Kirkemosen, 29.01.2002

Dear family and friends,

This letter is to tell you of our most recent adventure, in acquiring - or re-acquiring - some new, although not entirely young, members of our family on Mama's side.

t all started four years ago, one evening toward the end of January 1998, when my mother, Mama as we all call her, was watching a program about the Jews of Prague, on Danish television. There she was, sitting in her living room, in the fifth country she's lived in, having been estranged from her own native Czechoslovakia for fifty years. And whom does she see being interviewed on the screen? Not that she'd recognize the face, mind you, but the name gave her a jolt. It was non other than her first cousin Vera Hájková, née Duxová, whom she hadn't seen or heard from since 1948.

Joy, joy, wild elation, she's alive, grabbing the phone, Peter, you must help me find her!

A quick call to the TV station, thinking that the interviewing journalist, Ulla Terkelsen, a well known newsperson in Denmark, will no doubt be able to provide Vera's address. "Ms. Terkelsen lives on the road", I'm told, - "she's difficult to reach. Best is you send us a letter, she gets her mail sent to her address in Berlin twice a week". So I write a note and drive down to the village to drop it the mailbox. Then we start thinking. Mama said Vera was introduced as a retired Prague journalist. Simon Wiesenthal was mentioned. We soon had found the telephone number of the Jewish community in Prague, where of course they had Vera's number and next day the two cousins were on the phone, attempting, hopelessly, to bridge a gap of fifty years.

Mama's state of mind was beyond description, so she failed when she tried. I suggested that she takes the next flight to Prague and three days later she and Vera were in each other's arms.

Upon her return, Mama was so moved by the experience and so determined that we, the now two generations of Danish Sees, should get to know the Czech Hájek side of the family, that she decided to take us all to Prague come July, to celebrate her eighty-fifth birthday with a family re-union party. We were going to meet Vera, her husband Karel, their two married children and four grandchildren. Three generations of whose existence we had no idea, although we've lived an hour's flight away from one another for over thirty years. Mama, Vera and another surviving cousin and, like Vera, a concentration camp survivor, Hanka, are descendants, on their mothers' side, of the Neumanns from Rakovnik, in Western Bohemia.

Vera had told Mama about Hanka, that right after the war she had gone to make a life in Israel, together with her Hanus. Hanka and Hanus also have two married children and six grandchildren and had come to visit the Prague family a few times. Of course  they had to telephone Hanka right away. Hanka was dizzy with joy and she and Mama are writing to one another at least once a month now. Hanka and Hanus would also come to Prague to attend our reunion, an added bonus.

Mama brought back from Prague a copy of the book Vera wrote about her wonderful pre-war family, the beginning of her career, her deportation to Terezín, where she looked after the little, starving orphans, and later Auschwitz and forced-labor camps. Vera had only two copies left, one in Czech and one in English, and although Mama much prefers to read Czech, she brought the English version, so we could all read it. Harriet and I read it in two days, a sober, straightforward, enormously moving eyewitness tale. We kept wiping our eyes.
            
The weeks and months went rapidly and before we knew it, we were well into July. All terribly excited, of course, just to think of all the new cousins named Hana, Hanka, Hanus, Jan, Jana and Jarda, whom we were about to meet. Apparently also the Czech branch of our family adheres, as we do, to the tradition never to innovate when it comes to names. You know the saying, never change a winning combination. When we find a good name, we stick to it for generations, passing it on to our children and even marrying people with those names, just to keep the confusion going.

Mama also invited Ulla Terkelsen, as an expression of gratitude for having been the agent - albeit indirectly - that brought our families together.

We were flying to Prague on Mama's birthday, July 30th. Mama, my younger brother Paul and his wife Margit, Harriet and myself. Paul's son from his first marriage, Thomas, and his girlfriend Mette, went by car, over Berlin, because after Prague they were going on their summer vacation. My daughter Elisabeth and her fiancé Nino are in Argentina - and I'm really sorry

they missed out on the reunion. Mama is talking about going back   with Elisabeth in spring, so she too can meet our Prague family, and Harriet and I are of course planning on going with them. Spring in Prague, with our nearest and dearest, sounds great.

Paul had taken care of our travelling arrangements and we were joining an organized flight-and-accommodation package tour group. We met in really good time at Copenhagen airport, did a little tax-free shopping and then sat down at the Oyster Bar, to start in style, before joining our group: Oysters and cured salmon, with champagne - beer for some - toasting Mama, wishing her a Happy Bee and thanking her for her most generous invitation.


