Sydney Jewish Museum Collection | Details | Wiedersehen mit Einem Schrank

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Actions Displays	Wiedersehen mit Einem Schrank Remove from selection Add to selection Object numberM1995/001:001 TitleWiedersehen mit Einem Schrank Creator Eliska Glaserova (author)‎ Description21 page typed manuscript written by Eliska Glaser, who was most likely a relative of Harry Silberman, the donor of this collection. The story documents a family cabinet that has been passed down from generations, eventually making its way to Theresienstadt where Eliska Glaser was deported. The Yad Vashem database states that Eliska Glaserova, born in 1900, was ‘deported with Transport B, Train Da 7 from Praha, Praha Hvlani Mest, Bohemia, Czechoslovakia to Lodz Ghetto, Poland on 21.10.1941’. The first page contains some aspects on life in Theresienstadt, however it mainly focuses on the story of a family heirloom. The recognition and identification of an elaborately handmade wooden dressing table in the office of Theresienstadt camp triggers the outpouring of memories and family reminiscences over several generations. To provide an example of the florid, profuse and overstressed style is a paragraph from page 7: "Years have passed, Babbette has flowered to a beauty not seen everyday! Like her mother she likes to glance into the oval mirror which she loves because it tells her of her beauty and beauty is power to a woman while it reminds her of the mother whom she never knew and who became the essence of all mobility and beauty, representing an ideal which she secretly idolizes as a comforter who would have diminished the smaller random worries by re-directing them to safer trains of thought and the dressing table (her father had told her) giving her mother so much joy becomes a symbol." Object namemanuscripts Language German Eliska Glaser Praha, XIV, Michelska 883/629 Goodbye with a cupboard Theresienstadt 1944. Previously a serene garrison town, today concentration camp, collection site of Jews of all regions and ages in the new German realm. From here we would be distributed, thousands every week, in the numerous search-and-destroy labour camps. Luckily we don’t know about search-and-destroy camps and search-and-destroy methods and think hopefully, that we will still continue with our lives. 50 thousand huddled in a city, which was built for 10 thousand, to form a community with humanly characters, from meagre to average types, [Line no longer makes sense]. We have our own Jewish administration, the parent SS-authority for order and utilisation until [untranslatable word] all existing work skills are responsible. Therefore we have a work centre. In this seat I wait for the chief clerk, who comes from a remote far away former cavalry barracks, now administration building. It takes a long time. I wait – wait. In comparative cultivating, in considering circumstances of a very cultivating space. But waiting is waiting. Why does it make one nervous? It is not indifferent, if one sweeps stairs, hacks the soil, hauls timber or refits the detested uniforms or just simply sits and waits? What does one do when one waits? Initially looks boringly at his surroundings: elegant has-been desk, a book stand that has seen better days, a gruffer, black cabinet. You paint yourself out, when and where they wanted to serve and the fate of the former owner. But this play of fantasy I do not like to captivate. One does little [unable to translate]……..what the undoubtedly aesthetic chief clerk collects further with the office, the furniture pieces that were not good enough for the needs of the SS-people and the other worthy citizens of the Nazi Reich. -2- In visual field appears a decorative cabinet with dainty rococo stand, dark burnt wood with simple ornaments, an oval glass window, all in proportions, not delicate and function recklessly. [Unable to translate next sentence]. Where else have I seen these dark polished boards behind the oval glass? But that is….that is indeed….naturally that is it! Our good, old decorative cabinet out of great grandmother’s time, from the transversely ribbed edged to the ivory castle with the terribly fitted key! The big arabesque gable with both [untranslatable] is certainly in the course of last adventure, so like us, its former owners, the arabesque gable and the dainty…..have been exhausted. But I wanted, I see all destinies that have brushed past, so elegant and unmolested like our good, old cabinet! Images arise. What has it all seen, before it landed in the dust! Images show me what it experienced and tells, ancient and recent dates. All tight together in the old, trustful, comfortable, giving cabinet. Sleepy city. Gabled houses, romantic fountains, misaligned alleys. Sunbeams dance in summer joy with its old companions: here a splendid building with gables and corners, there a convergent cottage hut, here a dreamy fountain in a circle of chestnut trees, there a colourful garden, here a weird projecting cobblestone, there a white Margarete [unsure of the object?] on a heap of garbage. At court of the carpenter Bertram waits piles of boards, tables and stools which wait to be varnished. And in the middle of the promiscuity something new, fertile, and dainty. A showpiece that the carpenter Bertram not every day produced. A cupboard, not small and not big, on dainty feet, flamed wood, transversely ribbed edges made of dark material, in which the door is set, an oval mirror, whose form is accompanied by an arabesque gable, soaring and graceful again slanting like a fountain, in fine arches grouped and again on the