STEINER BEZEXISTENCE

During the occupation of what is now the Czech Republic, the Nazis didn't allow Jews to work in their professions. My grandfather, Rudolf Steiner, had to close his law practice. As a result, he would enter into the local Jewish community records as a person “bez existence,” i.e., without means of support. In Czech, when these two words are combined into one – “bezexistence” – their meaning turns into “nonexistence.”

Steiners’ “Chrismukkah”

In the 1920s, Rudolf Steiner worked in Prague as a lawyer for the new Czechoslovak government. In 1928, at age 39, he moved with his wife, Marta Steinerová, to Nové Město nad Metují, a picturesque historic town some 90 miles east of Prague. Two years later, my father, Jiří, was born.

The Steiner family celebrated both Jewish and non-Jewish holidays. My father remembered how he felt shortchanged when both winter holidays fell close together. That meant one less celebration. This “Chrismukkah” approach was typical for most educated non-Orthodox Jews in Czechoslovakia. They attempted to assimilate by accepting the habits and culture of their adopted country, while also respecting their Jewish traditions. It worked to some extent, but for some people it was not enough.

This Is Where I Will Die

September 1938 saw the Munich Treaty signed. Czechoslovakia was forced to cede parts of its territory to appease Hitler. Nazi occupation followed on March 15, 1939. As the situation for Jews got progressively worse, the Steiner family discussed committing suicide. In the end, they decided against it, saying: “Let us not make it easy for them.”

My great uncle, who later emigrated to Palestine, urged my grandfather to also flee Czechoslovakia. But Rudolf Steiner said: “This is the country where I was born and this where I will die.” My father later commented wryly: “It did not work out that way; he died in Auschwitz.” 

The Jews Are Gone Now. There Will Be Fish for Christmas.

On December 18, 1942, at 6 am., the Steiners and the other Jews from Nové Město nad Metují boarded a train to Hradec Králové. Three days later, they were transported to Theresienstadt.

On December 21, 1942, the day the transport arrived to Theresienstadt, the official chronicler of their hometown wrote: “So, the Jews are gone now. Occasionally someone mentions them. Almost all people say that they did not like them, and they are not sorry that the Jews are gone, quite the opposite. But perhaps they were hit too hard. Some feel bad for the mothers and children who will be separated, but they feel sorry for them only as mothers and children. And some also expressed their sympathies for the elderly Jews. But nothing more.”

One day later, the chronicler wrote: “There will be fish for Christmas. It will be assigned according to the list of registered residents. Our two-person family will get 2kg of carp.”

Nine days later, my great-grandmother Františka Weisová died in Theresienstadt of heart failure.

Six Months of “Quarantine”

In September 1943, the Nazis established a “family camp” in Auschwitz-Birkenau for the Czech Jews sent there from Theresienstadt. According to most Holocaust scholars, the Nazis used it as a smokescreen, to hide the existence of the extermination camps. During registration, the Nazis tattooed an identification number on prisoners’ forearms, writing “6SB” next to their names. It supposedly indicated the quarantine period. In fact, it meant that they would be killed in 6 months. The Germans postponed extermination until after the visit of the International Red Cross to Theresienstadt on June 23, 1944.

Six months earlier, in December 1943, my father and his parents arrived at the family camp BIIb in Birkenau. My mother was sent to the women’s section, while my dad, who was 13, stayed at the same block with his father. One day, my dad broke down crying. While my grandfather tried to console him, one of the fellow prisoners stole my grandfather’s shoes. During the long roll call in the dead of winter, the head of the block then forced my grandfather to stand barefoot on the “appellplatz.” He died of pneumonia several days later, on February 11, 1944.

Mengele Is Entertained

 In July 1944, during the final liquidation of the family camp, my dad, together with other boys from Birkenau, was subjected to a selection by Mengele himself. My father quickly decided that to survive, he needed to entertain him and get his attention. So, he imitated an exaggerated military parade march. Strangely, it worked, and Mengele sent him to the men’s camp, even though most boys under 16 were sent to the gas chambers. At approximately the same time, my grandmother, Marta Steinerová, was sent to the gas chambers at Birkenau. Of the 17,517 Jews deported to family camp, only 1,294 were still alive at the end of the war. The odds were 1:14. Of about 90 “Birkenau boys” selected by Mengele, some 40 survived the war.

"Shut Up You Dirty Jew!"

I might not have been born if it were not for this nasty phrase. The year was 1947. Only three years earlier, my father had lost both of his parents in Auschwitz and barely survived himself. At age 17, he lived on his own in Nové Město nad Metují, the small town where he was born. When an elderly antisemite called him a “dirty Jew” during an argument, my dad lost it and beat man senseless. The man sued him, but after several hearings, the case was dismissed, and my father was exonerated.

Still, his state-appointed guardian and the school principal viewed his further stay in the town as detrimental to his well-being. Even though he begged them not to do so, they arranged for him to be sent to a Jewish orphanage in Prague. This is where he met my mother. I was born 11 years later. I learned this story only a few years ago, when I discovered a letter referring to my father’s trial. I then managed to find a file with a transcript of the court proceedings in a local archive.

“You Are a Cheating Jew!”  

When I was about 10 years old, my parents’ friends visited us with their son. I played a game with that boy, who was older and smarter than I was. When I lost the game, I decided that he had cheated. I called him a cheating Jew.

“You should not be calling people names," he said. "And you are the last one who should call someone a Jew because you are a Jew yourself.”

I was shocked. I called him a liar.

"Ask your parents," he said.

This story of a young boy kept in the dark about being Jewish might seem absurd. But it was rational when I was growing up in the communist Czechoslovakia, where antisemitism was unofficially encouraged as a supposed “fight against Zionism.” After losing everything in the Holocaust, the last thing my parents wanted was to make me a target of antisemitism.

Steiner Turns Borek Turns Steiner

Against this backdrop, I was less surprised to discover that my last name is not really Borek.

Yes, Borek is the surname I was given and that I have always had in my ID papers. But the name has nothing to do with my parents or their families. Or almost nothing. My mother’s maiden name was Ungarová, and my father’s last name was Steiner. In the Czech context, both names imply that one is Jewish.

During the Second World War, some Czech Jews who had made their way to Palestine volunteered to fight with the British in North Africa against the Nazis. British intelligence officers issued them IDs with fake Slavic names. Thus, if they were captured, the Nazis would not identify them as Jews. They gave one of these fellows the surname Borek. He was my mother’s first husband, whom she married when she was in Palestine. Though they divorced after the war, she kept his last name. When she married my father, my parents decided not to use his German/Jewish-sounding name “Steiner,”, nor my mother’s Jewish-sounding name “Ungarová.” Instead, they settled on the made-up name “Borek” to which they were legally entitled without having to go through endless forms and explanations.

And so it came to pass that I became a Borek. Years later, upon becoming an American citizen, I changed my name to Michael Steiner Borek. Thus, Steiner survived, no longer “Bezexistence.”