Sisters Hana and Eva were born in Pilsen where they also lived with their parents, Ruzena and Alfred Sachsel, before the war.
At the beginning of the war, in September 1939, their father was held hostage and imprisoned first in Pilsen on Bory, later transferred to the camp Buchenwald and then to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he was murdered. He never met his family again.
The mother and both daughters were deported on 22 January 1942 by the Pilsen S-transport to the ghetto in Terezin. The older Hana worked as a caregiver in a children's home, the younger Eva, among other things, acted in the children's opera Brundibar. Unlike most Pilsen citizens, they remained in Terezin until December 1943, when they were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. In early June 1944, they were transported to work in the Christianstadt concentration camp. In the spring of 1945, they left with the death march for Bergen-Belsen where they were liberated by British soldiers. Hana’s and Eva's mother died shortly after liberation as a result of her suffering.
The interview was recorded on 21 May 1996 in Prague.
Rita Münzerova, née Bejkovska, was born on 16 June 1927 in Pilsen, in the family of an important local merchant, Ervin Bejkovsky.
In 1940, her father was arrested by the Gestapo for his resistance activities, went through a prison at Bory, the Small Fortress in Terezin and, in 1942, he was murdered in the Mauthausen concentration camp. In January 1942, Rita and her mother were deported to the Terezin ghetto, both of them lived to see the end of the war there. The remaining members of the extended family were murdered in extermination camps. After returning to Pilsen, both women demanded the return of their family property for a long time and in a complicated way. Without success.
Rita married a Pilsen Jewish citizen who fought in the British army and, after the communists came to power, they went to Israel together. Rita became a widow there, her only son died in consequence of his injuries in the Six Day War.
The interview was recorded on 4 July 1996 in Tel Aviv, Israel.