An auspicious beginning. But let me ask you: Would this be us, if something didn't happen?

There we were, only two hours later, in summer-evening-hot Prague, a most welcome change after endless weeks of nasty, cold and rainy weather in Denmark, safely seated on board our chartered airport-bus, thinking, here we are, on our way to our romantic-sounding lodgings aboard Boatel Racek, a large ship floating on the Moldava, barely off downtown and firmly moored to one of the banks of the river by means of steel pylons, where we'll take possession of our cabins and have a refreshing shower. Mama, as agreed over the telephone, will meet with the chef to arrange the menu for tomorrow's festive dinner and then we can all meet on the upper deck, sit back, relax, enjoy a cool drink, the nightly breeze and the view, over the river, of illuminated Prague, in wonderful anticipation of tomorrow.

Our bus is travelling through the suburbs of Prague. Rasmus, our young tour guide, a tall, bespectacled and skinny university student on a summer job, all smiles and good will, is reading from a roster and calling out the names of fellow travelers and the hotels where they will alight. We are at the wrong hotel.

No way, Paul tells Rasmus, get it straight. We've booked months ago. We're staying at the Boatel Racek, we have family arriving from all over the world, we have a big party tomorrow, and Danish television is coming. Sorry, smiles Rasmus, it says here on my list that the See party of five is staying at the Ibis. Your mistake, your problem, counters Paul, waving our voucher, issued by the travel bureau. This theme goes on with slight variations for about ten minutes. The bus has stopped, the driver awaiting further instructions. Paul lends Rasmus his mobile phone, so he can phone his local manager. The Racek is full, they overbooked. Paul gets on the phone. He's got years of experience behind a front desk and lets the local manager have a piece of his mind - and then some, to no avail. Then Mama gets on the phone to talk in Czech to the receptionist at the Racek. Everybody is very sorry, but no rooms tonight. Tomorrow, promise. Mama, keeping an admirable cool, tells the receptionist she has this appointment wih the chef, got to talk to him before he goes home. Now our bus driver starts grumbling that this is costing him a fortune. He lifts his ample shoulders and pulls the rest of his rather robust body out of his seat, comes over to Mama and wants to take the mobile phone from her. For some reason he thinks it is his own phone. Having cleared up the misunderstanding, Paul gets up and addresses the other passengers explaining that it's Mama's birthday - a few half-hearted 'Happy birthdays' are heard from the back of the bus - and that we have this big do, with family arriving from everywhere, all staying at the Racek. The five other couples with rooms at the Racek are not saying a word. It's getting late. Finally, the bus moves on and, stopping at various hotels drops the passengers who have no problems and are happy to leave the rolling circus. We arrive at the boatel and alight.

The hysterics continue. There is only one receptionist and while she is registering the other guests ("Why them and not us? We are holding a large dinner tomorrow! The Danish Television is coming to film it. Doesn't anyone care? Where is the lady I spoke to, weeks ago, from Copenhagen? Go wake up the manager!") She is trying at the same time to fend us off, saying she's terribly sorry, it's all the travel operator's fault, not the hotel's, and with her hand palm down on the ledger as if it were the Bible she swears we'll have rooms in the morning. We take turns in trying to engage her, in Czech, German and English, in an over-the-counter argument and in-between turn on one another asking questions (in Danish and German) like "Whom did you speak to? Did she confirm that we had the rooms?"  It is perfectly unclear who said what to whom and why - and I keep wishing I had a tape recorder.

An hour later, around midnight, we have finally sat with the restaurant manager and decided on the dinner menu. We are excited, exhausted -(and slightly annoyed), but the general feeling is good.

The boatel's brand new taxi-van takes us to our one-night-stand hotel (Ibis, Scandinavian style, boringly  modern, friendly and clean) where we decide we're hungry. (What else is new)? Have sandwiches and drinks in the hotel bar, empty except for a lady on the wrong side of forty, wearing an evening dress, a thin face, a long nose and a bit too much make up, and engaged in conversation with the barman. Finally, beddy-bye. End of day one.

Day two begins with a nice buffet breakfast and our driver is on time to take us back to the boatel where we belong. We occupy

our cabins, neat and fully appointed, view over the Moldava. While we wait around reception for Hanka and Hanus to arrive from Israel, Rasmus appears bearing his perennial smile and more apologies about yesterday, only this time he upgrades them to include a bottle of Czech bubbly, which we gratefully dispose of sitting on the warm, sunny deck watching the ducks in the river. Things are definitely looking up. Hanka and Hanus Sternlicht arrive, big greetings, hugs and kisses all round. Warm, wonderful, smiling  people whom we instantly like, feeling we've known them all our lives. Family. He is a powerfully built man in his seventies, bald, with big, strong hands, a builder. She is the motherly type, still trim, with a twinkle in her smiling eyes.
Now comes the fun and games: a planning session!

