Irena Marvanová

* 1929

  • “We were employed in agriculture, and we were going up there to the so-called ramparts where vegetables were grown. We had to dig with a spade because it was not possible to bring any machinery there. We had to use a spade so that some vegetables could be planted there.”

  • “When the war ended, we left. There was mom’s younger brother, he was about thirty. We walked to the railway station, and each of us had a few things packed in a bag. We thought that we would return for the remaining things later. The conductor didn’t want to allow us to board the train because we didn’t have tickets, but we didn’t have any money. There were six of us. Eventually somebody sold a briefcase, and we got tickets for six people for that, but only tickets to Prague and not further on. We arrived to Prague, where my dad had acquaintances in the Rott company, where he had been supplying his products. He went there. I don’t know if he had money there or if he borrowed from them, but we were thus eventually able to travel all the way to Kolín.”

  • “We were learning a bit of mathematics and Czech. There was some professor, and she was very knowledgeable and I think she had travelled a lot, and she was talking about it in a very nice way and she was teaching us geography. It was interesting. We could not write any notes, because the teaching was being done illegally. We were ready to pretend that we were mending something in case the Germans came in. Since it was not possible to write things down, when we were together, we would be repeating what each of us remembered so that we would be able to practice a little bit.”

  • “At the beginning they (SS men) were not separating families. When somebody contracted some contagious disease, the other family members were ‘reclaimed’ as it was called and they did have to leave (in a transport). Only then, at the end of the war, families were being separated. We avoided that. My father was sick with erysipelas at that time, I remember that his ear reached almost to his shoulder. It was a contagious disease, and we thus did not have to leave. Then my brother had scarlet fever and one more disease, I don’t even remember what it was.”

  • “Room number 25. There were twenty-four of us girls there. When I went to look there after the war, the owners who lived there let us in. We went to look inside the corridor, and one of the owners just happened to pass by. We had lived in that building in number 25. They even invited us to come inside and have a look. They showed us the room. When we saw it, we didn’t understand how it was possible to cram twenty-four of us in there. We only had personal space on the bunk beds, and our suitcases were stored under them. There was a tiny shelf on the wall, where we kept a toothbrush, soap and a few things. That was all.”

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    Kolín, 27.05.2014

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We were one of the few families where all the members have survived

Irena Eislerová before the war
Irena Eislerová before the war
zdroj: archiv pamětnice

  The story of Mrs. Irena Marvanová from Kolín in Central Bohemia is interesting primarily because her family was immensely lucky while in Terezín. All the family members have survived: her parents as well as both her younger twin brothers. Irena was born in 1929 in Kolín in a fully assimilated family as Irena Eislerová. Only Czech language was spoken at home, and they were observing Christian as well as Jewish holidays, but the parents were not really religious at all. The family also demonstrated their inclination towards the Czech nationality when all its members changed the surname from Eisler to Marvan after the war. Her father was a mechanical engineer and he owned a small machining company which produced various metal parts. In June 1942 the whole family was forced to leave Kolín. Irena and her parents and her two younger brothers were transported to Terezín. While there she spent most of the time in „kinderheim“ in block L410 in room number 25. After the war she returned to Kolín where she still lives today.