corners increasing in two skinny colonnettes, which increase into balls, above the slender feet a second smaller and over the third, a very small ball. -3- Complacently the master ripped the mirror with the leather bare again, drives the brush once over all corners and joints and whistles then the assistant. Meticulously they pick the little cabinet onto the trolley, tying it tight, in order to prevent any damage and the assistant with the apprentice boy go out the door. The carpenter looks at them almost wistfully on. He put his whole craftsmanship into the whole piece, it grew on his heart. ‘’Almost a shame for the Jewish Mohndschein.” He thinks. But at the same time he supresses the thought that the Mohndschein’’s are nice people, even though they’re Jewish. In the Garden at the Mohndschein hause before the door sit two young people and celebrate Jette Mohndschein’s 22nd birthday. Her Lazar returned early on Friday afternoon from his business tour. He improvised a small celebration snack and while she cuts the cake and puts cream on the scented coffee, she looks lovingly at the golden bangles that Mr. Gemahl just ceremoniously presented. Because he spoils his beautiful wife, like the whole unified city spoils her. With her friendly manner, the inscrutable laughter in her eyes and the soft tone, that endures no contradictions, all enchanted. Meanwhile odd sounds resonate in the house. Something has happened that is not ordinary. Jette needs to see. However Lazar holds her jokingly back: ‘You do not want to break this rare celebration. Gundel will get you when it is important’. It does not take long until the old Gundel brings Jette to the house, appearing in the pergola with mischievous laughter and secretive gestures, postulates Jette to come inside the house. Jetter looks inquiringly at Gundel, looks quizzically at her husband, who is looking artfully passive in the air with cake crumbs, what he cannot actually tolerate from, he shrugs his shoulders and follows Gundel into the house. Behind the wife follows in non-expectant suspense. -4- It follows through the cool corridor, then Gundel opens the living room door – and Jette is standing still. There is no word greater than surprise and joy. There on the wall, beside the window, where there was still room for her occasional table, is what she had long wished for: a mirror cabinet. Still Gundel stands by and she cannot help but to manifest, she falls around the neck of the man and he is happy, that she is so delighted, because he was nervous, that his wife, with her distinguished big city taste would be satisfied with his choices. The loyal Gundel, highly delighted of the fortune of her master pulls herself discretely back and the young pair – who have been married for almost two years – walk tightly entwined near the cabinet. It is a beautiful image, that the oval mirror reflects, the young woman with ash blond hair, silky locks and grey eyes, in the blue crinoline and the yellow lace cloth, out of an alabaster neck to the oval face raises, nestled on the dark man with the energetic move and the somewhat protruding cheekbones. Now Jette must consider if there is anything inside the cabinet. And as she turned the key in the lock, Lazar asks mischievously: ‘What secrets will you detain?’ There she will go red and mumbles about child equipment. Now he had his surprise and then they were even. An overcast winter’s day. The cabinet looks sullen with its oval mirror into the world. Since it has been almost 10 days since someone has come into the room. At the most Gundel came in once to clean the dust. Vainly it waits that the beautiful lady Jette tries a new hairstyle, creates a new outfit, or whatever pretty women do in front of the mirror. Today finally the table will be newly decked, in Jette’s living room. But at the meal, with tearstained eyes serves Gundel, she seats a gaunt, pain inflicted man and an unknown woman in dark clothing. Out of the miserable conversation they both refer (there is a misspelling, the word is unclear, it is possible that they are referring to the cupboard): Jette is now dead. And she has still left the cot there. Translators note: unclear word/misspelling: erföhrt -5- With certainty Lazar does not know where to start. He asked his newly widowed sister Ernestine to take on the household and the children. He asked his shortly widowed sister Ernestine to undertake the household and care for the children. 14 years have passed. Again something turns and grows into something beautiful in front of the mirror. Babettchen grew into a dainty looking girl. She has the oval shaped face from her mother, framed by two blond plaits. The eyes are brown. But with all young playfulness lies in the same mystery, that also the mother had brown eyes. That is what the people have long forgotten. But the child must be called a cheeky damsel, just because her eyes, not that she knows, secretly laugh at all. And thereunto is she naturally still too young. Ah so, wherefore is one ‘still to young’ is! Today she tries on the light blue velvet dress, which she received, because she is allowed to go to her father’s friend’s ball. The dress sits impeccably, the cut is highly satisfied and Babettchen still struggles with her aunt Ernestine about her mother’s bridal jewellery with the turquoise. ‘Blue stones with blue dress! I am going to a ball, Auntie!’ Aunt Ernestine has another opinion. Neither the blue from the turquoise fits the blue of the dress, yet to send oneself such womanly jeweller for a young girl. Still too young! Child in her anger looks like moaning elf. At least the aunt permitted that she pin up her plaits for the ball. That is a small consolation. The night of the ball arrived. The day before Issy Silbermann billeted one who had shops in the area. He was a handsome 21 year old with an engaging appearance. And efficient! So young is he, one could with success send him on business trips. Already will the mothers and matchmakers everywhere will take note of him. Attention! The young man, out of a prosperous family has a future! You can quietly lay eyes on him, Jewish daughter in Franconia and across until Stuttgart, Ulm and Regensburg. -6- Babettle naturally has no thought on marriage. At most she knows, that when she is finally big, will she marry. But someone with these objectives will bring all young girls together, when it does not fall into the dreams. Cousin Issy likes her. Pure aesthetic. He knows also how to present himself charming and courteous towards the adults, for example Aunt Ernestine and the father, to behave and to tell rivetingly of his travels. But the child must be awfully angry over him, because he treats her in a condescending manner. As if she were still a child! With 14 years and three months! What is he thinking? As if he cannot talk to her genuinely! Even though she is going to a ball! But she will show him! When he sees her in her in the ballroom! But as she stood before him in light blue velvet, a pink heart on a light blue band around the neck, a garland of pink and light blue silk flowers in extended into weaves – like an angel incarnate, asserted the old Gundel – makes no impression on cousin Issy. ‘’You have made yourself look fine,’’ he banters with his condescending tone, as one would when speaking to five year old children. ’I must do, when I want to dance with such handsome men like my cousin Issy,’ she snaps back. ‘’What? Hear that! The little toad wants do dance as well’, he continues to banter. ‘Children belong in bed. Leastwise with us at home’. Babettle stays still of anger and outrage for a while. ‘Such a toad! No looking at such a mean guy! What is he actually thinking?! Merely because he can grow a small beard? So little!’ she mumbles, but loud enough that he can hear. Meanwhile Issy began an instructive conversation about hop trade and did not hear anything. The child sits beside and grumbles. Suddenly it occurred to her, what Otti, the most celebrated dancer in the region said: ‘who wants do dance, is not allowed to have character. I want to dance.’ I too, the child thinks and throws into the lull of the conversation a laugh, that she wants to succeed. -7- ‘Issy you will dance with me right? I can dance very well, did you know.’ ‘Don’t interrupt this important instruction with your childishness’ grumbles Issy harshly. That is too much. The child seriously starts to cry. ‘na, na,’ placated the father. ‘he will dance with you, won’t you Issy?’ ‘I??’ Issy proceeds, in his 21 year old, still not firmly seated had gotten aggrieved. ‘I will not dance with children!’ ‘Well then you dance with the others, my child’. But Babettchen also does not sit for a dance.’ A 30 year old man tries to kiss the sweet child. He fails. Babettchen exactly knows from the big girls how to behave in these situations. As she arrived late home, she shooed quickly again into the living room of her mother’s favourite mirror cupboard. So many people at different ages said how lovely she looked. But Issy did not dance with her. The first time in her life, that something went against her will. And the oval mirror looks at amazed energetic folds on the smooth child’s forehead. Years again have passed. Babettchen did not bloom into an everyday beauty. Like the mother, she likes looking into the oval mirror, which she likes, because it tells her, that she is pretty – and beauty is strength for a woman – and because he starts to think about the mother, that she never knew, who turned into the epitome of nobility and beauty, to ideal shape, who she secretly adores, for comfort, that the little tribulations of life could have been directed into better paths, and the cabinet, which the father had told her, gave her mother lots of joy, is her an allegory. She entrusts him, not what her best friend, not Aunt Ernestine, not the father, not even old Gundel entrusts, that one can entrust so much. He knows the joy of conquest, the cat and mouse play with young people, he looks leisurely at her, and how she occasionally ventures on older people, to coquet -8- with more dangerous. He knows fixed noise and ball bliss. Thereto the coolness of the heart, scornful laughing to mean men looks, the don’t-touch-me posture a beautiful, a woman is allowed to carry out. One day as cousin Issy there again. He is now 27 and Babettchen is now 20. He has long forgotten the Ball episode. She hasn’t. The accomplished Dame, who is facing him with all her charm, taking his attention very differently than the 14 year old that he harshly stricken. He speaks less about hops this time and talks with more panache about experienced anecdotes. Babettchen is a good eavesdropper, she lets the hand work decrease before interest and depth marvelling in her eyes at him. Then again his playfulness slips. Laughing and sighing, like it requires the opportunity. Asks a question every now and again, or throws triviality into the conversation, through the winning personal meaning of the speaker. But every time, when he thinks she is convinced by his worth, a radiance appears in her eyes, which one could nearly sneer at. With this laughter he does not let go. He needs to overcome it. But she is the strongest. With farewell he feels deeply worried. He knows that