How are we best going to use our - limited - time together?

Slowly a master plan emerges from the foggy but exhilarated confusion of our joint minds. Unfortunately Vera is very ill, suffering from terminal cancer, the one very sad note in this otherwise so happy concert. Already too weak to attend the dinner party Saturday evening and even to have too many people visiting, she has made it known  that she only wants to see Mama and me. (I had spoken with her briefly on the phone while I was in Prague in April, when, on the day I was to go see them, I had to abruptly cancel and fly off to New York, due to Harriet's mother's  passing). Hanka and Hanus will of course go to see her as usual, so we agree we'll go together this afternoon, between four and five, Vera's best hour.

Tomorrow, Saturday, in the morning, before the party, we'll all go to Rakovník, the town where the girls' grandparents, the Neumanns, had their house and their general store and where so many of Mama's childhood memories are rooted. It's an hour's drive from Prague and we arrange for our by now well-known hotel taxi-van to take us. If Thomas and Mette, who haven't arrived yet, want to come along, they'll have their own car.

We take turns in telephoning the Hájeks, first Hanka, then Mama and finally me. As most of the time lately, we only speak to Karel; Vera no longer comes to the phone. They'll see us at three. Karel has even baked an applestrudel. The drinks are good, our emerging master plan has emerged as far as it will at this time and we decide to decide about Sunday when we get to that bridge. We are still on deck, it is warm and sunny, and around us people are having lunch. We remember that we're hungry again. Have lunched and talk, talk, talk, talk. Fifty years is a long time to catch up with.

Mama is called to reception; there's a telephone call for her. It is Ulla Terkelsen, the Danish journalist. She has arrived in Prague and wants to know when Mama and Vera will meet. She has with her a cameraman and a guide/interpreter and wants to do a story on the family reunion, as a sequel to her January program, the one that has brought all of us here. The difficulty is that Vera doesn't have the strength  to receive anybody but her closest. It exhausts her. We agree that Vera's wish must be respected, but, understandably, Ulla isn't happy. Filming the dinner will be very nice, but Vera won't be there and the meeting of the three old cousins is  the journalistic highlight of the event.

Time to go see Vera and Karel, her husband. When we arrive, Ulla and her crews are waiting in front of the house. We agree that if Vera should be up to it, we'll ask her if they may come up and take at least a shot from the door of the apartment.

Meeting Vera was an extraordinary experience, quite different from what I had expected. I had braced myself for an encounter with a tiny, near dead little old lady. Instead, and although her frail body weighs forty kilos and her arms feel like broomsticks through the woolen sleeves of her cardigan, and her right eye is almost closed, she irradiates such warmth, such a powerful, positive feeling of life, of love, caring and compassion that it sweeps all over you. I felt that I had no right to ever feeling sorry for myself again, as long as I live.

She said what a gift it was, to be granted once again to see Mama and me. She remembered me, little Peter, age four, when we went to visit her family. Her good eye sparkled with joy. She has warm, lovely brown eyes.

Karel, Hanka and Hanus had retired to the kitchen, not to crowd the room so that Vera, Mama and myself could have the living-dining room to us. Vera spoke of Karel, her husband of fifty years, and of how he had taken over all the household chores, of how wonderful a husband, friend and cared he was. They are both journalists, he still writes the occasional column. And now he also runs their lives.

I have placed a gift-wrapped package on the table in front of her. She opens it and I explain that it is a Danish porcelain plate commemorating the evening of the Fourth of May, 1945, when upon hearing on the radio the news of Germany's capitulation the Danes spontaneously lit candles in their windows all over the country.

The two cousins have been reminiscing. Vera says not to forget to visit the synagogue, when we go to Rakovnik tomorrow, that is where their grandfather, Samuel Neumann, my great-grandfather, used to go to pray. Then she calls Karel, she needs help to get up and fetch something from the room next door. She returns with a folder and I recognize on it the logo of SOS

Kinderdorf, the children's villages in poor countries. But this turns out to be about something else.

After the war, Vera tried to locate her little charges at the Terezín orphanage. Apparently not one had survived. For many years she routinely kept reading the name lists of people searching for lost friends and relatives, appearing periodically in the Israeli Givat Chaim former Terezín prisoner's publication.

