The Gestapo arrest operation launched on September 1, 1939, is known under the code name Action A. It targeted potential anti-Nazi resistance fighters. In Olomouc, in addition to Sokol officials, legionnaires and communists, over 80 Jewish residents, mostly men, were arrested.
Some of them were released after a while, such as Hugo Stoessler, others hanged themselves in despair in the Olomouc prison, such as JUDr Broch or Felix Zweig, a descendant of a famous Moravian family. Others were transported to the Dachau concentration camp and then to Buchenwald, where they were held "hostage" - and died.
Similar raids were repeated regularly, for example in retaliation for the assassination of Heydrich.
Now take a look at the first part of the memoirs of Trudy Simonsohn, the former head of the Jewish youth of Makabi Hatzair in Olomouc.
Truda Simonsohn was born in Olomouc in 1921 as Truda Gutmann. She became a Zionist and wanted to learn agriculture so that she could work on a farm in Palestine.
After the occupation, she became one of the leaders of the youth groups that underwent practical training on farms throughout the Protectorate. In addition to farming, however, Jewish youth were also receiving education, which was forbidden at the time, and Truda was eventually arrested by the Gestapo.
After her release from prison, she passed through the ghetto in Terezín, where she married Berthold Simonsohn. Together they were then deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, from where she was further deported to the camps at Kurzbach and Merzdorf.
After the war she worked with Jewish orphans and devoted herself to education.
The interview was filmed on 29 April 1996 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Why did Truda end up in jail?