He is trembling. She is once again before him, a ghost who has miraculously come to life. A love that has been returned to him in his old age. Unable to speak, he lifts his hand and covers hers with his.
Author’s Note
This book was inspired by several people whose stories are woven throughout its plot. I had planned on writing a novel about an artist who survives the Holocaust, but ended up writing a love story. With any novel, unexpected plot and other developments typically arise, and you find yourself going in a direction that you hadn’t originally planned. In this case, while getting my hair cut one afternoon, I overheard a story told by a guest at a recent wedding where the bride’s grandmother and the groom’s grandfather, who had not met prior to the ceremony, realized they had been husband and wife before the Second World War. The story stuck with me, and I decided to use it in the first chapter of my novel. I then created two characters and set out to fill in the space of the sixty years they spent apart.
Lenka’s experience is partly inspired by one of the actual characters mentioned in the book, Dina Gottliebová, who studied art in Prague and later worked for a short time in the Lautscher department in Terezín painting postcard scenes before she was deported to Auschwitz. She immigrated to the United States after the camps were liberated, and died in California in 2009. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., proved to be invaluable in providing an oral testimony of Dina Gottliebová’s experiences, working both in Terezín and in Auschwitz, where she created the mural of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs for the Czech children’s barracks. The mural came to serve as a comfort to the children, and also helped to save Dina’s life. After she completed it, an SS guard informed Mengele of her artistic talent. Mengele then promised to spare her and her mother’s lives if she painted life portraits of the men and women he used in his horrific medical experiments.
Several other characters who appear in the book were also actual people. Friedl Dicker Brandeis arrived in Terezín in December 1942, and almost immediately began teaching art classes for the children there. In September 1944, upon hearing that her husband, Pavel Brandeis, was being transported east, she volunteered to follow him on the next transport. She perished shortly after her arrival in Auschwitz. Prior to her transport, however, she gave two suitcases, containing 4,500 drawings, to Rosa Englander, the chief tutor of the young girls’ home in Terezín. At the end of the war, Willy Groag, the director of the girls’ home, was entrusted with those suitcases, and hand-carried them to the Jewish community in Prague. Of the 660 children who created art with Friedl Dicker Brandeis in Terezín, 550 were killed in the Holocaust. All of the remaining drawings are now in the collection of the Jewish Museum of Prague, and many are on display for all the world to see.
Bedřich Fritta perished in Auschwitz on November 5, 1944. His wife, Johanna, died while in Terezín, but miraculously, their son Tommy survived. Leo Haas made it through the war and returned to Terezín to find the artwork he had hidden in the attic of the Magdeburg barracks. With the assistance of an engineer, Jíří Vogel, he was able to recover the hidden paintings made by Fritta and their other colleagues from the technical department: Otto Unger, Petr Kien, and Ferdinand Bloch, who had all since perished. Upon hearing that Tommy Fritta was left orphaned, Haas and his wife, Erna, adopted the boy and moved back with him to Prague.
While visiting the Czech Republic, I was able to meet with Lisa Míková, an artist who worked in the technical department of Terezín. Even so many years later, she was able to vividly describe the unusual circumstances in which artists were assigned to create blueprints and various drawings for the Germans while smuggling art supplies from the office in order to do their own work at night. She shared with me how the paintings had been bricked inside the walls of Terezín and how Jíří Vogel buried Bendrich Fritta’s work after placing it in a metal canister.
