Holocaust database<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/stolpersteinecz.cz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Vera-and-Mariana-in-Ostrava-1934-203x300.jpg\")
Vera and Mariana<\/p>\n
The Korn Family
\nThe 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,
\nthat was cruelly and tragically cut short. Some of their favorite family pastimes were attending opera at one of Ostrava\u2019s two opera houses, and taking vacations to the Tatra mountains in
\nSlovakia.<\/p>\n
Cecilie and Richard\u2019s 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
\nwriting. After being sent to Terezin, she started a children\u2019s magazine called \u201cHlas Pudy\u201d (\u201cThe Voice of the Attic\u201d). Her writing there shows a sophistication with language and awareness of
\nthe 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\u2019s words: \u201cIt is terrible that she wasn\u2019t allowed
\nto blossom into what she was supposed to become. She would have certainly been a writer.
\nThroughout the years, I always look for her in the faces of my children and grandchildren.\u201d In 1939, the Nazis seized Ostrava, confiscated the family shoe store, and briefly detained
\nRichard 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
\nbecame 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
\nChile 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
\nmurdered.
\nWhat 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
\nweeks, but then transported to the Birnbaumel labor camp. She escaped with a friend during the westward relocation of the camp (a \u201cdeath march\u201d) in 1945. After the war, she returned to
\nPrague, where she enrolled in art school and searched for news of her family\u2019s fate, which never came. In anticipation of the Soviet takeover, she emigrated to England, where she met and
\neventually 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
\nthey 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
\ngrandfather, and the other Thomas, after the great helmsman of the independent Czechoslovakia and friend to the Jews, Tomas Masaryk.
\nWhile 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,
\ngrandmother 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
\nof people. Her long life is a testament to humanity\u2019s unquenchable capacity for hope, love, survival and compassion, and an invaluable bridge between the past and future.
\nVera says of Richard, Cecilie and Mariana that \u201ctheir 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
\nthe way I know they would have wanted me to live.\u201d In 1994, for the 50th anniversary of their deportation to Auschwitz, Vera arranged a burial service for Richard, Cecilie and Mariana, at the
\nBaron de Hirsch cemetery in Montreal. Now, in 2025, their descendants are pleased to install \u201cStolpersteine,\u201d memorial stones, to keep their memories alive.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Address: LOND\u00ddNSK\u00c1 596\/28, PRAGUE 2 Born 18. 06. 1931 Last residence before deportation: Prague XII Address\/place of registration in the Protectorate: Prague XII, Mnichovsk\u00e1 37 Transport Di, no. 499\u00a0(13. 07. 1943, Prague -> Terez\u00edn) Transport Eo, no. 1346\u00a0(06. 10. 1944, Terez\u00edn -> Auschwitz) Murdered Holocaust database Vera and Mariana The Korn Family The Korn family […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-praha"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stolpersteinecz.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stolpersteinecz.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stolpersteinecz.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stolpersteinecz.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stolpersteinecz.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10007"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/stolpersteinecz.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10476,"href":"https:\/\/stolpersteinecz.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10007\/revisions\/10476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stolpersteinecz.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stolpersteinecz.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stolpersteinecz.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/stolpersteinecz.cz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Kornova-Mariana-Bondy-Vera-scaled-e1750441615362-300x162.jpg\")
Address: LOND\u00ddNSK\u00c1 596\/28, PRAGUE 2![\"\"](\"https:\/\/stolpersteinecz.cz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Londynska-300x215.jpg\")
<\/p>\n