Fifty years had passed, when one day she recognized the name of a little girl - now a woman in her fifties, living in London, Zdenka Husserl. Zdenka has lost all of her family but is still looking for one. Vera got in touch immediately and was able to return to Zdenka a few fragments of the lost puzzle of her childhood. Now Vera was handing over the file to me, asking me to write Zdenka. She didn't have to tell me what she wanted me to write.

 We have been here for about an hour. The others have come out of the kitchen and we've had our coffee and eaten Karel's homemade strudel. "Put a lot of whipped cream on it", says Vera, "it tastes good!". She seems to be doing fine. Hanka, Mama and I look at each other, we're all thinking the same. Ulla has been standing  downstairs, practicing a journalist's greatest virtue, patience.

Tentatively, we bring up the question. Karel, wanting to shield Vera, says they haven't invited Ulla to come. Vera seems to hesitate, so I decide to push it a little, telling Vera that Ulla says it won't be anything like the time before, during  the original interview, when they filled the room with lamps and cables and noise. All they want is a take from the door - and they'll be gone. Promptly, Vera says OK. Ulla and her two helpers come up and, quite unobtrusively, blend in.

The guide/interpreter, Ivo, is a nice young man with a ponytail, wearing black jeans and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He knows Vera because she and his Jewish father were in the same concentration camp. It is through him that Ulla found the Hájeks - and our story began.

Ulla was doing a program on the Czech-German compensation talks. After having interviewed Simon Wiesenthal in Vienna, she wanted to talk to some Prague Jews. Her interpreter, Ivo, suggested Vera and Karl, both being journalists, socially aware and, of course, very articulate. That is how Mama came to see her cousin on TV.

Vera and Karel have had it tough all their lives. After surviving the horrors and hardships of the war, they, like so many Jewish intellectuals in Eastern Europe, became active on the political left. They supported Dubcek and so, after 1968, they were expelled from the party, lost their jobs, their children were not allowed to go to university and, because he had been abroad during the war, they were considered to be doubly suspect. Karel says no matter when; they've always been on the wrong side. Vera only smiles.

Our own lives have been so easy, by comparison. But we look at each other and feel no gap, no distance. We belong together, we are one.

We feel that time has come to say goodbye. We hug and kiss. Vera's good eye sparkles, her face lights up in a smile, she holds my hands and says, "You are a wonderful relative!". One part of me wonders, will I ever see her again. The other part is convinced this woman will live forever.

Around seven o'clock we are all joined up again. Thomas and Mette have arrived and gone sightseeing with Paul and Margit. Mama and I tell the others about our visit, everybody is very moved. We sit on deck, order Czech champagne and talk, talk, talk. Alenka, Vera's and Karel's daughter, and her husband Jarda come by to say a first hello. She is a younger copy of her mother, irradiating kindness and almost as slim, but without the fragility. Big eyes, that seem to take it all in. I feel drawn to her, like she could be my sister. He is a soft, quiet man with a slight stammer, wears his hair longish, and seems a little lost in all this family reunion business.  Without stopping our talking we have dinner and keep talking until late into the night.

Saturday. Quickly showered, dressed, had breakfast with the Danish tribe and the Sternlichts and were ready for our taxi-van at ten sharp. (For some of us, this is a bit more of a "Tadaaa, see how good I am!" than for others, says Harriet, who is a night owl and hates to get up early).

Ulla and her crew are there, to accompany us to Rakovník in their own car. This turns out to be quite lucky for us; for half way there our own driver gets lost. Their driver knows the way and we make it safe and sound to Rakovník, after about an hour's drive.

We leave the cars parked right by the old town gate and Mama, taking a leap of over seventy years back, remembers the way. She leads us through the small city park, past the side of the church, whose front faces unto Husovo Námestí, (Hus' Square), the long, rectangular heart of town, roughly the size of a football field and lined on the other three sides by old, pretty two- and three store houses, most of them with street-level shops up front. We march along the square, following Mama, with the TV-crew walking backwards, all around her, aiming camera and mike at her, making the locals turn their heads as we pass,

and wondering who the VIP is.

