Hana Vohryzkova

This photo was taken in Teplice in the 1930s. My cousin Hana Vohryzkova was the older of two sisters. I was friends with the younger sister, Helena, because she was about the same age as I. Sometimes for a laugh we'd tell people that we were sisters. They used to call us 'the Helkas.'

Hana Vohryzkova was born in 1917. Her parents were well off, so she didn't have to do much. At one time she was at a boarding school in Prague. Here she fell in love, with Professor Vesely. Before that Professor Vesely had taught at the business academy in Teplice, which was in the Sudetenland, and when the Sudetenland was annexed, he moved to Prague and taught here at a language school. When the war began, Professor Vesely used to come see us in Brandys and pleaded with us for the whole family to move abroad, he obviously suspected that we were in danger.

During the war Hana married Hugo Stein. Mr. Stein was very rich, so both he and his wife went on the first transports directly to Lodz. On the first transports, which went directly to Lodz, went very rich and on the contrary very poor Jews together. The well-known Jewish painter Robert Guttman also went on one of these transports. After that we got a postcard from the Steins, this pre-printed one, but then it ended. We don't know if they were sent somewhere into the gas, or died directly in Lodz.

I remember that Hana liked riding horses, she was with the so-called rural riders, which was a riding club for rich landowners. Hana wasn't very tall, but she was pretty and smart, our father liked her very much. I always had the feeling that Hana had to return after the war.