Centropa Stories

On New Year’s Day, 1950, in a synagogue in Abbey Road in North London, Paul and Anitta began their life together. In the 1960s, Paul insisted on visiting Vienna. But why, asked his wife Anitta. “To kill a ghost,” Paul said.

A few months later, Anitta’s parents took her to the train station and sent her on a Kindertransport to England. But would her parents find a way out?

We begin this episode in Vienna’s second district in 1938, and it was from an apartment on Springergasse that a 15-year old Jewish boy sent a letter to England, begging for help.

Zhanna Litinskaya, from our Kyiv office, spent three weeks in Chisinau in 2004 interviewing elderly Holocaust survivors. Zhanna spent three afternoons with the head of the community, Theodor Magder, who spoke of surviving the war, working as a journalist during the Communist years, and how he joined the government once Moldova became independent.

Read by Steve Furst in London.

Still teaching school at the age of 79, Polina Leibovich shares with us her story of a happy childhood and how she managed to survive hell in the camps of Transnistria. 

Interviewed for Centrpa by Natalia Fomina in 2004, Polina also tells us about finding a husband, raising a family and devoting her life to teaching. 

Read by Sara Kestelman in London.

Narrated by Edward Serotta

Moldova became an independent country when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Well more than 65,000 Jews were registered then and over the next two decades, the overwhelming majority emigrated to Israel. The community stands at less than 5,000 today but provides its members with kindergartens, youth clubs, sports teams and care for seniors.

Centropa conducted two dozen interviews in Moldova and we have chosen two of those stories for this podcast season.

Episode 2:

They were 13 and 14-year-old boys imprisoned in the Terezin (Theresienstadt) Ghetto and only a handful would survive the Holocaust.

But these teenagers fought back with everything they had: determination, ethics, and moral courage. Every Friday night, they would take turns reading from their own secret magazine, Vedem (Czech for In The Lead) which was filled with poetry, essays, and humor.

Petr Ginz (1928-1944) was Vedem’s driving force and in this documentary, you’ll hear six actors tell the story of Vedem, and how Petr and his friends have left us with a legacy of life.

Episode 1:

They were 13 and 14-year-old boys imprisoned in the Terezin (Theresienstadt) Ghetto and only a handful would survive the Holocaust.

But these teenagers fought back with everything they had: determination, ethics, and moral courage. Every Friday night, they would take turns reading from their own secret magazine, Vedem (Czech for In The Lead) which was filled with poetry, essays, and humor.

Petr Ginz (1928-1944) was Vedem’s driving force and in this documentary, you’ll hear six actors tell the story of Vedem, and how Petr and his friends have left us with a legacy of life.

Ludmila Weinerova grew up in Prague and was deported to Terezin with her parents and brothers when she was 22 years old. Ludmila paints a vivid picture of what life was like in the ghetto: grim and frightening on the one hand, but on the other, she performed in operas and in choirs that the prisoners performed. Lubmila Rutarova was interviewed by Daniela Greslova in Prague in 2007.

Born into a completely assimilated home in Prague, Alena Synkova didn’t understand what it meant to be Jewish until Germany’s invasion and occupation. Her mother died young, her father was sent off to his death, Alena was called up for a transport to Terezin and her brother fled to the resistance. Alena spent three years in Terezin and after the war became a well known poet, journalist and screenwriter.

Alena Munkova was interviewed by Zuzana Strouhova in Prague in 2005 and 2006

narrated by Shelley Blond