he will not forget her so soon. Naturally, she noticed and laughed up her sleeve. Paid back, Cousin Issy! Now you come before small. In her schadenfreude Babettchen thinks rightly often about Cousin Issy. Too often. The cousin has more frequently in the stores nearby, whereby every time he must claim the hospitality of his Uncle Mondschein. He becomes more kindled and Babettchen thinks even more on him. -9- About taking proper revenge, one must actually quickly marry and thumb his nose. But peculiarly! All parties, that have worn her out, appear to be impossible. In between there always stands an ideal shape, which she admits not openly that cousin Issy looks astonishingly similar. The following scene is therefore not at all surprising: One sits Saturday afternoon comfortably with coffee. Amidst the trivia; conversation the cousin suddenly speaks: Yes, just think, the father halted Babettle. ‘’I have already read Issy Levites!’’ Babettle clanks the teacup aside, before she could drink it. It takes a fairly long time until she sufficiently with her might, asks harmlessly: ‘Why not father?’ ‘’You ask why? Has one not heard of that before! In the end you don’t want him at all? Nothing will come out of it! Firstly he is your cousin and relatives don’t do well.’’ The father means, he made a joke, that his Babettle, his beautiful, his fundamentally clever, can now however have the wish to marry such a close relative. The Aunt Ernestine notices something, and has a serious conversation with Babettchen, where she looks into the angles of her mother’s cabinet and cries bitterly. She cries very often. She is scarily unhappy. The cousin who visited often, no longer visited the house. Babettchen becomes gaunt and melancholy. The father can no longer take it. He writes to cousin Issy and upon one day reveals Babettchen a bigger rigor on the engagement table. The cabinet of the beautiful Jette now stands in the sitting room in the Silbermann house in im Sand Bamberg. The pictures before his mirror eye change. A growing group of children plays their house games, the mother is in good mood and they promised to make no noise. Dolls funerals and children house holds the cabinet sees, wild childish love and wild ottomans and tussles. -10- Mostly the children are outside, where they have more room to play for their temperament, and Babette sits alone and knits and knits, patches and patches. There is no end to the active flock. Or she orders the washing in her cherished cabinet and some saved pennies wonder there secretly inside. How lovely, when one forgets completely and unexpectedly bumps into it. She suffers no distress, but to order all things where they belong, that one receives household money out of the till in the shop to please oneself with what they need or wishes for and that one saves for the necessities. The necessities usually mean the children. Children do not stay as children. Now sit modest or modest doing young ladies in the parlour and hold dainty hands in perpetual necessary work. When mother in the shop or is seen rightward in the kitchen, they pull stealthily out the knitting basket or the other hidden exciting novel by Marlitt or Eschtruth and mother wonder to herself, what clumsy daughters she has, who with the easiest work do not succeed. Ida and Tina, who are so close in age, have always various things to negotiate with each other and when they aren’t reading, their mouths never close, in the good and the bad and the little Bella, who has alerted every one of her beauty and can for hours raptly sit, is offended, when her big sisters send her back, because she does still not understand everything. Less frequently are the brothers there, who study outside or are accommodated in business. But they are all once together, then there is telling and teasing and fighting and reconciliation, that gives the old cabinet anxiety and uneasiness. Because anyone who has siblings is the most intelligent and there is nothing of higher value than to satisfy the other, except for Bella, the beautiful, the one neither the others have any value of wit, and Ignaz, the docile, the humourist of the family, the one with the opinion that he world is full of worries and therefore must distribute the joy and not to say everyone what he thinks, but the others say what they want, what they think is good. But beyond all and everything is Babette enthroned, tired from the indie world setting and the rearing of six children. -11- They do not have overmuch respect for their somewhat weak mother. Still there is still something, what not to elude at, what makes one unsure and forces obedience. The inscrutable laughing in her eyes. No one knows what she I thinking. She could always think that, what one definitely had not thought about her. The cabinet experiences still times. The daughters are married, the sons scattered worldwide. Two old ladies sit often in the niche on the cabinet – Lady Babette and the old Marie, the loyal girl, that all children knew from when they were small – they speak of old times and new, at knitting, mending and crocheting for the grandchildren, who have since appointed, in Eger and Stuttgart and in Heilbronn and Jüngst also in Wurzburg with Mr Lawyer; and how it is to marvel, the people in the far east, namely four hour train rides from West Bohemia – the people are exactly the same like us, but they have less money for wealth and for them is good food and comfort is more important than representation; and how the streets in Stuttgart have such strange street names – Tina lives on Ameisenbergstrasse and how the Ludwig in Berlin, despite being