Eva Rozvoda Wölfler was born on 19 April 1925 in Pilsen. The family took part in the social life of the Jewish community, Eva wanted to become a dentist.
The introduction of anti-Jewish legislation thwarted all her plans. After deportation from Pilsen, she survived the ghetto in Terezin, the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp and the Hamburg-Neugraben, Hamburg-Freihafen, Hamburg-Tiefstack and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps. After liberation, she was treated for a long time in a British military hospital, contemplated suicide, but eventually decided to live.
After returning to Czechoslovakia, she married a famous Czechoslovak cycling champion, Otakar Rozvoda, with whom she fled the country after the February communist coup in 1948.
The interview was recorded on 20 February 1997 in Palm Desert, California, USA.
Helen Pollard was born on 27 October 1917 in Pilsen into a traditional Jewish family with deep Pilsen roots.
Her original name was Hildegarda Camilla Heller, but they spoke both German and Czech at home. She was a good student but she didn't like school. At the age of 18, she went to study business school in Prague and found a job at a bank where she applied her knowledge of Czech, German, French and English.
On 30 June 1939, she was fired from the bank with immediate effect because she was Jewish. She found a job with the Jewish Community of Prague, after some time she was transferred to a similar position in Pilsen, in the local Jewish Community organization so she could be with her parents. She was a direct witness to the desperate situation of Jewish communities on which the role of mediators between the Nazi authorities, the Gestapo, and citizens designated as Jews was imposed.
With the whole family, she was included in the last transport from Pilsen. She survived the Terezin ghetto and the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp from where she was deported to the Freiberg camp. At the very end of the war, she passed through Pilsen in a freight train full of prisoners; in Klatovy, the local people even wanted to unload and attend to them but the guards did not allow it, the destination station was Mauthausen. Helen was eventually freed there.
After the war, she married Fred Pollard, a Jewish soldier of the Czech army in the West, who was also originally from Pilsen, he only changed his name in the army. His original name was Polacek. They lived in Usti nad Labem for some time, where their son was born in 1946. After the communist coup in 1948, they emigrated to Israel from where they eventually moved to England.
The interview was recorded on 28 January 1998 in London.