Mama is headed for the four 18th-century houses on the narrow far side of the square. "It was one of these two"; she muses aloud, looking at the two houses in the middle, "but which one?" The gate of number 54, one of the two houses, is locked. So is the street-level shop.  Walking through the open driveway of the house next door we stand in the courtyard, looking up at the two houses from behind. "None of them look familiar", she says. We walk out again. With her back to the building, facing the square, she recalls a scene, nearly eighty years ago, when she and her mother, just arrived in town to visit grandpa Neumann, stood on that very spot waving to her grandfather and her aunt, sitting on a near bench in the square. Samuel was extremely fond of his grandchild, little Anna, but he had recently suffered a stroke and aunt Erna, sitting at his side, not wanting him to get suddenly agitated, just sat there, looking at them but not giving any sign of recognizing them, as they stood waving hallo. The scene seemed so unreal; it left a lasting impression on little Anna's memory.

Mama has just about decided that house number fifty-four is where the Neumanns lived, when a man walks up to us and asks if we are looking for something and whether he may be of any assistance. We tell him. "Come with me", he invites us. "My mother may remember, she's lived next door all her life". Mama, Harriet and I follow him back into the old driveway, left through the main door and up the stairs to the first floor.

Mrs. Shkrlantová (try and pronounce it at your own peril), a very hospitable and kind lady in her eighties, remarkably well groomed, comes out to the landing to greet us, asks us in, offers seats, which we accept, asks if we would like a cup of coffee, which we politely refuse. She listens intently to Mama's story and then, with great and almost theatrical gestures expresses how sorry she is, but no, she personally only moved in after the Neumanns had sold number fifty-four to the Gut family, and so she never knew them - but the name sounded familiar. And isn't this also a remarkable coincidence, just yesterday, didn't she have a visitor, Mrs. Hanka Pressburg, who now lives in New Zealand but used to live next door, to the other side, because maybe she knew of the Neumanns, and she's now gone back to Prague, where she is staying with old friends, the Pavel Kohouts, and yes, she has their telephone number, but try calling her soon, because they are on a holiday trip and will be proceeding to London on Sunday.

Obviously gentile, good old pre-war Czech middle class. The room, overlooking the square, is well appointed, more lavish than one would expect a few really beautiful pieces. Mrs. S was wearing fine jewelry and in the breakfront she had a photograph of President Masaryk that looked as if it had always been there, also during the years of the communist regime.

Thinking that Paul, Margit and the others may be wondering where we are, I walk to one of the windows and, seeing Paul, and with Mrs. S's kind permission, I wave for them to come up. Shortly afterwards we thank these nice people, join the Sternlichts, Ulla and Ivo on the square and tell them about our visit. But Ivo too has news; there's an exhibition of the old town houses, right across the street. It is about to close for the day but if we hurry, we can still make it. We hotfoot it across the Cobblestones Street and are indeed looking at drawings of facades, blueprints, deeds and names of owners of some of the most outstanding buildings from the neoclassical period. There's even a picture, from the days of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, before WWI, of the house next to "ours", including, on each side, half of the adjacent house.

The roundish, smiling lady in charge knows about the prices of postcards and brochures but nothing about city archives. However, she can give us the name of the director, a Mr. Zoubek, whom we must telephone next week, as the clock shows that it is now 2pm. The lady also has further information which, given the hour and the thunderous grumbling of our stomachs, is rather vital: There is a restaurant around the corner, on a little side street.

While Ulla and crew head back to Prague, we have visions of hearty and juicy local Czech cooking. We even find a table for seven and most of us greedily order sauerkraut, pork shank and potatoes, overcoming all fears that it might be too heavy before our big family banquet tonight. Welcome to nouvelle Czech cuisine. Light is the byword here. Meat is something to be waved gently over the dish, or briefly dipped into it, for flavor. We eat. A lot of boiled potatoes.

Actually, the light meal is a blessing in disguise because Hanka is telling us her story. From the time, under Nazi occupation, when Jewish kids were no longer permitted to attend school and her father and other parents organized a clandestine classroom. Of how he lost his job. About the ghetto, being deported to Terezín with her parents and from there to Auschwitz, with her mother. While her mother was sent straight to the gas chamber, Hanka lies about her own age and was sent to the Nazi labor camps. The horror of Auschwitz was such, that in spite of fifty years of a loving marriage, children and grandchildren, she is unable, to this day, to remember the details from her time there. It was amazing, how she was able to tell her story in such a calm, almost matter-of-fact way. She must have told it so many times. And the important thing to keep in mind is that she is here to tell it.