a good son, could write more often / if there is a woman? / ; and what out of a great fellow has the big, comical Ignaz become, who has established a promising business in Paris. Two old ladies, who have six children in all the wold, have always got something to talk about. The Old Mr Silbermann, who has sold his business, is meanwhile going on his afternoon walk, conversing himself with the bricklayer at the new construction and gives them good suggestions, prattles with the carpenters in the lumberyard and understands equally, initiates factual-technical conversations with the gardeners. Nicely they sit with Grandmother in the parlour on the hardwood floor, at the mirror cabinet. One is only allowed to play very quiet games. She herself sits in a curved chair near the window or on the red Biedermeier sofa, always darkly dressed with something bright around her neck, pale friendly face full of fine wrinkles, that the grandchildren encouragingly somewhat smile at. When she remembers, that one was good, she opens the cupboard with the round mirror, rummages a bit and brings a bag full of bonbons. Because good behaviour must be rewarded. -12- Also grandchildren will become older. They no longer play on the hardwood floor. There is no longer a good grandmother there. (Sentence incomprehensible). That is what the old Marie is anxious of, who is constantly anxious that the visitors feel as comfortable as they did during Ms. Babette’s times. Father Issy leads a strict regimen. ‘Sweets ruin the teeth.’ But he has nothing against it, that Marie buys baked goods and places on the table for afternoon tea. The opportunity occasionally occurs when one finds a bag of bonbons in his bag. He will not know, who had gotten in. Translators note: There is some wording or sentences that are not able to be translated. Marie has become strange since the death of her husband. Growing old is always early? There she stands, ajar on the mirror cabinet and displays through the window, the people on the street. ‘Do you see those two over there? They are talking about me. All gossip about me. All speak about me in a bad way.’ That is not to talk about her, although no one can think, if one can speak ill of the good and docile person Uebles. But one day a telephone call cries for help of the old man to Cheb. Marie has her Sunday best and turned on the gas tap in the bathroom. She however did not lock the window properly and would be rescued. In her fantasies plays a piece of gold a role and so one supposed, that her grandmother kept her secret savings.....(sentence untranslatable) Likely she had – found a piece of gold in the washing and kept it. A piece of gold that no one missed. But that was too much for the honest soul. She could not carry that consciousness. She would be transferred to bedlam – and the old cabinet no longer had a friend. Translators Note: Unable to find exact translation The housekeepers, who step into Marie’s role, see the mirror cabinet nothing more than an annoying piece of furniture. It stands sadly in the corner and thinks of the old times. The mirror is defunct and blind. -13- Now again the sons and daughters of the house around the cabinet. The old man has died. There will be rapid decisions made about the inheritance, before one diverges. The threads of togetherness are ripped. No one wants the furniture. All children are sorted. And so the old furniture wanders to the dealer. Only the cabinet Ida agreed upon loving the old cabinet since childhood and wanted to take a piece of home, a piece of her mother and the legendary grandmother home – and besides a nice cabinet. It goes again on an adventure. The old half blind mirror would be removed, and replaced would be a blank piece of glass, behind Ida placed porcelain figures for show. Again rolls another life of the family around him, with his worries and joys, the peaceful life in a provincial city. A little housework, a little music, a little company. Else provides the music, Ms Ida provides the critique. She is absolutely rightly critical, Ms Ida. How she sits there and stitching after stitching fine fabric or crotchets stars and laces out of the finest yarn. A penny for your thoughts say the English, when someone had remained silent. Man and daughter can’t weigh the question certainty, because Ms Ida’s thoughts are for her during these stormy times – two years after the World War – where life – and assets in the wide world are reshaped and not always pleasant and father and daughter are for the pleasant life, whilst Ms Ida has the general staff in the bag. She is the pivotal of the Glaser’ life and steers the little boat of the family with an energetic hand during the storm of the time. Still this is possible. Still one can individually appoint their strength and aim to achieve the goals set. Two things were for Ms Ida inseparable, something with all might, to tool along with the express train speed and her joyous laughter, that one of the maids once said: ‘when the madam laughs in the room, I must laugh in the kitchen, when I don’t exactly know the reason’. She had felt one day, that her laughter was lost. Also the environment fears for the days when she will no longer laugh. She always stayed young, outward and always in the heart. -14- And like the young men, she likes eagerly to hunt the bright butterflies. But catching butterflies in life leave so much less like catching the butterflies in the meadow, which leave a smudge on the hands when caught. And then the children cry sometimes. The time does not stay still. The cabinet has come into being tradition, where the man bravely steps into