Otto Wolf (Author)

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Otto Wolf (born June 5, 1927 in Müglitz , † April 20, 1945 near Kianitz ) was a Moravian Jew. He has kept a diary since the family fled before they were transported to the Theresienstadt ghetto in June 1942. Deník Otty Wolfa ( Otto Wolf's Diary ), published in 1997, is the only diary that describes the life of a Jewish family in their hiding place in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia .

Life

The youngest son of Bertold Wolf and his wife Růžena first attended the Czech school in Olomouc , where the family lived until 1940. His older brother Kurt (1915–1943) went to the Soviet Union after the German occupation of the "remaining Czech Republic" and joined the Czechoslovak Army Corps; he fell in the battle for Sokolowo. In 1940 the parents moved with Otto and his sister Felicitas to the town of Tršice , where they had numerous friends and hoped for better chances of survival than in the big city.

After the deportation of the Olomouc Jews began in June 1942, the Wolf family also received the order to go to Olomouc for the first transport to Theresienstadt on June 26, 1942. On the way to the collection point, the family decided to go into hiding, removed the Jewish stars from their clothing and returned to Tršice. At first only Felicitas Wolf's friend Jaroslav Zdařil was aware of these plans. In Tršice they lived in several hiding places in the forest and gardens. After not only the entire Zdařil family became aware of the presence of the wolfs and they had also been seen in the forest by other residents of the village, tensions arose with Jaroslav Zdařil, who became overwhelmed by looking after and hiding the family. As a result, in April 1944 the family moved to a new hiding place in the attic of the carpenter Zbořil. He, too, was increasingly overwhelmed by the stresses and dangers. On March 5, 1945, the family of four moved into their new hiding place in Oldřich Ohera's barn in the village of Zákřov near Tršice.

At that time, the residents of Zákřov also supported the Juraj partisan unit operating in the area . After the Gestapo received information that Zákřov was a center of the partisan movement, Gestapo men Ernst Geppert and Josef Hykade were smuggled into Zákřov as false partisans via the 574 Cossack Battalion. In the evening hours of April 18, 1945, 350 Cossacks from the Vlasov Army and Gestapo people Geppert and Hykade carried out the retaliatory action Zákřov. Otto Wolf was discovered in the process.

The next morning all arrested men over 50 years of age were released and the 23 younger ones were driven in rows of three to Velký Újezd , where they were initially locked in a former stable in the courtyard of the town hall. After two days of interrogation and severe torture by the Cossacks, 19 of the men were thrown onto a truck in the early evening of April 20 and driven from the Protectorate in the Sudetenland to a wooden hut on the Muderberg above Kianitz . The Gestapo and Cossacks first poured tar into the building and then filled the building with wood. Then they brought prisoners in one by one, and according to Hykade's statement Geppert, alternating with the Cossack Čorny, shot everyone in the neck. The last of the victims was Otto Wolf. They then set the hut on fire with gasoline. The remains of the murdered then had to be buried by residents of Kozlau . Otto Wolf's diary was continued by his sister Felicitas after his arrest.

On May 12, 1945, an investigation into the fate of the men from Zákřov began. The Germans from Kozlov , who buried the victims of the massacre, had to dig up the cremated remains. When examining the dead, it was found that most of the men were burned alive and that all of the victims had broken both thighs. Otto Wolf was solemnly buried together with the other 18 victims of the massacre on May 14, 1945 in a mass grave in the Tršice cemetery. On October 31, 1949, the Zákřovský Žalov monument was unveiled on the site of the Kianitz massacre.

Otto Wolf's mother Růžena did not recover from the escape and the death of both sons and died in 1952. The father Bertold Wolf returned to Olomouc after the war and worked as cantor of the Jewish community; he died in 1962. Otto's sister Felicitas, who emigrated to the USA with her husband Otto Grätz in 1968 , released her brother's diary for publication in the 1980s.

Oldřich and Marie Ohera, Jaroslav and Alena Zdařil as well as František and Marie Zbořil were honored with the title Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Memorial in 2000 .

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personal data
SURNAME Wolf, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech author
DATE OF BIRTH June 5, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Müglitz
DATE OF DEATH April 20, 1945
Place of death at Kianitz