We try to find the synagogue where great-grandpa prayed. -"And if he didn't, he should have!", says Harriet. Vera said it was

now a museum, so we ask and are told it is right by the city gate. But when we get there, the first thing I notice on the front of the historical stone building, above the main entrance, is the traditional bishop's insignia or coat of arms, carved into the stone. Oops. Turns out this house were once a diocese, then the town's post office and now a museum. Wrong museum. With new directions, we drive on and find the right building, a fact confirmed by the bronze plaque with a Star of David on it's front. Inside we find a beautiful modern art gallery and the manager, Mrs. Post, (no kidding, in Czech it's Paní Postová), is truly happy to welcome us. We are the only guests. Having stated  our business, she leads us, smiling, straight to the former temple room. A breathtaking sight. Perfectly preserved walls, gilded stucco ornaments and symbols, wonderful glazed windows from 1912. The pulpit. All intact and immaculate. The Torah cabinet is open - and empty, of course - and on the polished flagstones stands a grand piano. We try to sort out these somewhat conflicting impressions and Ms. Postová explains: before the Nazi occupation, the Jewish community lent the temple to the order of Hussites, who needed a place to worship. The Hussites kept using the temple throughout the war and the Nazis didn't dare touch it. When the war was over, the Rakovník Jews were gone. Not a single one came back. But the Prague Jewish Community had no money to maintain such a big house, (it had once also contained the Jewish school, and the rabbi's family lived on the first floor), and so it gave the building to the local art gallery. The gallery gets a state subsidy and private donations. Musical concerts are frequntly arranged in the former temple. It has superb acoustics.

"Does anyone of you play the piano?",  Ms. Post asks suddenly, bringing us back to reality. She gestures, smiling, at the instrument. "Please, do play!". Mama sits down and plays Dvorák's Humoresque and something light, by Kuhlau. "The piano is worthless", she whispers to us. "The keys are too stiff". But it is a moving moment. Transcendental. Samuel Neumann's grandchild, aged eighty-five, playing in this room, after the Holocaust, with his great-grandchildren listening.

We notice on the eastern wall a plaque to the memory of Mr. and Mrs. Shwarz (Svarc, in Czech) donated by Ms. Hanka Pressburger, née Svarc. A small world!

Ready to go back to Prague? All aboard, we're about to have a large family party!

We reach the boatel by half past four, having first taken a few wrong turns. Mama is supposed to meet Ulla at five, for a preliminary interview, so she scoots off, mumbling to herself about showering and changing in time. The rest of us disappear into our own cabins. Half an hour's nap for Harriet and we join Mama in the salon upstairs, to greet the guests. Kiss kiss, hug hug, and we finally get to meet Vera's and Karel's son Jan, and wife Jana. They are an attractive couple, young people on the move, well dressed but they seem slightly dusty and out of breath, "Been packing boxes for days, moving to a new apartment in the morning". That explains everything.

Out on the promenade deck we sit down at one large table. Champagne glasses are handed round. For the first time in almost fifty years, the two branches of Mama's family are together, except for Vera and Elisabeth.

Karel gets up: "Dear friends, dear family that is actually meeting here for the first time in our lives. It was a coincidence, a lucky chance, and the work of Danish television that brought us together. And so we are now here and can celebrate our dear Anna's 85th birthday on this ship.

We have come together in Prague - and it is a true miracle that it is so. Nazi Germany did not succeed in exterminating us all. Dear Anna's family, although it was spared going to a concentration camp, did not have an easy life in far-away Bolivia. She had to struggle hard to secure the family's livelihood and did not buckle under. Hanicka from Israel, Hanus, her husband, and our Vera have prevailed over Hitler, they have survived Auschwitz and the other camps.

We founded families after the war - and we are alive. We older ones could have met earlier, but for a variety of reasons it didn't happen. Today we want to make up for all the time lost. The idea of Dear Anna See to build a bridge to our younger generation is an excellent one. The Prague 85th-birthday celebration encounter is a good opportunity for it. Here our young generation meets the old one, we can get to know each other and we will have founded again the family that we once lost. This is quite wonderful. As one of the oldest present here today, I embrace you all, a beginning has been made and I welcome it with all my heart.

Dear Anna, may we yet celebrate your birthday many a time and may our youth be with us. I greet you all and, once more, thank you, Denmark's television!"

We join Karel's toast to Mama, feeling truly elated. Skaal, L'Chaim, Na zdraví and Prost ring out as we raise our glasses and the TV camera and mike scurry from one speaker to another. But we don't really notice them.

Later we move into our private dining room and find our places around the table. Mama greets us, thanks Ulla Terkelsen and makes a short speech, mainly in Czech, and I repeat it in Danish, for those who do not understand. The main message is that