the strife for life, whilst the woman cares* for the gentle and the weak and prevails and from the male things of moneymaking with all the ugly things that are associated, nothing understood and leastwise done, where the ladies of the good society, when they have already were forced the fist of fate, to stand on their own feet, only few standardised jobs stood open. translators note: The word is misspelt, and is untranslatable, however this what it can be interpreted as. Now the cabinet lives with shudders, how a girl out of a good family learns shorthand – not something out of temperament, to a bare joke, but about utilising the financial knowledge – like a mother, else a perfect dame, which she thereunto dictates every day a little faster. Likewise the father is appalled, who probably feels his worth as a man hurt. Finds that his Else probably, that his family is not supported enough? Where he furtively always gives her a few pennies for her private needs. Still she gives hours, English and French, letting her pay for, it is him not right. But the young girls are so ambitious today. They want independence, and as declared socialist one is actually the to leave nothing in the way for these aspirational and independent women. How many debates has one lead about this point and always joined for the process. [Sentence unclear]. From far the things always different than how they look in reality. Heavy hearts have Elsens long-felt wish to go out into the world and to pay for bread herself. Now he sees her to how she prepares, how she answers advertisements, how to use a typewriter. Secretly he reckons with it, so that she doesn’t get a position. translators note: unable to translate sentence -15- In a dream one May day the telephone shrilled long. Interurban. Here in Prague. Miss Glaser would wish. That wonder came true. One is allowed to suggest driving. At worst one has made one trip into the city. But two days later would the biggest family suitcase be fully packed with everything, what needs in the big city in and out of a career. The cabinet experiences a cry of joy of a young girl, which the freedom opened up for her, and the next day the loneliness of the lingering parents, the stunned and wondering father, that he leaves his daughter to be independent. The life of the old cabinet become even quieter. A man ages and starts to ail. A woman sorrows at. Two people still want their peace. What did life bring them? Disappointment after disappointment, when you take it exactly. Maybe one expected too much from life. One always oneself back, reads in the evening a good book, plays their daily solitaire, solves their crosswords. In summer one travels away for a few weeks, initially into the mountains, where the daughter spends the holiday with someone, than just near Marienbad, then not once more. The doctor makes year out, year in, good weather or bad weather, his morning walks alone and his afternoon walks with his wife, solves crossword puzzles, and reads his beloved books, as long his even weaker eyes allow it. Lady Ida sews, knits and crotchets and plays solitaire, reads little selected books and tells the girl Marie in the kitchen human dignity and more reasonable lifestyle and has her daily laughter with her, so that the husband will often come out of the room, jealous, only to see, what is maintained in the kitchen so brilliantly. Only on all holidays, when Else is home for two, three days, is there vivid action. Then come the friends to visit, there would be baking and cooking and washing and ironing, because miss daughter is not blessed with housewifely virtues, and why bother, when the mother shakes her head and finds, that one did things badly. You’d better bring it unmade. -16- And then everything drops into the usual silence and arguably one would not want or need more in life. Only this silent and quiet life unto; the end. One more may not be enough. But one day the world soughs into the room. Concerts in Paris, dance music from London, midday concert from Munich, lectures from Vienna, Leipzig, Beromünster. The radio holds its advents. Daily, the old cabinet sees an excited lady listening to the daily news. Because they are ready for distant thunder storms, like clouds on the horizon. And there is a feeling, to be part of the whole world through this adorned box. 7. September 1938. In the room is a scurry, a disturbance, bigger, as they were required to pack. A distraught woman runs once more through her realm and throws another parting look at all the familiar pieces of furniture. Would she see them again? The whole year between Germany and Czechoslovakia a tension, that one would especially feel on the border. Since the May incident, the old cabinet has been partially deprived as an ornament, because then one radically managed to send everything silver and valuable to the daughter in Prague. Since has nothing occurred, but the tension has grown, that one eventually always urgently relents the daughter’s requests and drives into the inner country, in perhaps bigger safety. Because when it comes to something serious, is Eger already a war zone, withal a war zone, that suddenly becomes hostile. And how if fares for the Jewish is known. Two old people decide so to travel. Will they come back? And when, what will one find? The good Marie stays in care for the apartment. 