Photo: Marilyn Herman 2018.  Angel – from a monument in Chomutov for protection against the bubonic plague.

In April 1945, my father, Abraham Herman (aged 14), and his brother, David Herman (aged 18), were prisoners on a forced death march from Rehmsdorf to Theresienstadt.  When they crossed over from Germany into the Czech Sudetenland, in the town of Chomutov, Czech bystanders were throwing food to the prisoners, but there would be such a scramble, the bread would break up, and nobody would get any.  (I have very recently visited Chomutov, and interviewed some people who lived through WWII.  They informed me that during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, ethnic Czechs and ethnic Poles were effectively subjected to a policy of slow starvation – with food rationing enforced to a degree that it was not possible to live on the rations alone.)  The German guards threatened to shoot anyone who gave the prisoners food. One heroic, defiant young woman ran inside the line of prisoners, placed bread firmly into Abraham’s hands, and as she ran back out, a German guard smashed the butt of his rifle down on her head and she fell.  In all likelihood, she never got up again.

I am composing a work to commemorate this unknown Czech heroine.  I was scouring poetry and psalms for words, and even ordered an anthology of Czech poetry with translation.  Finally, I decided to use my own words:

*

*

The Angel of Chomutov

*

To risk your life

to give bread

to a suffering child

Not knowing if he would live

another hour

another minute

*

*

To give your life

not knowing

if all he would live to know

was that you risked your life

to give him bread

*

*

Most precious of gifts

More than all the garnet of Bohemia

all the gems of Moravia

Your bread – bestower of life

*

*

To risk your life

not knowing

that the last thing you would do

would be to give bread

to another woman’s starving child

*

*

To give your life

to show a tortured child

Life almost extinguished

by forces of darkest destruction

To show this captive child

the precious value of his life

*

I was reunited via a school Facebook page with a Czech schoolfriend who became an actress.  She recorded altered lines from the Catholic prayer “Hail Mary” in Czech for me to use in my work.  When the soprano heard the recorded lines, she said I should use those for the sung melody too – that she would love to sing them; that they would be very meaningful for her – especially because of her own Catholic background…that they would be very powerful.  And therefore, thanks to the soprano, I came to compose a completely different piece saluting this unknown Czech angel and heroine.   It can be heard here:

*

Photo:  Marilyn Herman 2018.  Chomutov