Helga weissova biography of albert

Interview

Holocaust survivor Helga Weiss, who wrote Helga's Diary, talks about her time in a concentration camp and the fate of her family.

Neil Bermel spoke with Helga Weiss in her apartment in Prague on December 1, 2011.

The following is an edited version of their conversation, translated from the Czech. Additions and clarifications made by the translator and editor are in brackets.

Could you tell us something about your parents: what their names were, what they did, what they were like before the war?

From the diary we learn only that they were Mom and Dad...
My father's name was Otto Weiss; he was very educated, loved music, wrote poetry as well.

Helga weissova biography of albert

He worked as a bank clerk. In the First World War, when he was eighteen, he was badly wounded in his right arm. My mother, Irena, born Fuchsová, trained as a dressmaker; she stayed home and ran the household. We weren't rich, but my parents created a home that wa