The Virtual Historian

One day, a group of us children were permitted to leave the town and play on a smallpatch of grass. It was early summer. Bees were buzzing anddandelions were in bloom. How wonderful life appeared! Sadness,along with great hope for a future of freedom, brought me to tears.Others felt the same way. Some of the children wrote moving poetryafter that day’s excursion. A lot of poetry was written by the childrenof Terezin and some of it survived and was published after the war. Within several months of our arrival in this strange town, Imoved to the address “L417.” In Terezin, all the streets going northand south were designated “L” and all those going west and eastwere designated “Q.” So L417 meant house number 17 on thefourth north-south street. This was not an ordinary house, but asmall, two-storey school with wide halls and about ten large rooms.I was assigned to Room 9 on the second floor. In this room therewere several double bunks and several single bunks; all were threelevels high. These bunks provided sleeping space for forty boys. Inthe middle of the room, there was a couple of benches and a singlelong table — there was nothing more. There were only twowashrooms in the hall for several hundred boys, so we took turnsstanding on duty day and night, keeping order, and watching forpossible flooding and overflowing.All the boys in Room 9 were thirteen and fourteen yearsold. Arno Erlich, a tall, handsome man in his early twenties, was incharge. He was strict, sharp and fair. Just like the rest of us, he wasJewish but not observant. We all loved him and obeyed hiscommands. Arno had been a Boy Scout leader before coming toTerezin and this was why he was chosen to be our room leader.Some of the other room leaders were teachers or social workers.