I finally can see who I take after

This old photo was taken in 1939 before Marz 15th. The young woman is my aunt Truda with her boyfrind. She was 16-years-old, he was 22.

I got this picture today from an old woman who had known her, they were schoolmates and this picture is the only one I have as a concrete memory of her. Finally I can see what she looked like.

After Marz 15th 1939 everything had changed in her life. That day the Nazi troops crossed the borders and my country was occupied. That first day of Hitler's tyranny the synagogue in the town where they lived was burned down as gloomy prognostications of things.

Not only did all Jews suppose to wear the yellow David star but many of them had to leave their jobs, their property were confiscated and childdren were expelled from schools. But that was only beginning of things to happen.

The two continued dating and in the spring in 1942 they got married, which was only a few weeks before there were ordered to get on the train (cattle carriages) to a concentration camp. They ended up in Terezin (the camp for all Czech Jews before sending them to other camps, mostly to Auswitz) along with their parents and my second aunt. Only my father was missing, because he managed to escape at the last moment.

They lived there for more then two years and that old lady who gave me this precious photo was with them. The living conditions were beyond words but the still stayed alive.

Then, in October 1944 those two were sent to Auswitz and within a few weeks to another camp in Bergen-Belsen while their parents were straightaway sent to a gas chamber.

My aunt and her husband were young and still relatively strong so they could work for the Nazis. But shortly before they left Terezin my aunt got pregnant and gave birth to a girl in Bergen-Belsen. That was like a death penalty. She and her daughter were killed, only a few months before that camp got released by US troops. Her husband survived and shortly after the war he moved to Australia.

My dad mentioned this aunt only once. He told me “Looking at you I think you take after your aunt Truda, your nose just looks like hers.” This was the only remark about her as he had never spoken about his family.
Looking at my aunt I guess my dad was right.