How My Mother, Sis. Hana Holman,

Learnt the Truth

By Sis. Susan Waite

Canterbury Ecclesia

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Life was very sweet, back then in the 1930's. It was a carefree and happy existence for Hana, her sister Ruth and her parents, Marta and Ernst Ofner. In the Summer, they walked into the surrounding forests. The girls loved to search for berries and mushrooms, as well as flowers and insects in the Bohemian woods. Marta believed that "walking" was good exercise for young girls so much of the summer was spent in this healthy outdoor exercise. Sometimes they sauntered along the riverbanks of the Moldau and Malse or strolled to the fountain in the town-square. The girls swam in the river on the hot days. They loved to play in the park called Hajecek, where they were amused by the antics of small caged animals. Sometimes they rode a tramcar and shopped in the large town square. Budweiss was their hometown. They lived there for ten years and they were ten happy years. The following four years were spent in Pilsen, which was situated 75 km west of Prague. Again their lives were secure, happy and interesting.

Wintertime was always cold and snowy. Hana and Ruth loved to skate and ski with their parents. They used to carry tiny hot water bottles inside their fur muffs to keep their hands warm. Hana pushed a wooden chair in front of her on the ice, until she learnt to balance freely on her brown leather skates. Her father Ernst Ofner had a very kind and gentle face and a disposition to match. He loved his wife Marta and his two daughters dearly, and although he was firm with the girls, the firmness was tempered with kindness.

Hana and Ruth rarely performed home duties. The live-in maid Sofie organized the cooking, the washing and ironing and the girls lived a life of ease. Although their mother rarely prepared the meals, Hana has memories of Grandmother Bertha making apple strudel with Auntie Pulli. Together they pulled and stretched the pastry until it was paper thin, rolling it up, layer upon layer with apple-slices, cinnamon and sugar. Plum dumplings were another specialty and a pot of soup was always simmering on the stove, usually chicken or lentils with root vegetables and onions.

Hana and her family lived in a flat above the Kafka grandparents. The Kafkas were Marta's parents. Grandfather Leopold Kafka was a coffee importer. Down in the basement, the aroma of coffee filled the air. The coffee was deftly packaged into small bags for retail. Spaghetti, noodles and other dry foods were also packaged and sent away. Hana learnt to ride her bike down in the basement and the girls loved to visit their grandparents for special treats from Grandmother Helene's cupboard.

The other grandfather, Jakob Ofner kept the strong Jewish traditions and encouraged the family to regularly attend the synagogue. Hana and Ruth's uncle was Rabbi Rudolf Ferda, the Rabbi of Budweiss and he later became a Rabbi in the Terezin ghetto. Hana can remember him teaching religious instruction at her school. He traveled with the first trainload of Jewish people who were sent to the Terezin ghetto in 1942 and there he stayed conducting weddings, bar mitzvahs and comforting the bereaved and the lonely, until he also was sent to Auschwitz towards the end of 1944.

Hana's other grandmother was Berta Ofnerova. Gentle by nature, she was much loved by her children and her grandchildren. She was very artistic, blocking and trimming hats in her small millinery shop near the town square. Those who remember her, say that she always had a loving expression on her face and speak highly of her generous nature. She loved to find a hat for her nieces and grandchildren, angling it just right on their bobbed heads, insisting that it was a gift to be kept for always. She was also remembered for the baked apples that she always kept cooking on the high tiled stove, a treat for any of her grandchildren who might pop in on their way home from school. In fact the aroma of baked apples always lingered in the air at Grandmother Berta's home.

Life was full and happy with many family gatherings, celebrations, outings and visits to the synagogue. At Budweiss, the synagogue was very close to where they lived. Every Sabbath, they put on their best clothes, Ernst picked up his prayer shawl and they walked across the narrow road to the old stone synagogue. There, Ernst walked to one side, to sit alone, as women and men were not allowed to sit together. Marta and the two girls sat upstairs and listened quietly to the mellow singing of the Cantor.