I am indebted to many people who shared their stories with me, and am so grateful for the opportunity to help preserve their legacies. Without them, this book would not have been possible. They are Sylvia Ebner, Lisbeth Gellmann, Margit Meissner, Lisa Míková, Nicole Gross Mintz, Iris Vardy, and Irving Wolbrom. I would also like to thank Dagmar Lieblová, who so generously gave me her time, her contacts, and a personal tour of Terezín during my stay in Prague. Also, Martin Jelínek at the Jewish Museum in Prague and Michlean Amir of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, for the invaluable research assistance they provided me, both during and after my trips to these wonderful institutions; Jason Marder, for his early work as my research assistant; Alfred Rosenblatt and Judith and P. J. Tanz, for providing me with additional background material; Andy Jalakas for his unwavering support; Linda Caffrey, Antony Currie, Marvin Gordon, Meredith Hassett, Kathy Johnson, Robbin Klein, Nikki Koklanaris, Jardine Libaire, Shana Lory, Rita McCloud, Rosyln and Sara Shaoul, Andrew Syrotick, Ryan Volmer, my husband, my mother and my father, for their careful readings of early drafts of the novel; Sally Wofford-Girand, my wonderful agent who pushed me further than I thought I could ever go and made the book all the better for it; my fantastic editor Kate Seaver; Monika Russell, for her stories and her assistance with everything from Czech translation to diminishing my daily chaos and always showing me and my children such love. And to my children, parents, and husband—a special thanks for your infinite patience and love.
THE LOST WIFE
READERS GUIDE
Questions for Discussion
1. At its core, The Lost Wife is the love story between Lenka and Josef. Discuss the deep feelings that run between the two. How do you think that the love they shared managed to survive the long years of separation? Do you think you’d recognize a loved one after being apart for so long? In what ways do you think the love they shared helped them to survive the atrocities of the war?
2. Art and color maintain a great significance throughout the course of the novel—the green of Josef’s eyes, the red of the strawberries growing near his family’s country house, and then later, the drab browns and grays of Terezín and Auschwitz. Discuss how the author’s description of color affected your perception of the novel.
3. Love is a theme throughout the course of The Lost Wife—not just the love between Lenka and Josef, but also the love between the families, the love shared between Lenka’s mother and Lucie, and even the love that develops between those kept at Terezín. Discuss the significance of that feeling as it is laid out in the book.
4. In the author’s note, RICHMAN reveals that several of the characters that appear in the book actually existed. Did this change your perception of the novel after you read it?
5. Despite being overseas in America, Josef can never seem to let go of the memory of his wife. In what ways did his memories of Lenka serve as his own personal jail? What did you think of the relationship between Amalia and Josef? Considering they each were haunted by the death of their families, was it a relationship that worked for them or was it a relationship purely of sorrow? How does it contrast with Lenka and Carl’s marriage?
6. Dina is one of the characters that we later learn was based on an actual person. Discuss her significance in Lenka’s life, from when she first meets her on the streets of Prague, to when they reconnect at Auschwitz. How does Dina’s spirit help Lenka get through the trials of Auschwitz?
7. Discuss the underground painters’ movement at Terezín. Why do you think the men were so unwilling to allow Lenka to help at first? Was it merely because she was a woman, or do you think they had other reasons for wanting to protect her? In what ways did her taking part in the movement help shape the course of the rest of the novel?
8. In their own small way, Lenka and her mother attempted to maintain a sense of normalcy for the children at Terezín with their art classes and pilfered paints. What other instances of “normal” life did you see at Terezín, and later Auschwitz? In what ways do you think that these efforts to maintain happiness even during hardship inform the power of the human spirit? How did you react to
the children’s creation of the opera Brundibar? Like Brundibar, Schacter’s Requiem is also an act of defiance against the Nazis. Do you think such an act was worth the punishment of death?
9. What did you think of Lenka’s deep need to keep her family together despite all odds? In what ways do you think the course of her and Marta’s lives may have been altered had they opted to remain at Terezín, instead of following their parents to Auschwitz?
10. A lot of the history of the plight of Jews during World War II in Europe, and particularly the role of artists during the war, played a role throughout The Lost Wife. How did the research affect your reading of the novel? Did you learn new things about World War II and what happened to Jewish families? Were you inspired, after learning that some of the characters were real, to do any additional reading of your own?
Alyson Richman, The Lost Wife
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