Centropa Stories

Antonie grew up in Brno, where her family lived on the grounds of the Jewish community’s sports club. When the deportations began, her 12 year old brother went into hiding, her father was taken into forced labor, and Antonie, 16 years old, looked after her mother in Terezin. A story of incredible bravery, heartbreak and commitment.

Antonie Militka was interviewed by Barbara Pokreis in Brno in 2004

narrated by Jilly Bond

Jan Fischer, who became one of Prague’s most creative postwar theatre directors and memoirists, fell in love with the stage while a prisoner in Terezin. He and his fellow cellmates performed dramas, musicals and comedies, until one by one, they were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. A compelling story of tragedy and resilience.

Jan Fischer was interviewed by Silvia Singerova in Prague in 2003

narrated by Peter Moreton

Edward Serotta's introduction to the Centropa Podcast Season about Terezin.

narrated by Henry Goodman

Simon was less than three years old when the family was sent into the hell of Transnistria. They barely survived, and as he grew up in postwar Romania, Simon tells us of the unspeakable poverty and hunger he went through. Simon became an agricultural expert, married, had children. This lively, ironic storyteller is well worth listening to.

narrated by Jeni Barnett

Rifca grew up in a village that was nearly 75% Jewish, and she tells us life was good—until the war—when the family was forced to move to a bigger town. They were not deported further but lived in abject poverty and in constant anxiety. Rifca married, raised a family, and spent her last years teaching Hebrew to an ever-shrinking class of Jewish children.

narrated by Steve Furst

Simon paints a vivid picture of growing up with his brothers in a Romanian shtetl. The entire family was deported to Transnistria during the war. Not all of them returned. Simon married, raised a family, and in time, became president of his Jewish community.

narrated by Edward Serotta

In towns like Dorohoi, Suceava, Botosani, and Radauti, Jewish life carried on all during the post-Holocaust decades. They were rapidly shrinking, of course, as most younger Jews wanted to leave, and the majority of them emigrated to Israel. But these small communities still maintained their canteens, youth clubs, choirs, and seniors’ clubs and held regular synagogue services. As of the 2020s, however, most of these organizations were no longer functioning. That makes these three stories all the more compelling, as they take you back to a world now lost to us.

When Nazi Germany occupied Austria, over 110,000 Jews managed to flee. The Luster family, Moses and Golda, and their 14 year old son Leo, could not find a way out. Leo would endure nearly seven years of hell—in Theresienstadt, in Auschwitz, and in work camps in Germany.

His story is read to us by Henry Goodman in London.

Jozef trained as a barber and as someone who could repair fountain pens. Those skills first saved his life and brought him into direct contact with Nazi officers in Auschwitz—and led him to testify against them in nearly a dozen postwar trials.

His story is read to us by Steve Furst in London.

In March 1939, Nazi Germany occupied the Czech regions of Bohemia and Moravia. Pavel’s family was called for a transport to Terezin in 1944. Two years later, they were told they would be sent to “the east.” That meant Auschwitz.

Pavel Werner story is read to us by Elliot Levey in London.