Chapter 9: Jan, Lukas, and Fritz

The Great War ended with the German Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire surrendering to France, Great Britain, and America in 1918. German Emperor Wilhelm II abdicated his throne, fled to the Netherlands, and it was the beginning of the Weimar Republic of Germany. The Austrian Emperor, who was also the King of Hungary, whose uncle, Archduke Ferdinand, and his wife, Sophie, were assassinated in Sarajevo that started the Great War, came to the throne in 1916 to try to negotiate peace with the Allied Powers without success. As the Great War ended in 1918, Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, Slovenia, Serbia, and Croatia broke from the Habsburg Monarchy. Bohemia and Moravia became Czechoslovakia. Slovenia, Serbia, and Croatia became the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. German Bohemia and German Moravia (also proclaimed as Sudetenland) tried to separate from Czechoslovakia to join the German Weimar Republic, but the Czechoslovakian Army invaded the area in 1919, and the secessionist movement quickly ended. The regions of Silesia and Ruthenia also joined Czechoslovakia. The region of Tyrol was divided with Italy absorbing the southern portion and Austria keeping the northern portion. In 1919, the Austrian National Assembly formally abolished the monarchy and exiled Emperor Charles I to Switzerland. Galicia that contained many Jewish communities, had its eastern lands claimed by Ukraine and Poland. After a year of conflict, Galicia joined Poland with the signing of the Treaty of Warsaw. Transylvania, which was part of Hungary during the Habsburg Monarchy, joined the Kingdom of Romania in 1920.

A soldier named Sergeant Franz Kavor, who fought for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, returned home after the war to the Giant Mountains within the Sudeten Mountain Chain. Farmers here grew wheat, barley, rye, and hops in the valley and herded flocks of sheep on the rocky slopes. Franz married his sweetheart Karolina and purchased a farm to herd sheep and harvest grains. They raised three boys named Jan, Lukas, and Fritz, and one daughter named Milena. Their new country, Czechoslovakia, made Prague its capital that was about a hundred miles from their farm. The Giant Mountains also bordered Poland. The family was fluent in German and Czech, though they spoke Czech at home. Their ancestry was a mixture of Czech and German. Franz’s father worked for the Austrian Empire government as a clerk and secretary for the Austrian Consulate in Paris. He married a German-speaking lady who did not speak Czech, but learned it as she joined the family. They were devoted Roman Catholics and attended regular services at the Church of Saint Michael the Archangel in Rokytnice nad Jizerou, which was a known ski resort town of about five thousand people, full of tourists in the winter. They lived a good life after the war, saving to buy a radio to listen to music and various radio programs. People began leaving the horse-drawn carriage behind to ride in automobiles. Karolina was excited to ride to church in an automobile with a rumble seat. Some places were a bit steep for cars, and horses were necessary. The children attended the parochial school supported by the church. The government made laws that required schools to teach in the students’ native language. The parochial school taught both in Czech and German. Franz’s children learned in the Czech classes. They also learned Latin in addition to German at school.

Then the prosperous 1929 economy crashed in America and rippled out through all their trade partners. Banks closed, causing the middle class to lose their life savings, and businesses went bankrupt, raising unemployment. Unemployment in the borderlands, where many only spoke German because the Austrian government conducted business in German, had difficulty obtaining jobs from Czech-speaking employers. The Nazi Party of Germany helped found the new Sudeten German Party. Parliamentary relations between the Czech majority and German minority deteriorated. Franz’s sister took a job at a resort as a maid, and they visited her while they skied on the nearby slopes. Jan enjoyed watching airplanes in the sky, and Franz told him stories of the airplanes in the Great War. He said he knew the famous Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen, and everyone in his troop mourned his death when he was shot down. Jan joined the air force in 1937 to learn to fly fighter planes like the Red Baron. The opera house played motion pictures from America, Germany, Poland, and Prague. Lukas and Fritz sheared the sheep in the spring to sell the wool to textile mills. Then everyone harvested the rye and wheat, sending them to the flour mills. Milena learned to play the piano and the church pipe organ. Karolina maintained the house and milked the cows to make butter and cheese. She taught Sunday School and played the pipe organ at church. Franz whittled wood and sold figurines to the gift shops in town for the tourists. Largely, he watched the sheep with his sheepdogs and tended the fields with his German-made tractor and implements.