When Hana was ten years old, the family moved to Pilsen, which was a little closer to Prague than Budweiss had been. Ernst was a clerk with the Taxation department and the building was near the University. Hana attended the Girls' Higher Elementary School in the southern district of Pilsen. However, school days, happy times with parents, visits to the grandparents in Budweiss and quiet times at the synagogue were soon to come to an end. The girls knew that their father spent a great deal of time traveling to Prague and back, on the train, to attend important meetings. He used to arrive home late at night, when the girls were asleep. The girls were not sure why he spent so much time in Prague. They weren't aware that he was assisting in the organization of the Kindertransport movement. In England, a young enthusiastic Nicholas Winton lobbied the English government to take hundreds of Jewish children into the country for safekeeping and so the Kindertransport movement was born. Ernst worked on the British Committee for Children in Prague organizing the departures from the Czech side.

At this time, the family lived opposite the Pilsen synagogue. Hana could look directly at the two synagogue towers from her bedroom window. One morning, she woke to hear soldiers marching in the street below. Peering out, she observed two large guns standing in front of the synagogue. They were black and menacing. She was very scared and wondered what was happening. Hana and Ruth were soon to experience a momentous turning point in their lives.

It was a Summer day, a pleasant June day. Marta was sitting on the balcony of their Pilsen flat, darning stockings. A boy came peddling down the street on his bicycle. He was hurrying. He was bringing a telegram to the Ofner household. Marta tore the envelope open, but in her heart she all ready knew the contents. There were two places for Hana and Ruth on the next Kindertransport to England, leaving on the 30th June 1939. One can only imagine the feelings of Marta and Ernst. They were a close-knit family, but it was their deep love for their girls that allowed them to send them to a safe haven.

  

Ruth age 10 years and Hana age 14 years

This photo was taken at a family gathering

just before they left Czechoslovakia on the Kindertransport

  

To the girls it all seemed rather exciting at the time. Visits to the dressmaker were scheduled and new dresses were stitched. Hana and Ruth were used to fine clothes. Their mother always dressed them in matching plaids, with fresh white blouses. Their cases were packed with their new clothes and even the brown leather skates. Marta's brown fur muff was tucked into Hana's case and Ruth was given her father's prayer shawl. Finally Marta placed her small watch with the red leather strap on Hana's wrist and the girls were ready to leave. The parents reassured the girls that in a few months, they would try and follow them to England.

The day of departure soon arrived. The family traveled up to Prague. Six hundred and twenty children were leaving for England on the Kindertransport that day. The train platform was crowded with parents, baggage, older children trying to be brave and little children clutching paper bags with sandwiches and apples for the long journey. It is all a blur in Hana's mind, as now all she can remember is waving good-bye to her parents, not knowing then that she would never see them again, but always remembering ever since that that was the last picture she ever had of her very dear Mutti and Papa.

The train journey was long. Hana remembers German soldiers entering the compartment and sticking a piece of written material on the top of her passport. On arrival at Harwich in England, she ripped it off, declaring to the officials that she was definitely a Czech. The children crossed the channel in a ship called "The Prague." Many were seasick, homesick and bewildered. Hana took care of her little sister Ruth as well as she could. They had always been so happy together, but when they reached London, they were devastated to find that they were to be parted and sent to two different foster-homes. Hana was billeted with Bro. and Sis. Warre and little Ruth went home with a publican and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Brown. Their new homes were to be in Birmingham in the Midlands.

The girls suffered terrible bouts of homesickness. They couldn't speak English. All Hana could say was "Yes", "No" and "I am hungry". The first evening she was shattered when she was asked to bring in a bucket of coal. At home, Sofie the maid performed these tasks. But gradually life in England became easier. Bro. and Sis Warre were elderly but very kind and treated Hana like their own daughter. Hana looked after their haberdashery and millinery shop, brushing the hats each morning as she watched the traffic go along Coventry Road in busy Birmingham. She earned a little money and visited Ruth, leaving her two shilling pieces as often as she could. Ruth worked very hard. She scrubbed floors and cared for the Brown's three children while they worked away from home.

Hana worked hard too, but she had the added blessing of belonging to a loving family who taught her from the Bible. In the evening, they sat in the sitting room to read the daily Bible readings together. On Sunday mornings she loved to sing the hymns and little by little she learnt the English language. More importantly she was learning the message of the New Testament. She always began her prayers in Hebrew. "Hear O Israel, the Lord is One God….." but gradually she was learning that the Lord Jesus Christ was the Messiah.

