HELGA and ELISABETH
The interviews
Helga and Elisabeth come from a so-called mixed marriage. The Jewish father was a medical doctor, the mother Christian. This meant that the sisters, as so-called half-Jews with a so-called "German-blooded" mother, were initially spared from deportation. However, that did not change the everyday harassment. The father was first deported to Buchenwald and released after a year as a broken man on condition that he leave the German Reich immediately. A passage by ship to Shanghai, where he wanted to gain second professional foothold and to catch up with the family for a new life, turned out to be a hoax. Ultimately, the Auschwitz concentration camp was the temporary end of his life's journey.
​
The grace period ended for the sisters when Helga reached her fourteenth year. The Theresienstadt ghetto was now their destiny. The mother went with her voluntarily and took the only six-year-old Elisabeth with her. While Theresienstadt initially seemed to be the lesser evil, that soon changed. Hunger, neglect and death became part of everyday life, accompanied by slave work, total disenfranchisement and humiliation.
​
​
​
Interview excerpt in progress
Ms. Dr. Helga Feldner-Busztin was born in 1929. Her school attendance was first prohibited by the Nazis. Next, the Gestapo was at the front door. In the Theresienstadt ghetto, Helga had to do slave work and, thanks to the luck and cleverness of her mother, escaped deportation to the Auschwitz death camp. She became an internist in her second life and practiced until old age.
Interview excerpt in progress
Ms. Elisabeth Scheiderbauer was born in 1936. She came to the Theresienstadt ghetto at the age of six. Because she was rebellious, she was taken to a house with mentally handicapped children and luckily escaped gassing. In her second life, Elisabeth studied dance and belonged among others also the ensemble of the Volksoper Vienna. She ran a film company with her husband until her retirement.
"THE SURVIVING OF THERESIENSTADT NEARS A MIRACLE."
Quote: Elisabeth Scheiderbauer
NO VOICE CAN BE LOST
It is our duty to hear the voice of those who survive tyranny, and they also say for the dead.
