• 12/01/2023
• By wizewebsite
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Holocaust story: Just because of illness has survived a certain death<

Members of the families, namely Hynek Bloch (*1876), Regina Blochová (*1886), Heřman Schanzer (*1891), Elsa Schanzerová (*1901), Josef Schanzer (*1927), were subsequently transported on January 20, 1943 by Cq deported from Terezín to Auschwitz, where they died in a gas chamber.

In the register of Holocaust victims, maintained by the Jewish Museum in Prague, we find the name Jiří Schanzer (*1921), who left home in 1940 and joined the resistance. He fell into the hands of the Gestapo while trying to cross the Hungarian border. He was taken to Slovakia and Moravia, imprisoned in Uherské Hradiště and Brno. He died on May 27, 1944 in the Buchenwald concentration camp. However, we do not find the name of Zdeňka Blochová (1908-2004) in the records. She graduated from the Business Academy in Pilsen. Shortly after graduating from Měšťanská Beseda in Pilsen, she met her future husband, who was ten years older, Ing. Oskar Josef Smejda (1899-1974), who at that time worked at Škoda plants. In 1928 they got married and seven years later their daughter Ivana (married Owe) was born. They lived in Pilsen until 1937, when Oskar was called to Prague. The problem was a marriage promise with a Jewish woman. The Nazis wanted him to divorce her, so he wouldn't have to go to a labor camp, but he didn't, so he had to go to the German labor camp in Klettendorf. He worked in a stone quarry under terrible conditions. Even Zdeňka was not spared - during World War II she worked in a German war industry factory. She got up at 4:30 in the morning and walked to the factory across a large part of Prague. Jews were not allowed to ride the tram. From the factory, the Nazis sent female workers to concentration camps.

Zdenka Blochová's daughter said: "Before leaving, however, they had a medical check-up to make sure no one brought any infection to the camp. One of the doctors was a good acquaintance of Zdenča's. Every time she went to see him before her scheduled departure to Terezín, he always infected her with something so that she would get a fever and not have to leave. In this way, the departure was postponed several times, until the end of the war, and thanks to these methods, Zdenka survived terrible times and almost certain death."

In 1950, the family emigrated to Norway for political reasons. Oskar's parents had already settled in Norway some time ago, but they were not alive in 1950. In the 1950s, women in Norway did not work, but took care of the children and the household. Zdeňka was smart, she had a lot of experience with her high school diploma, so she helped out in the family business in Norway, where she also used her very good knowledge of German. Zdenka died in Oslo in 2004 at the age of 95. Her daughter Ivana, her children and grandchildren still live in Norway. The family has a warm relationship with Dolní Lukavica.

Thank you very much to Eva Horová for the contribution.