After liberation in 1945, Holocaust survivors sought to return to their homes and rebuild their lives within society. They returned to find their prewar worlds in ruins—few relatives had survived, and many had lost their entire families. In the years that followed, survivors often faced renewed manifestations of anti-Semitism and widespread indifference to their memories and wartime suffering. Most carried deep psychological and physical scars from persecution and imprisonment in Nazi camps.
They coped with their traumas in different ways. Some spoke openly about them with their loved ones, while others remained silent, keeping their memories deeply buried.
The Story of a Wooden Box was published in the collection We Survived, issued by the Terezín Memorial to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. It recounts the fate of the Lederer family, whose lives were shaped by the turbulent events of the 20th century, and examines the enduring impact of wartime experiences on subsequent generations.
The Story from a Wooden Box
And all of a sudden we discovered the documents and realized what our family had been through. That’s the gist of the story of Dr. Eduard Lederer and his family.
Dr. Eduard Lederer (1859–1944) was a lawyer of Jewish origin who practiced law in Jindřichův Hradec from 1893 until the establishment of the independent Czechoslovak Republic. He was also an author, publishing articles and books under the pen name Leda. He contributed to the Czech-Jewish Calendar and was involved in founding the Czech-Jewish weekly Rozvoj (Development). Lederer was an advocate of Jewish assimilation.
Eduard Lederer married Bedřiška Kohnová in 1893. They had three children: daughters Adéla (1894) and Zdenka (1896), and a son, Antonín (1901). Both parents were very attentive to their children’s upbringing and education. They were fortunate that their descendants also shared their interest in learning. Adéla’s father sent her to study languages in Germany, while Zdenka attended a girls’ boarding school in the Swiss town of Neuchâtel. The education she received allowed her to become a translator. During World War II, Zdenka translated books from French and primarily from English using a pen name. Her notable translation was the Czech version of Axel Munthe’s The Book of Life and Death. Antonín excelled in mathematics and shared his father’s penchant for chess. He pursued a career as a mechanical engineer and dedicated himself to his true passion: cars. Antonín owned a company that traded in car parts. By the outbreak of World War II, both of Eduard Lederer’s daughters and his son were married. Adele’s husband was Leopold Singer, whose family owned a hosiery factory. Zdenka married architect Vlastislav Hofman, while Antonín married Růžena, née Nesa.
After the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the extended Lederer family faced the impact of numerous regulations resulting from the Nazi anti-Jewish policies. Eduard Lederer, along with his wife Bedřiška and their two daughters and son, were deported to the Terezín Ghetto. Vlastislav Hofman, who was not of Jewish descent, was not included in the transport summons, nor was Leopold Singer. However, Singer was arrested by the Gestapo in Jindřichův Hradec already in 1941, and sentenced to two years in prison for possession of weapons. He was to serve his sentence in the Stein an der Donau prison in Austria. In September 1942, he was transferred to the extermination camp Maly Trostenets where he died.
Adéla Singerová was the first to arrive in the Terezín Ghetto with transport Aw in May 1942, followed by the rest of her family during the summer. The appalling conditions in the Ghetto severely impacted everyone’s health, and Adéla passed away in June 1943. Eduard Lederer, who was already 82 years old when he came to the Ghetto, remained active despite his advanced age. He wrote plays and played chess. However, the harsh conditions of his imprisonment eventually took their toll, and he died on June 5, 1944. In the fall of 1944, Eduard’s son Antonín was deported in “liquidation” transports from Terezín to Auschwitz-Birkena where he perished. After the liberation, Antonín’s daughters, Eva and Hana, along with his wife Růžena, waited for him in Prague in vain. As for his wife, she was imprisoned in Terezín for political reasons starting in the winter of 1943. During the days of liberation, she met her niece Adriena, the daughter of Zdenka Hofmanová. Adriena traveled from Prague to visit her mother and stayed in Terezín to care for the sick prisoners. Unfortunately, she did not find her mother there, as Zdenka had already set out for Prague.
As for the Lederer nuclear family, only mother Bedřiška and daughter Zdenka lived to see the end of the war. They returned home in poor health but determined to forget all their hardships. Zdenka was awaited at home by her daughters Adriena and the seriously ill Zdeňka, called Duni. Mother Bedřiška and eighteen-year-old Duni died a year after the war, on the same day, within an hour. Zdenka Hofmanová herself passed away soon after, at the age of 53.
The resolve to forget was strong in the family. Adriena put the documents in a small wooden box and the family history was hidden for a long time. And yet she tried on several occasions to tell her daughter Adriana everything, but she eventually could not find the strength to do so. The weight of the moment invariably overwhelmed her. Memories of the deceased relatives circulated in the family only in the form of family stories.
After their mother died in 1989, her children, Adriana and Leonardo, discovered a small wooden box. Inside, they found postcards dispatched from the Terezín Ghetto by Eduard Lederer, and messages from Zdenka Hofmanová she had sent home to her husband and daughters. The box contained, for instance, a piece she titled On the Day of St. Old Trick, in which she described the deceptive beautification campaign in Terezín launched before a visit from the International Committee of the Red Cross. The children had to grasp a whole lot of new information. At one point, the entire family history literally unfolded in front of them. It was only then that they discovered what their family members had been through.
Some families of Holocaust survivors felt compelled to share their experiences with their children. Consequently, these descendants often grew up with a sense of having endured the trauma of a concentration camp themselves. However, the Lederer family belongs to a different group: they are among those families that never discussed the war. The uncovered documents helped to piece together the mosaic of the family history only long after the war.
Michaela Dostálová
