Address: MAISELOVA 41/21, PRAGUE 1
Born 28. 10. 1889
Last residence before deportation: Prague V
Address/place of registration in the Protectorate: Prague V, Norimberská 19
Transport V, no. 136 (30. 01. 1942, Prague -> Terezín)
Transport Ar, no. 236 (28. 04. 1942, Terezín -> Zamošč)
Murdered
Irene and Gustav Lípa, my great aunt and uncle, lived in a comfortable flat in Maiselová in the Jewish quarter, though, like so many of their co-religionists, they attended synagogue chiefly on the high days and holidays and felt themselves to be loyal citizens of the young Czechoslovak Republic. Gustav was a good and prosperous business man, trading in wholesale goods and happy to share his prosperity with his wife’s sister and daughters when they came from thheir home in Karlovy Vary to stay in Prague, their niece Edith for the duration of her law degree. There may well have been a certain bourgeois oppressiveness for a young student, but also the security of a comfortable home. Irene and Marie had made a pact to ‘share’ Marie’s daughters when Irene found herself childless.
When Hitler’s rise to power became menacing, the decision was made in the spring to send the young generation to England, there, hopefully, to prepare the way for Marie’s business, making various packet preparations for sweet desserts, to be transferred to England. Sadly war came too swiftly; Marie, Irene and Gustav were trapped and shared the fate of almost every Jew unable to leave. They were all deported, Irene and Gustav in January 1942, Marie in April, Marie and Irene’s poor 80 year old, nearly blind mother not until July that year.
Irene and Gustav wrote to their nieces in England, as did Marie. In Marie’s letters, in particular, surprisingly much (considering the restrictions imposed by censorship) is revealed about life under occupation.
Kate Ottevanger