In September 1938, the family was preparing for winter by knitting sweaters, canning the vegetable garden, making apple cider, and storing seeds during the harvest for next year’s spring planting. Over the radio, they learned Nazi Germany demanded the Sudetenland full of German-speaking Bohemians. At the Munich Conference held by Britain, France, Italy, and Germany on September 29-30, the leaders agreed to transfer the Sudetenland to Germany. Czechoslovakia’s president Edvard Beneš was furious, promptly resigned, and left to live in Great Britain. Many of the industrial mines and factories of his country lay within the Sudetenland. October 3, Adolf Hitler arrived in Eger/Cheb on the western border with Germany to be greeted by the crowds offering the Nazi Salute and offering the German soldiers warm refreshments. October 10th, German forces entered the Borderlands with little resistance. Trans-Olza was transferred to Poland, which also occupied it during October. The Germans imposed restrictions on trade, industry, and resource use. The town Rokytnice nad Jizerou, as a major glassmaking and ski resort town, was not industrialized enough to matter much to the Nazi government's war economy. German became the official language again, and all public Czech/Bohemian identity was squashed. Every adult had to join the Nazi Party, and Lieutenant Jan Kovar was enrolled in the Luftwaffe. Lukas and Fritz had to join the Hitler Youth until they reached military conscription age. Milena had to join the Nazi Girls League. Refusing to join the Nazi Party was met with a meeting with the Gestapo and arrest. German-speakers were encouraged to move to the region and displace the Czech-speaking inhabitants who were forced to leave. Many went to what was left of the Czechoslovakian state. Franz Kovar convinced the German authorities that his family, with a Czech surname, was German on his mother’s side of the family from Prussia and spoke German fluently. His father worked at the Austrian Consulate in Paris, speaking and writing only in German. He spoke and wrote in French too while living in Paris. He married a German-speaking woman who knew very little Czech. He even showed the medals he earned in the Great War for the Austrian Empire and had a photograph of German fighter pilots at an airfield stationed next to his unit behind the trenches. The Nazi official accepted the applications to join the Nazi Party as Germans and did not require them to leave their farm.

The Jews in Sudetenland were harassed, had property confiscated, and faced violence from the German occupiers, smashing windows and burning synagogues. By the summer, ninety percent of the Jews had already left the Sudetenland for what was left of Czechoslovakia, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain, and America. Everyone knew about Jewish persecution in Austria after the Nazis took over in March 1938. The ten percent of Jews who stayed were rounded up and eventually sent to concentration camps. Jews over the age of fourteen were forced to work in forced labor projects like textile mills or arms factories. Landlords were encouraged to evict Jewish tenants. In March 1939, the Germans took the rest of Czechoslovakia and separated part of it as the Slovak State, which allied with Germany. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, resulting in France and Great Britain declaring war when they refused to pull back their forces. The days of appeasement to Hitler were over. Lieutenant Jan Kovar flew planes in the Blitzkrieg attack on Poland. He got to know the anti-aircraft gunners at the Warsaw airport, like a German named Private Johannes Harz. They had much in common, coming from mountain farms. He helped manage his father's dairy and drive the delivery truck to the nearby towns, so the milkman had their supply to give to the residents in the mornings. They went out together with other members of their unit to the cinema or cafes to enjoy a mug of beer. Private Johannes, being married with children, refused female attention, but unattached and cocky Lieutenant Jan Kovar enjoyed it.

Lukas Kovar graduated from school and joined the army to be sent to Düsseldorf as part of the infantry after his basic training. He knew French and practiced with a German tank driver and sniper who listened to radio signals from France. Private Friedrich Harz was friendly, and they connected quickly, both being farm boys from the mountains. His father fought in the Great War too and bought a farm to make into a dairy. Their cheese and butter are sold by his father’s war friend in Berlin. Private Lukas said his father fought in the Great War and bought a farm to raise sheep. Private Friedrich introduced him to all the radio equipment to receive signals from France. May 1940, Germany invaded France. Lukas sat in the Panzer tank with Private Friedrich driving it. They closed in on British and French troops trapped in Dunkirk. The British Navy evacuated the forces. They entered Paris, and Hitler, with his top officials, enjoyed visiting the French capital. Private Friedrich explained that he visited his wife here and proposed to her on the Eiffel Tower. Their section of France was posted under General Langebartels, who was placed in charge of a large section of Normandy. Rouen in Normandy became the Nazi Navy base.

