Marketa Freyova

This is a photo of my mother Marketa Freyova. Given how short her hair is, it could have been taken shortly after the war. My mother was named Marketa Fingerova. She was born in Ceska Lipa on 27th April 1909 and died in Litomysl on 10th October 1992. So she lived to the age of 83, which actually isn't that much, because our family was long-lived. Her mother tongue was Czech. Apparently they however moved from Ceska Lipa to Litomysl very early on, because they were already there when my mother started attending school. She then lived for some time with my father in Pilsen, before they moved back to Litomysl, so that I wouldn't grow up in such bad environmental conditions as those in Most. During the war she was also in Terezin, our whole family went there on that day of 6th December 1942. Because my father was the president of the Jewish community, we were somehow automatically protected during the course of his life in Terezin. But when on 23rd June 1944 he died, we immediately left on the earliest transport, the October one, to Auschwitz. We left Terezin on 12th October, and arrived in Auschwitz on 14th October. We were in Auschwitz for fourteen days. On 28th October we had the feeling that we'd be going into the gas chamber, but we were lucky and we went on to Austria, to a subcamp of Mauthausen that was named Lenzing in Upper Austria. And there we stayed until liberation. However when exactly we were liberated, that's an example of how memories differ. I was and still am convinced that we were liberated on 6th May 1945 by the American army. My friends, two sisters with whom we had gone there at the same time back then, are convinced that we were liberated on 4th May. But I'm convinced I'm right. And so are they.