Address: LONDÝNSKÁ 596/28, PRAGUE 2
Born 18. 06. 1931
Last residence before deportation: Prague XII
Address/place of registration in the Protectorate: Prague XII, Mnichovská 37
Transport Di, no. 499 (13. 07. 1943, Prague -> Terezín)
Transport Eo, no. 1346 (06. 10. 1944, Terezín -> Auschwitz)
Murdered
Vera and Mariana
The Korn Family
The Korn family (father Richard, mother Cecilie, and daughters Vera and Mariana) were a Czech Jewish family from Ostrava. They had a happy life together, full of art, music and nature,
that was cruelly and tragically cut short. Some of their favorite family pastimes were attending opera at one of Ostrava’s two opera houses, and taking vacations to the Tatra mountains in
Slovakia.
Cecilie and Richard’s youngest daughter, Mariana, was born in 1931, and was still a young child when their life together was upended. She had a keen intellect, and a remarkable talent for
writing. After being sent to Terezin, she started a children’s magazine called “Hlas Pudy” (“The Voice of the Attic”). Her writing there shows a sophistication with language and awareness of
the absurd ironies of life under Nazi imprisonment that goes beyond her years, but also shows a fervent hope for a brighter future. In her sister Vera’s words: “It is terrible that she wasn’t allowed
to blossom into what she was supposed to become. She would have certainly been a writer.
Throughout the years, I always look for her in the faces of my children and grandchildren.” In 1939, the Nazis seized Ostrava, confiscated the family shoe store, and briefly detained
Richard and Cecilie, after which the family relocated to Prague. Richard and Cecilie did their best to recreate a sense of normalcy at their apartment in the Vinohrady neighborhood, but this
became increasingly difficult. The children were only allowed one more year of school, before this and many other rights were taken away. Richard and Cecilie made plans to emigrate to
Chile but, after many delays, these plans were never realized. In 1943, the family was deported to Terezin. In 1944, they were deported to Auschwitz, where Richard, Cecilie and Mariana were
murdered.
What we know about Richard, Cecilie, and Mariana is largely thanks to Vera (born 1927) who survived the war, and in whom their spirit lives on to this day. Vera was held at Auschwitz for two
weeks, but then transported to the Birnbaumel labor camp. She escaped with a friend during the westward relocation of the camp (a “death march”) in 1945. After the war, she returned to
Prague, where she enrolled in art school and searched for news of her family’s fate, which never came. In anticipation of the Soviet takeover, she emigrated to England, where she met and
eventually married Alexander Bondy, a fellow Czech Jew whose family had escaped from Prague before the war broke out. Together they relocated to Montreal, Canada in 1953, where
they found a free, unspoiled country and together started a new life. They had twin boys, who have gone on to have happy lives and families of their own. One was named Richard, after his
grandfather, and the other Thomas, after the great helmsman of the independent Czechoslovakia and friend to the Jews, Tomas Masaryk.
While Alexander passed away from cancer in 2017, Vera remains in Montreal to this day, aged 98 at the time of this writing. Vera is a light in the lives of so many, a beloved mother,
grandmother and great-grandmother, an accomplished amateur painter and pianist, a longtime guide at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and a friend and inspiration to a countless number
of people. Her long life is a testament to humanity’s unquenchable capacity for hope, love, survival and compassion, and an invaluable bridge between the past and future.
Vera says of Richard, Cecilie and Mariana that “their love sustained me and their moral guidance gave me strength through all the difficulties I have had. I always tried to live my life in
the way I know they would have wanted me to live.” In 1994, for the 50th anniversary of their deportation to Auschwitz, Vera arranged a burial service for Richard, Cecilie and Mariana, at the
Baron de Hirsch cemetery in Montreal. Now, in 2025, their descendants are pleased to install “Stolpersteine,” memorial stones, to keep their memories alive.