Book Review - The House on Prague Street

The House on Prague Street, by Hana Demetz, A Star Book, W. H. Allen and Co. Ltd., 1980

Originally published as 'Ein Haus in Bohmen' and translated from the German into English by its Czech author Hana Demetz, 'The House on Prague Street' is one of the most well-written books on the Holocaust that I've come across. Written from the first person perspective of the heroine Helene Richter, the book is a bittersweet and unsentimental portrayal of her young life in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, and it is its very matter-of-fact tone – not asking for any sympathy -that makes the nightmare that was the Holocaust all the more heart-rending.

Czechoslovakia, on the eve of the Second World War, was one of the more liberal, democratic and highly industrialized countries of Europe, with a population comprising of various ethnic people – Czechs, Slovaks, Magyars, Germans and Jews. All these people shared the same civil rights and religious freedoms, and to a large extent, especially in the cities, the population was well-integrated. There were differences, true, but not to the extent exaggerated by the Nazis. The Nazis, in order to extend their Lebenstraum program, were backing the trouble-maker Konrad Heinlein's German Nationalist minority and insistently claiming that the Ethnic Germans were being persecuted. They threatened to go to war unless the predominantly German districts of Czechoslovakia were handed over to Germany. It was a remarkable piece of bluff and amazingly it worked. On 30 September 1938 the infamous Munich Agreement was signed between Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy, and the Western parts of Czechoslovakia, known as the Sudetenland, were tamely handed over to the Nazis. The Czechoslovakian Army was disbanded and their arms appropriated and the way made clear for the subsequent and bloodless annexation of the remaining provinces of Slovakia, Moravia and Bohemia. Czechoslovakia lost its independent status and became a German Protectorate under the German Reich Protector Konstantin von Neurath.

The Nazi-Occupation sounded the death-knell for the approximately three hundred and fifty thousand Jews that were Czechoslovakian citizens. The Occupiers wasted no time in implementing here the same Anti-Semitic policies they had put in effect in Germany. On 21 June 1939 the first Anti-Jewish Decrees were announced, restricting the freedoms of the Jewish population and confiscating their properties right out. In October 1939 the deportations to Polish Concentration Camps began, and within four years nearly seventy-five percent of the Czechoslovakian Jews had been deported. Most of them perished at Auschwitz and by the time liberation came, on 11 May 1945, only twenty thousand Czechoslovakian Jews remained.

The events and attitudes of this period are reflected in 'The House on Prague Street'. What makes the book so convincing is that Demetz refrains from condemning or making moral judgments, or, worse, stereotyping. Germans and Czechs, they are all caught up in circumstances beyond their control and deal with the situations as per their natural bent. The good characters don't make an issue of their goodness - they are simply decent human beings with the courage of their convictions and will not turn their backs on people in need. The 'bad' characters are not so much evil as self-serving opportunists and mediocre, easily-led people trying hard to be important. In most cases, such people either do not care or do not consider the effects of their actions on others and so cause the greatest harm.

The only child of a German Lawyer and a Czech-Jewish Secretary, Helene is not a stranger to Anti-Semitism. She is aware of – if not unduly disturbed by – the strong familial opposition her parents faced prior to their marriage and of the public disapproval that they still have to endure. Helene's German Grandparents disowned their son upon his marriage to a Jewess and when they contact him later, after the Anti-Jewish Laws have been passed, it is only to persuade him to divorce her. Apart from the kindly and music-loving Aunt Annel, Helene never gets acquainted with her father's side of the family. Her mother's family, on the other hand, are more tractable and, when the three year old Helene suddenly becomes afflicted with Polio, they offer their help and a reconciliation is achieved. From then on, Helene's Jewish Grandparents and the extended family of Aunts, Uncles and Cousins become an important part of her growing years.

Every summer she spends her holidays at the home of her Grandparents at the large Family House on Prague Street which is central to the story. The carefree, idyllic existence described here in fine detail denotes the prosperous and integrated lives of the Lowys. They are a very old and distinguished Central European Jewish Family, highly respected members of their small Bohemian town, and, like many of their fellow Czechoslovakian Jews, tend to consider themselves Czech first and Jews second. It is this strain of patriotism that rules out the idea of emigration even as the menacing shadow of the Nazis begins to loom over the land and later it is too late.

For the present though, Helene is only concerned with the every day life unfolding around her. There are her much-adored young parents, her indulgent Grandparents, her nurse Franziska, the Family cook Emma who feeds her with delicacies, the Chauffeur Wenzel who keeps the family Skoda car in gleaming condition, the assortment of interesting and temperamental relatives that turn up every year in July to celebrate her Grandfather's birthday. Helene, grown past her sickly stage into an observant and imaginative tom-boy, plays in the sprawling garden with her cousin Sonia. Sonia and her brother John, both younger than Helene, are the children of the flamboyant Aunt Klara who lives in a 'glass monstrosity' next-doors. Back home in Eastern Czechoslovakia there is school to be started and her friends Ernestine and Rudi to be lorded over.