10 days later two nervous ladies rush into the room. Ms Ida has come home from Prague to pack more furniture. One already knows, that they will probably not come back so soon. At any moment can opponents strike out. Property on the border can be considered lost. One wants to save what one can save. -17- With eager zeal the two ladies work. The still brave Marie is relentless, procured under difficult boxes, nails and what else one needs. Not much eating on this day. Who has time to cook! In the city is everything martial law and hard to get. As Ms. Ida went on the train, a young man would be shot, who did not stand on call. An episode on this eventful day. First long after, on the railway, would the incident become clear. With much effort would a carrier be raised, which undertook big pieces, the boxes, the carpet, the mattresses and bed linen. In latter is one mainly driven, because the Else means, something warm to sleep is a must with the burglarising cold year time where one does not know if or where one will be evacuated. Then one has on a sudden drive to snatch everything up what is already in the boxes. Exhausted, sits Ms Ida on the train, next to her is a basket with marmalade glasses, a full suitcase in luggage rack, she does not know where the radio that the still good Marie in the last minute packed and brought with her to the train station. The cabinet now has become poorer. He has become very empty. Sullenly the old cabinet stands in the corner. Marie, who should care for the living room, rarely shows herself. To and fro she rummages and takes what she needs. One time a dashing and big man comes in. he makes filthy jokes about the Jewish. Marie laughs along. The cabinet has the feeling that it did not come from the heart. When she is honest, would she say that it was good with the Jews. But the man is her husband and the most considerable in the whole city. Like Otti once said to grandmother Babette, either one wants to dance or one has character. Marie wants the man, directly this one, the character she moves to the side. -18- Eventually the apartment would be seized. With bare fisted men pack without much easiness the furniture pieces one by one – and so the cabinet of Ms Jette comes to the attic. It stands there long, jammed between the desk and the book shelf in draught and coldness. But the roof has been repaired for one year and stays undamaged. On a February morning the van rumbles down the streets from Pilsen to Prague. It is a big van, since it was most likely for all the furniture for a three-room flat. What it brings is certainly only the half. Tables, chairs, cabinets have stayed behind. But the decorative cabinet is still there. Significantly the good Marie did not keep anything, before everything, the sewing machine – it still gave her a stitch, as the husband did not suffer, that she did not give it back ‘you will need it, when you sew children’s clothes. The Jewish rabble is too lazy anyway to do anything. Taking advantage of people, that’s what they do,’ Actually Marie must say, that that was not true, that Ms Doctor not only sewed her own washing and helped Marie with the cutting and even in the kitchen and house not only up to date how it would be, but also efficient with laid hand work. But that is what he says, that is the husband whom she loves. And there she silences and strikes the sewing machine with glass and porcelain. There is still enough for the simple house, which the doctor has led in the past years, she thinks. Relieved is her conscience that back then she saved Ms Doctor’s radio, then she would know how it would come. Besides she lets herself convince to take what she likes. The van stops before a block of flats in the Prager historic city. The decorative cabinet did not suffer on the long ride. Now he holds his entry into the new stage of his life. The room he was now brought into was almost empty. But his friend the big Turkish carpet is already there. It fills the whole room, because the rooms here are not as big as the ones at home. And the Persian carpet from the couch is already there, again on a couch, on a smaller, indeed harder, but thereon it lies. Later and later the room receives a new -19- face again, when Ms. Ida herself also can no longer recover, the fact that so much is lacking, she believes that she cannot do without. And when no more, like earlier, a piece fits with another, it finally cosy again. Since how clothes make people, so is how people make an apartment. How the furniture is placed, how they are used, how it is kept neat, that is critical, now how expensive or cheap you were. And now come the times, in which one cannot complain the monotony truthfully. Times, which Ms. Ida would have not thought of, that she would be able to take still. But she sends herself in, becoming versatile and resilient, concerning the household, only with one service, but electricity on all corners and ends and running warm water, cooking, going shopping in the city, whose language she does not understand, rendering one word. And finds time still for the daily afternoon walks with the husband occasionally a good book as well being upset about the husband, who had to undergo his eye operation and under all the nervous tension, countless Jewish regulations, which his memory does not suffice rapid age. The cabinet saw much grief and worries through these three years, where he strays with the family from one apartment to another, always from newly chased away from the many Nazi families who appoint the Germanisation of Czechoslovakia until he sublets – only those homeless Jewish allowed – landing by the old Ms. Robitschek. He experiences the delivery of the silver and the delivery of the fur and the delivery of the radio. Every time a part of the heart of one or another family member goes. He listens sighs about the locked wealth, about the difficulties of food