not to take any papers showing that I was Czech, take an assumed name, speak only German, and carry one suitcase. I met the group of about 30 people at the train station and we boarded the train to the western border of Bohemia and West Germany. As I scanned the group I noticed a young man who turned out to be a good friend of mine, John M. We had known each other since we were about two years old, as our parents were friends and we spent some summer vacations together. John was also my first date when I was about sixteen. Therefore I felt immediately better knowing that someone I knew so well was there with me. Of course we could not even acknowledge knowing each other at first lest we would give away the fact that we were both from Prague.
We crossed the border into West Germany without any incident and now we were on our own. My friend Hank was stationed in the town of Hof which was right near the
border. We went to the U.S. office there and registered as political refugees. Hank was happy to see me. However, when he asked his superior officer for permission to marry, he was informed that it was not possible for several reasons, one of them being that I could not come to the U.S. with him when his tour of duty was finished. Also, his job was hunting down Nazis, especially in Austria, which meant that he was mostly away from his base. And so, after a few days we parted and I went with John to a Czech political refugee camp in Schwabach. There were a number of young intellectuals, mostly students, who did not want to live under communist rule.
John and I decided to contact a couple of Jewish agencies who were helping people to emigrate. Our first attempt was to take the train to Munich where there were several Jewish Agencies helping survivors of concentration camps. We were shocked when we saw the destruction of that city. The only hotel we could find there was an underground bunker which had been used during the war as an air raid shelter. The agency in Munich was a big disappointment and we had no choice but to return back to Schwabach. Our next try was the American Joint Distribution Committee in Frankfurt am Main. That city too was in ruins. When we arrived there, we were interviewed by the Director of Emigration who turned out to be originally from Czechoslovakia. He took a liking to us and offered me a job as his secretary. I accepted and moved to Frankfurt where I rented a room from a German couple. It turned out that the husband had been in Dachau, the German concentration camp for dissenters.
My work at the "Joint" as we called it was interesting and my coworkers came from several different European countries. Soon we became almost a family. The original director left and my new boss was an English woman Renee with whom I got along very well. My friend John left for Paris where he had some relatives who were going to help him. As a wonderful surprise one day my dear friend Eva and her husband George arrived in Frankfurt. What a great reunion! Eva also got a job at the Joint and we spent much time together.
I did not mention that I had an aunt and a cousin in America. I wrote to my aunt from Germany and she not only responded, but assured me that she and her son George would do anything they could to help me emigrate to America. The Czech quota for emigration to the U.S. was pretty hopeless at that time and I started to look for other possibilities, like Canada, England, or Australia. However, as luck would have it, President Truman proposed a special law allowing 5,000 Czech political refugees to come to America. As soon as this law was passed, my cousin sent me an affidavit of support and thus the emigration process began.
One Sunday in July I received a telephone call from a Mrs. Harga, an American lady and friend of my aunt's in New York. My aunt had written to her and asked her to look up her niece who was living alone in Frankfurt. Mrs. Harga worked for the U.S. Occupation in Germany. She invited me to dinner at the Officers' Club and I was delighted. Having lived on the postwar German economy was not easy and a dinner out in an American club sounded great! Little did I know that I was going to meet my future husband that night. A few moments after we sat down a handsome young American came, said hello to Mrs. Harga and asked if he could join us. It turned out to be a lovely evening with music and good food and at the end he drove me home and asked if he could call me, since he wanted to see me again. A couple of days later he actually called and invited me to dinner and to see the movie "Gentlemen's Agreement". We became good friends, found we had many things in common and enjoyed being together. Warren took me on short trips around the area, we played tennis, chess, and bridge, talked about art, and our plans for the future. We both felt that it was not the time to become seriously involved. His tour of duty was going to come to an end and he would be returning to the U.S. As far as my emigration was concerned, I had no idea how long the process would take. As it turned out, it took until almost the end of March 1949 before I finally obtained my visa and was cleared to leave Germany. Warren went home in January 1949. I promised that I would get in touch with him once I arrived.
It has always been my dream to visit Paris. When my friend John, who was then living there, invited me to spend a couple of weeks in Paris, I was more than delighted. And so in the fall of 1948 I boarded the Orient Express from Frankfurt to Paris. At that time it was not the luxurious train of Agatha Christie's time, but just a regular train traveling between Germany and France. However, for me it was the beginning of a wonderful adventure. When I arrived, John greeted me at the station with a bouquet of flowers and I felt truly special. Since he worked during the day, I explored Paris on my own. My knowledge of French certainly came in handy. Fortunately Paris was not damaged during the war and it was as beautiful as ever. For me being there was a dream come true. I visited the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Left Bank, the Sacre Coeur, The Arch of Triumph, the Champs Elysees, and much more. I went to the Opera, the Folies Bergeres, and watched the passers by at the Café de la Paix. The two weeks passed quickly and it was time for me to return to Frankfurt and continue working while awaiting news of my emigration. The next few months were an uncertain time for me as the American Consulate was extremely careful in screening all political refugees lest they were in any way involved with the communist party. We all had to have a thorough background check and it took time.
After my return from Paris, I moved to a location closer to my work. I rented a room from a German woman who had been engaged to a Jewish man before the war. He was deported and never came back. We became quite friendly and the day before Christmas she offered to share a goose, the traditional German meal on Christmas Day, with me. I invited my friend Warren and Eva and George to this special feast.
Shortly after that my emigration papers came through and I was ordered to leave Frankfurt and move to Ludwigsburg where the American Consulate was processing the applications. I met several other Czech families there while we were waiting for our visas. Again it took several long weeks before we finally were cleared to leave for our destination, the U.S.A. In Bremerhaven we boarded the ship U.S. General Muir, an army transport. There were approximately a thousand refugees, mostly from Eastern Europe and about a hundred Czechs. Since I spoke English, I was asked to be the liaison person, and as such I received special treatment. The passage took eleven days, part of which we hit a storm and most of us were seasick. However, when on March 2r1 we arrived near the port of New York and saw the Statue of Liberty, all the hardship of the trip was forgotten. We arrived in the Promised Land.
I remember my thoughts standing at the ship's railing and looking at the Statue of Liberty. I wondered about my future, where it would take me, what will become of me. It was a moment of hope, yet uncertainty. But I felt ready and optimistic.
When we landed, I was greeted by my aunt, my cousin and his wife, and by dear Mr. Holzer, my sister's father-in-law who came from Shanghai to New York after the war. I spent a couple of weeks with my cousin and his family in New Rochelle and then moved to New York where 1 found a job. Not too long after my move, 1 heard from my friend Warren. He invited me to meet his family in Plainfield, New Jersey. I was warmly welcomed into his large family and shortly after we decided to get married. Warren had just secured a job in Washington, D.C. which meant that we would be living there, as soon as he found an apartment We were married on July 30th • by the justice of peace in Washington, D.C.