Although Hana missed her parents, she received much love from the Christadelphian community. She attended the Meetings, had invitations out for meals and was surrounded with friendship and loving-kindness. It was wartime and times were hard. There were food shortages. She wore faded clothes from the shop window. But far worse than this, at night there were air-raid warnings and bombs dropping. One night the house next door was razed to the ground, but Bro. and Sis. Warre and Hana slept under a large oak table in the dining-room and survived all the bombings.

 

Bro and Sis Warre at Weston-Super-Mare

 

When Hana was seventeen years old, she was baptized into the saving Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Brother and Sister Whitehead instructed her in the first principles. She was the first of the Jewish children that were taken in by kind Christadelphian families to be baptized. It was a joyful occasion as a Jewess and a Gentile were baptized on the same evening.

Hana and Ruth wrote to their parents but the letters ceased after Marta and Ernst were interred in the Theresienstadt ghetto. When the war was finally over, they knew in their hearts that their parents were not alive. One day, Hana opened an official letter. It said simply, that Marta and Ernst had perished at Auschwitz in October 1944.

The war was over, but there was no family in Czechoslovakia to return to, so Hana and Ruth remained in England. As the English people started to pick up the pieces, to rebuild and recover, so did Hana and Ruth. In November 1945, Hana married Bro. Kenneth Holman a kind, gentle man, the son of a Wiltshire gamekeeper. He had been lodging with Bro. and Sis Eric Maher and after reading "Elpis Israel" by Dr. John Thomas, he asked if he could be baptized. He had never been to a Meeting so he was given instruction by Bro. John Graham a dear old brother from Weston-Super-Mare Meeting who was sight-impaired. Hana met Kenneth for the first time on the occasion of his baptism.

Everybody was relieved and happy that the war was over. The loss and the suffering had made them appreciate what was really important in life. People wanted to settle down, to make homes, to have families and to live in peace. Although Hana lost her parents, many close relatives and her way of life in Czechoslovakia, her life was filled with even greater blessings. She learnt the message of the gospel, that Jesus was truly the Messiah and that our Heavenly Father has a wonderful plan of salvation for those that call upon His Name.

Esteemed Mr. and Mrs. Warre,

As the father of your present foster-child Hanna from Pilsen, I beg to express to you my deepest gratitude for your generosity and kindness with which you have received our child. I assure you that my child Hanna is all that I have and she represents all my happiness in life, and this, what is my life, is now with you. Whereas my other child, which means to me as much, is now with Mr. Brown, 54 Hannon Rd, Kings Heath. You, as gentle people, will understand what it means to send beloved children into a strange world. How much pain and tears are in this. You will imagine under what pressure such a step could be resolved. I assure you that since, my eyes have not been dry and I had no sleep in the night, (but my child must never know this). My sense of duty only could compel me to save the children from a life which would be for them without honour and dignity.

They shall grow up to become straight and believing and they should not lose their human dignity and a surrounding which would deprive them of it.

They shall not live in fear and flight for being Jews, of the people described in the Bible. And so I am crying daily tears for my beloved children.

But I trust in the Lord that all our sacrifices shall not be in vain because I know that good and gentle people have taken care of my child, and they will educate and care for it in my stead. Our Lord did not wish that humanity should be disgraced, he has provided angels which will not leave them and such angels are you Mr. and Mrs. Warre and Mr. and Mrs. Brown. I beg you with all my might not to leave our children Hanna and Ruth in whatever chance in life as long until we shall be again reunited. It is our daily and hourly prayer to the Almighty Lord.

We shall try either to have the children follow us or to follow them, wherever fate may drive us to. Not until then our life shall be again happy.

You cannot imagine how happy our family life has been and how all this has now been destroyed. Please protect our children before needs and disgrace, in peace and in war. Make them happy, satisfied and fit for life and leave them to remain Jews because we all love our suffering nation which we will not deceive against all persecutions. To be Jew is also to be humane and this is how we have also educated our children. You will convince yourself that they are made of good material. To make this good in them grow, will be your task, difficult but not ungrateful and you may be sure of the Lord's benediction for it.

And as long as we live, you may be sure of our deepest gratitude. By taking care of my children you have proved that you belong to a large and wise nation which will live for ever and always win. We are the grateful parents of Hanna and Ruth. I request you to kindly send this letter on to the address of Mr. Brown too.

Written by Ernst Ofner to Mr. and Mrs. Warre 7th July 1939

  

The Ofner family: Ernst, Hana, Ruth and Marta

  

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