June 22, 1941, Germany began the invasion of the Soviet Union. Lieutenant Jan Kovar of the Luftwaffe flew planes over Poland, then Soviet Union territory. After a battle near Kiev, his plane was damaged, and he was forced to rapidly land the plane on the ground. The crash-landing broke bones in his legs. He tried to exit the cockpit and collapsed on the wing. The Soviet soldiers captured him and took him to a field hospital for surgery. In the hospital, a nurse named Tatiana knew some German and said, in his sleep, that he did not speak German. Lieutenant Jan explained he was speaking Czech and was a pilot for the Czechoslovakian Air Force who was forced into the Nazi Luftwaffe when they took over his country. He offered his services to the Soviet military. A Soviet commander accepted his service on the condition he learn Russian. He took lessons in Russian with a different alphabet from nurse Tatiana and grew quite fond of her. On September 1, 1941, Jews in German territories were forced to wear Yellow Stars on their outer clothing. Fritz Kovar came of age and was forced to join the German Army. His sister Milena had joined the Czech Resistance as an innocent teenage girl delivering messages and radios, and when she graduated high school, she moved to Prague, saying she wanted to work in the factories. There she was enlisted in sabotage. Fritz was spared from combat as the last surviving son of the family to be assigned to guard a concentration camp. He began guarding Lety Concentration Camp, which held habitual criminals; some were Gypsies/Roma, doing forced labor in a quarry. Many guards regularly took food from the storage rooms, making less food available for prisoners. Doing guard work at the camp was viewed as a punishment for misbehaving soldiers. Private Fritz Kovar secretly shared food with the prisoners. If caught, he could be shot for disloyalty. The camp had over a hundred escape attempts, and half were successful. A typhoid outbreak occurred in December 1942 when Himmler ordered all Gypsy/Roma to be sent to concentration camps outside Germany, and most went to Auschwitz in Poland. Private Fritz got sick and lay in the infirmary until he recovered. Many prisoners not receiving medical care in the overcrowded camp, which had to be enlarged, died. In January 1943, a Jewish doctor arrived to deal with the epidemic, and the camp commandant was replaced.

In 1942, Jewish deportations to camps in Eastern Europe had begun. Nazis also demanded that Jewish pets be brought to collection points to be euthanized or show a certificate from a vet that the pet was killed. They were forbidden to give their pets away to non-Jews. In Polish ghettos, dogs and cats of the Jews were collected and shot to be laid around the synagogue to defile it. Jews in Germany were told they were going to a resettlement area and allowed to bring one suitcase with them. Once they arrived, their personal effects were taken, and they were given prisoner uniforms and a number below a triangle patch declaring their crime by the color of the triangle. Many prisoners were photographed for a personal file holding information about them. What languages they spoke, marital status, occupation, birthplace, age, and hair color were noted on registration forms. Safe from Allied Bombing raids during the war, much of Czechoslovakia was industrialized to keep the Nazi war machine going. Jews were rare in the Kovar family's Rokytnice nad Jizerou area. Jews usually lived in large towns and cities. Most people in their area were Roman Catholics, with a few Protestant churches. February 1943, six thousand non-Jewish women protested in Berlin against the arrest of their Jewish husbands for over a week before Himmler relented and returned the Jewish men to their wives. Some were halfway to Auschwitz, and the train was turned around to improve civilian morale. There was no retaliation against the women who protested to receive their Jewish husbands back.

In May, the Lety Concentration Camp was closed, and Corporal Fritz left with the Gypsies/Roma to Auschwitz. By this time, Auschwitz was a death camp using four gas chambers and four crematoriums, committed to the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. Later called the Holocaust and Shoah, it was a violent and permanent solution to a question humanity should never have asked. A doctor named Joseph Mengele also arrived in the same month as Corporal Fritz to do selection of prisoners to send to the gas chambers or to hard labor. He also began genetic experiments on incoming people with the conviction of proving race theories of eugenics. He favored twins so that if one twin died, he could kill the other twin to compare autopsies before they sent them to the crematorium. Prisoners called him the “Angel of Death”. While many doctors hated selection, Dr. Mengele enjoyed it and would actually whistle while separating people to the left (gas chamber) and right (hard labor). Corporal Fritz was assigned to guard the section of Kanada where the women searched the clothes of the people who were gassed and tossed into the crematorium. Many of the guards had sticky fingers to line their pockets with valuable objects and cash. The guards’ barracks were pleasant, with a pool and tennis court. They would go out on picnics and swim in the nearby lake or river. Some guards went out hunting in the nearby forest. They celebrated every holiday in the recreation hall. Prisoners who could play instruments or sing were permitted to entertain the guards in the hall. One prisoner named Susanna was a known Warsaw cabaret actress and singer whom the guards adored when she performed. She was turned in by a neighbor who said she and her female roommate were lovers.

