František (Francis, Franta) Maier was born in May 1922 in Brno. After the occupation, he trained as a teacher and became involved in working with children and youth, for whom the Jewish community tried to provide living conditions and education despite growing oppression.
He continued this work after the deportation of the Brno Jewish orphanage to the Terezín ghetto in March 1942. He became the head of room 7 in the boys' home L417. Many of the boys at that time still remember him as a great young teacher.
The room published its own newspaper, Rim Rim and Nesharim. Everyone knew that the transports from Terezín would bring no good, Franta received the dreaded note in September 1944. He was deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, then survived Blechhammer and Gleiwitz II.
After the liberation, he returned to Brno and married. In 1947 he left for America and settled there.
The interview was filmed on June 1, 1995 in Encino, California, USA.
Ernest Drucker was born in August 1922 in Brno. He grew up in a family of construction company owner, and was a member of the youth Zionist organization Maccabi Hatzair, led by his father. He studied at the Brno Technical University.
Immediately after the occupation, he and his parents attempted to flee the country, without success. When they returned from the border, the Gestapo was waiting for them at their house. Someone denounced them for trying to escape. The construction company was confiscated, the father was arrested. Ernest, after being warned by his friend Vlasta, a member of the Czechoslovak resistance, left Brno and with the help of her contacts was taken across the border to Slovakia. There, a resistance group provided him with false documents in the name of Arnošt Tláčik (a translation of his name into Slovak) and sent him as an escort with a shipment of breeding bulls to Italy.
In Trieste, according to the Resistance's instructions, he reported to the British consul and enlisted in the British army. He was to have joined the service in Alexandria, but was sent to Haifa to complete his studies and thus be more useful to the army. He learned English and Hebrew, and entered army service in April 1942. He was deployed to the fighting at Tobruk.
After the war, he joined the Israeli War of Independence as an officer in the Czechoslovak army. He opened an architectural office in the town of Rehovot. In 1953, he moved to Canada.
The interview was filmed on July 2, 1996 in North York, Ontario, Canada.