procurement, about compulsory sales and forced in every manifestation of life….. But he also sees pleasant faces, once when he purchases the surplus daily bread, when any dreaded appointment is eventually not so bad, when the deportation phase passed, even when one does not need to think about it, when the daughter, in her occupation is degraded and the unemployed life is not as unbearable as one would have thought. -20- Because one is modest about ones joys. He sees the daily literary evenings, where the Father would be read, because after 8 a Jew is not allowed to be on the street, comfortably chatting by a cup of tea, where one with friends gloss over and talks politics and anxiously trying to win over this throttled life, fun class hours and effort to put this life at ease. He sees transport preparation and transportation fears, since short or long everyone meets the fate of deportation. Over the year, Hitler promised his people, Prague should be free of Jews. Every week a transport goes through unknown, in hunger, death and perdition. A ball comes flying, affects you or affects me…. It is called to be prepared, to have practical luggage. Because one will, God knows how far one must carry, preparing high quality groceries in the permanent inventories, hundred details to provide for under difficulty, without a cultured person cannot imagine without. He frightens with the family out of sleep that Friday night, as the daughter was ordered to report on Monday to the Transport. He sees to, how the house people and friends day and night are active, preferably stowing the few baggage pieces, like here a little repaired, there one more time recounted, if everything has come, what is essential and what is still likely officially confiscated at the camp. He sees the last debates, farewell, words of encouragement, everything in a myriad of blue cigarette smoke, probably the last for a long time. And then the two old shook people and attempt to put their heads up and not to make each other upset, until they must go on a grey October day. Lonely the cabinet grows without any contact with nice people in an empty house. Because even if the other furniture pieces are still there, the jewellery is missing, the warmth of the pulse of life is missing, it misses the people. -21- And the cabinet itself is pointlessly empty, because the furniture, the stocks of food that it last held – a silk curtain behind the oval glass is closed with shame – is wondered with everything else. Lonely it dreams, a long, long time. Than it would be picked up with the other furniture and lovelessly put in a magazine. The no longer fixed arabesques gable falls to the ground, no one takes care of it. At the next furniture choice for Theresienstadt the packers kick regardless around. Than they seize the mangled and take it to expectant carrier. And so it comes, that in the employment agency I can celebrate farewell with our dear cabinet, who awakens the old memories and family tales. The great grandmother Jette is long in the grave, the grandparents have died, also the father has perished in the difficulties of exile, the mother has become older. Leastwise it still carries the arabesque gable with vivid interest an all living, the quick and accurate judgement of everything, what it encounters, from hopes and dreams, to never stop cherishing and dreaming. But what probably comes out of our old shabby cabinet, when the cabinets in the Ghettos eventually open? Maybe they will still be used as firewood to give something warm and then it would be lost and forgotten like the old tradition, whose symbol has been us, and a new one, in the fog of the future first definitely stepping weak into place, that we ourselves have to fill with liveliness and tradition. Credit lineSydney Jewish Museum Collection, Donated by Mr. Harry Silberman

Object numberM1995/001:001

TitleWiedersehen mit Einem Schrank

Description21 page typed manuscript written by Eliska Glaser, who was most likely a relative of Harry Silberman, the donor of this collection. The story documents a family cabinet that has been passed down from generations, eventually making its way to Theresienstadt where Eliska Glaser was deported. The Yad Vashem database states that Eliska Glaserova, born in 1900, was ‘deported with Transport B, Train Da 7 from Praha, Praha Hvlani Mest, Bohemia, Czechoslovakia to Lodz Ghetto, Poland on 21.10.1941’.

The first page contains some aspects on life in Theresienstadt, however it mainly focuses on the story of a family heirloom. The recognition and identification of an elaborately handmade wooden dressing table in the office of Theresienstadt camp triggers the outpouring of memories and family reminiscences over several generations.

To provide an example of the florid, profuse and overstressed style is a paragraph from page 7:

"Years have passed, Babbette has flowered to a beauty not seen everyday! Like her mother she likes to glance into the oval mirror which she loves because it tells her of her beauty and beauty is power to a woman while it reminds her of the mother whom she never knew and who became the essence of all mobility and beauty, representing an ideal which she secretly idolizes as a comforter who would have diminished the smaller random worries by re-directing them to safer trains of thought and the dressing table (her father had told her) giving her mother so much joy becomes a symbol."

Object namemanuscripts

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Credit lineSydney Jewish Museum Collection, Donated by Mr. Harry Silberman

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