Auschwitz even had an orchestra that was given special treatment and fed well. During Christmas, they decorated trees from the forest, and the teenage girl guards made Christmas wreaths. Most of the girl guards were mean and spiteful teenagers working under middle-aged matrons. The lady guards loved shouting at the prisoners because it gave them power, like the Divas they were, and one guard named Gretel shot random prisoners for no reason. Gretel was also a vixen, with many of the male guards entertaining her in their beds. Fritz tried to resist her charms. She even tried to get the guards into trouble for having a prisoner from Kanada clean their bathroom. The guards replied that if the girl guards wanted to clean it for them, they would be welcome. Commandant Hoss allowed the guards to bring prisoners to the barracks to clean, do the guards’ laundry and bedding, and cook in the kitchen. Later, the new Commandant of Auschwitz, Arthur Liebehensche, arrived in November 1943. This commandant removed the standing cells in Block 11 where people went to be punished, tortured, and most likely, executed. The usual crimes for Block 11 were escape attempts, sabotage, contact with civilians, and theft (usually food). He also ceased selections to the gas chambers among the regular prisoners. Talia noticed even the most bloodthirsty guards had to restrain themselves. Gretel was reprimanded for randomly shooting prisoners for no reason and was forced to clean the barracks bathrooms by herself. The new commandant inspected her work and let her return to her duties. This general demanded discipline and obedience. He was later dismissed from his position for being too soft on prisoners and moved to another camp in Germany.

Running water was in the kitchen and washrooms of the guards’ barracks. Most of the camp had no running water, using old-fashioned latrines, getting water from a well pump, making facilities miserable and cramped for the prisoners. But at least, their guard barracks had four guards per room, lockers for their personal possessions and clothing, and soft wool-filled mattresses. They had a mess hall and a recreation center where they could play checkers, chess, card games, boxing, and basketball. They had a nice library of German books. Then add the constant screams from the gas chambers every day, and one’s ears grow numb. Beer and wine were always available when off duty. It seemed as if the commandant wanted the guards drunk off duty to dull their emotions, trigger violent outbursts, and reduce psychological discomfort while participating in extreme brutality contrary to their core personalities. Violence towards prisoners was praised and demanded. The female prisoners Corporal Fritz guarded wore striped dresses, caps, wooden shoes, and knee-high socks in winter. They were given starvation rations and resembled ghosts with pale skin, and their cut-off hair was slowly growing back. Corporal Fritz or his roommate, Private Oskar from Austria, gave the prisoners cleaning the bathroom extra food, wool underwear, and slips to keep warm in the winter. The undergarments they were given were used, soiled, and from people who were gassed. The guards often went to the nearby village to enjoy the cabarets and mugs of beer. The Polish girls flirted with the guards in hope of protecting their families from the Nazis. Corporal Fritz kept bumping into a farm girl named Zofia who was also Roman Catholic. They connected, and he took her to the cinema on dates to watch German movies. She learned German as he learned Polish. In the beginning, they communicated in Latin. Private Oskar found his own Polish girl from the village. Being a guard in this camp was acceptable and much better than the Germans invading the Soviet Union when winter blew in while they were still in their summer uniforms. There, the Jews were rounded up by the army and shot to drop into trenches in the woods. It would be harder to help any Jews, Gypsies/Roma, or other prisoners on the Eastern Front. Corporal Fritz tried to help prisoners without getting shot himself.

When Commandant Hoss was there, regular selections of prisoners were made to send people to the gas chambers when overcrowding occurred. The Germans played lullaby records next to a speaker as people undressed, ran by doctors looking for unfit people to discard, and then put their uniforms back on. There was a hospital, and Doctor Mengele ordered that if prisoners failed to recover in two weeks, they were to be sent to the gas chamber. Later, a typhus epidemic broke out in a women's section of the camp. Dr. Mengele ordered one block of six hundred Jewish women to the gas chamber. The block was disinfected, and the women of another block were bathed, deloused, and given new clothing to be directed to the cleaned block. He repeated this process until all barracks were disinfected. The procedures were used for later epidemics of scarlet fever and measles. In the Gypsy/Roma section, Dr. Mengele soon began experiments considering genetics. Once a gangrenous bacterial disease called Noma appeared in the mouths and faces in the Gypsy/Roma camp,

Dr. Mengele was determined to find the cause of the disease and develop a treatment. Patients were isolated; vitamins and antibiotics were given to afflicted children who got better, and then the treatment was discontinued. The children immediately fell ill again. He preserved heads and organs of afflicted children for study at medical academies. He took blood samples of prisoners to search for genetic markers that indicate race. Dr. Mengele's research included chemical drops in eyes to study the possibility of changing the eye color of the iris. Many subjects of eye chemicals were made blind. He saved the eyes of prisoners to be sent for research at academies. He studied how cold a child could get before hypothermia occurred and how much blood could be taken before the child died. He performed abortions on pregnant women, sterilization surgeries, and organ removal on prisoners. After the war, the Angel of Death fled to South America using the ratline escape system that involved Catholic churches, and drowned in 1979 along the Brazil coast while suffering a stroke while swimming. He was buried under a false name, and in 1992, his remains were exhumed, and DNA analysis compared to his son proved the body was Doctor Josef Mengele.