Until today I can smell the stinky mouldy millet grains

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When Marta Kottová in hindsight compares the conditions in various camps she went through during the Second World War, the one that comes out best, is the first one she experienced --Terezín. She recalled: “Whenever children at schools are asking me about hunger and what we got to eat, I always ask: ‘And which place do you have in mind?’ Because there were great differences. In Terezín we received a ration of three quarters of bread to last us three days. A song was sung on this topic. ‘For three days you receive three quarters of bread, it will last a day or maybe two.’ It meant 250 grams of bread per day. In addition to that we had lunch every day. Even though it consisted of half-rotten potatoes in their skins, that didn't matter, at least we got something. We got two or three potatoes. A bit of some kind of thickened soup. Nowadays whenever I hear, that my granddaughter is preparing millet grains, I can smell the stinky mouldy millet grains from which they made us soup. My mother used to tell me that millet grains smelled pleasantly. I can’t imagine that. But that is what we got. In the evening we had those 250 grams of bread per day. And sometimes we were also allowed to receive parcels. Whenever someone got a parcel, they didn't keep it to themselves but shared it with the people from the room they were staying in. So that is what food was like in Terezín.” Apparently Auschwitz represented the greatest difference compared to Terezín: “In Auschwitz, I never saw even a slice of bread, ever. And in Mährensdorf, that was the last camp I stayed at, I worked for 14 hours a day, it was very, very tough work in a factory, there we received 70 grams of bread per 24 hours. It was no coincidence Terezín was called ‘Spa Terezín.' Compared to all the other camps it really was a spa.” It is necessary to add to Mrs. Kottová’s testimony that the children in Terezín received better treatment than the rest of the inhabitants. Thousands of old and ill people died of hunger there.

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Marta Kottová

Marta Kottová was born February 22nd, 1929, in Černovice u Tábora to Robert and Gabriela Lašová. Her brother Viktor was six years older. They had been living in Černovice till Marta was three, then the family moved to Prague. Since she was five, Marta was an avid scout and Sokol member, and as she says, she has had a happy childhood. With love she remembers the First Republic era and President Masaryk. After the rise of Nazism, the persecution began, which Marta experienced most poignantly when she was forced to surrender her dog. Then there came the transports to Terezín. On December 1st, 1941, her brother Viktor boarded transport AK2, and half a year later, Marta and her parents followed in transport AAR. At first Marta stayed together with her mother in the Hamburg barracks, but then she was moved to a so-called children's house L410. The worst was however yet to come. On October 6th, 1944, they arrived to Auschwitz, where both Marta's parents eventually died. Before Christmas of the same year Marta got to Mährensdorf via Gross-Rosen, where she worked in a flax-processing factory and also performed jobs like opening frozen wagons with a pickaxe. After the liberation in May 1945 and her adventurous return to Prague, she was reunited with her brother Viktor under very emotional circumstances. He has miraculously survived the Nazi horrors, even though he was one of those, who were sent from Terezín to bury the men of Lidice, and thus he was to have been exterminated afterwards. Today, Marta enjoys an abundant life, she is a great-grandmother, and she visits schools, telling children about her experiences, she is also the head of the Historic Group Auschwitz. On October 28th, 2008, the President decorated her with the State Medal for Merit in the field of education.

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Terezín (Theresienstadt), Main Fortress

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The Terezín Main Fortress is part of the defensive complex founded by Emperor Joseph II in 1780. It lies on the confluence of the Rivers Labe, (Elbe), and Ohře, and was originally supposed to serve as a defensive fortress in the case of a Prussian invasion. It was never used in a military capacity however, as the Prussians simply circumvented it. Terezín gained the status of garrison town, the army remained present here until the end of the 20th century. The fortress comprises two parts: the Main Fortress and the Small Fortress. Already since its construction, the Small Fortress served as a military prison; the Main Fortress was inhabited. However, the Nazis decided to create a Jewish ghetto there, and so the civilian inhabitants were deported and on 24 November 1941 the Jewish ghetto of Terezín was founded. When preparing the ghetto, the Nazis made use of the Jewish Community of Prague. The Nazis claimed that Terezín would be a camp in which the Jewish population of the Protectorate would be interned, but from which it would not be transported East. In 1942 at a conference in Wannsee, the Nazis confirmed the specific status of the Terezín ghetto. It was supposed to be a so-called “old-age ghetto,” which would house old people, often veterans of World War 1 not only from the Protectorate, but also from Germany and Austria. In this way, the Nazis created an alibi for themselves – they could claim that old people were not being sent East into “labor camps,” but that they remained in Terezín. This was a lie because even from Terezín transports were dispatched, which were full of old people. In actual fact, the primary function of the ghetto was to collect the Jews and transport them elsewhere. The average number of inmates during the four years of the ghetto’s existence fluctuated between thirty to forty thousand, (before WWII the town had about 7,000 inhabitants, military garrison included). During its peak in September 1942, however, the camp held almost 58,500 prisoners (At the time, an average of 127 people died every day!). The overloaded capacity meant that the ghetto offered very bad living conditions causing a high death rate. To top it all, towards the end of the war a typhus epidemic broke out in the camp. Overall, approx. 155,000 people passed through the Terezín concentration camp, of which 118,000 did not survive World War II, (including those killed by the typhus epidemic). Terezín was liberated without any fighting. On 1 May 1945, control of the camp was entrusted to the Red Cross, on 5 May the last Nazis fled before the nearing front, and on 8 May 1945 the first Soviet units arrived.