Helene's happy childhood ends when she is eleven and the Germans occupy Czechoslovakia. During the summer visit that year, Aunt Klara is shot dead resisting the German take-over of her property and the rest of the relations, frozen in shock, seem like drastically changed beings. Her Grandparents no longer go out much or have many visitors, and the sound of Hitler haranguing over the radio is louder than ever. The town park, established by her Grandfather, now has a new notice prohibiting the entry of Jews, and the following year the old house has to be evacuated.

In the meantime, with the outbreak of the Second World War, Helene's father is offered a choice between divorcing his Jewish wife or losing his German Government job. He chooses the latter option and, after finding a new job in Prague many weeks later, moves his family there. Helene, initially intimidated by the change, soon settles down and finds that there is much to be enjoyed in Prague. Aunt Annel and the newly married Aunt Ella, her mother's youngest sister whom she adores, both live nearby, and there is the charm also of the Prague street-cars. At her new school Helene befriends Irene Dvorak and develops an interest in boys. It is not possible to put the troubles of the past summer from her mind though. Her mother and her Jewish relatives are now required to wear the Yellow Star, Aunt Ella's hopes of going to America are dashed, and Helene's sadistic Nazi teacher Hlawitza attempts to molest her without resulting outcry from her helpless and dispirited parents. This incident spoils relations irrevocably between Helene and her father; he is no longer the childhood hero he once was. At the end of the summer she visits her Grandparents for the very last time and that is a very disturbing visit too. Her mother has not been allowed to come along and her Grandparents, living now in a small, cramped room, have suddenly become very old and tired. Their old house stands empty and over-grown with weeds, and the house next-doors, which once was Aunt Klara's, now shelters the Hitler Youth.

Back in Prague, things only worsen. Her Grand-Uncle Fritz and his family are deported and another Grand-Uncle Rupert is incarcerated and tortured by the Gestapo in order to make him sign over his valuable factories in Bucharest. A few weeks later, Helene is dismissed from her school for being a 'Jewish mongrel'. Enrolling later in a private school, where half-Jews are allowed, Helene befriends the beautiful and vivacious German girl Susi Renner, who lives in Prague with her Jewish father. Susi, for all her gaiety, is a pathetic figure. As a half-Jew, she is no longer considered a German citizen, but she still tries very hard to find acceptance amongst them. She is promiscuous with German soldiers, goes to the meetings of the Nazi Girls' Union, enjoys German movies, and reads Rilke avidly. Helene's mother does not like Susi and sometimes Helene is a bit appalled herself, but for all that there is a natural sympathy between them, including a mutual interest in Mozart, and they become close companions. It is while walking from a movie with Susi that Helene meets the very attractive Gerd Koch. He is a German Lieutenant on leave and Helene falls head-over-heels in love. Gerd is well-mannered, sensitive and gentle – a far cry from the Nazi bullies – he has grown up with Nazi Ideology, but he no longer subscribes to it and his love for Helene is not affected by the later discovery of her half-Jewish Ancestry. Even so, Helene's parents, particularly her mother, whose entire family has now been deported, find the budding, mostly long distance relationship hard to accept. Helene, on her part, wants to close her eyes and heart to the troubles around her and grab at whatever happiness she can find. A rift develops between mother and daughter and never really mends. Only a short time later and quite suddenly, Helene's mother becomes critically ill and, being a Jew, does not receive appropriate medical treatment, and consequently dies. Susi Renner and Aunt Annel help the distraught family cope with this shock. Gerd, away on the Front, applies for leave to come to Prague and gets it, but, with the Allied Invasion in June, the leave is canceled. In the end he is reported missing in action and never comes. By now Susi Renner is also dead, killed in an air-raid during a visit to her German mother in Munich. Helene, her private school long closed down and working now in an Armaments Factory, is completely devastated, but worse things are yet to come. Her father, who never deserted his Jewish wife, and her Aunt Annel, who steadfastly stood by her Jewish friends, are ironically both killed for being Germans during the Liberation, and none of her Jewish relatives return from the Camps. There is no going back to the old family home on Prague Street either – it is now a refuge for liberated Concentration Camp inmates. Helene, at the age of seventeen, has been cast adrift in the world.

Reference -

The History of World War II – by Lt-Colonel E. Bauer, Orbis Publishing Ltd., 1979.