The grandchildren of Kamila Alterova

This photograph was taken in Prague in 1935 as a present for Grandma Kamila Alterova's 70th birthday. In it are all her grandchildren. Standing in the top row, from left, is my cousin Milena Krausova, Aunt Marie Krausova's daughter, my cousin Bedrich Alter, I?m in the middle, beside me on the right, my cousins Erika Alterova and Arnost Alter. Erika, Bedrich and Arnost were the children of my uncle, Dr. Jiri Alter. Sitting in the bottom row is my cousin Pavel Alter, the younger son of my uncle, Dr. Karel Alter, beside him my sister Eva Polakova, my cousin Frantisek Kraus, and standing at the far right in the bottom row is my cousin Bedrich Alter, the older son of my uncle Dr. Karel Alter. Grandma Kamila died three years later, in 1938 after Munich, when Hitler annexed the Sudetenland, but she didn't live to see Hitler occupy us. My grandma's oldest son, Jiri Alter, was an astronomer.When Hitler came to Czechoslovakia, Uncle Jiri got an offer to go work at an observatory in England. He took the offer, and left with his family for safety. In England Uncle Jiri's daughter, my cousin Erika, wanted to join the Czechoslovak army, but as they didn't take women she joined the English one. She learned perfect English, so even native Englishmen couldn't understand why it said in her passport that she was a Czechoslovak citizen, they couldn't believe that she wasn't a native Englishwoman. Jiri's son, my cousin Bedrich, left for Palestine. Uncle Jiri's youngest son, Arnost, was arrested for illegal activities back when the transports weren't on yet, he was the first of the family to perish, even before we were deported. My mother's second brother, Karel Alter, was president of the Czech Council of Jewish Communities during the Protectorate, was a doctor of law and had two sons ? Bedrich and Pavel. Another of my mother's brothers, Bedrich Alter, fell during World War I. My mother's sister, Marie, married Karel Kraus from Caslav, and they had two children together, Milena and Frantisek.