Czech Mates. Holocaust Legacy

By David Weiss

Take a journey to the "Old Country". Learn about small town European life with all of its simple pleasures and hardships. Read about the onset of Nazi influence in the 1930's and discover how two young Jews in their 20's and 30's beat the odds and survived the Holocaust. The story and journey of Tibor and Sarlota Weiss is a tribute and a testimony to the power of the human spirit. 

At the conclusion of the war, the two Survivors married one another and lived in the re-born, re-formed Czechoslovakia. Even with the news that most of their families were killed, the next three years did show a re-birth of hope for the Weiss's. Their only child was born and Czecholslovakia was, briefly, a proud democratic nation. The dark cloud of communism, however, appeared and like almost all of Slovakia's Jews, they left for Israel. After three years in the new Jewish nation, The Weiss's made their final move and came to Milwaukee. Life would be filled with incredible accomplishments, but also with the feeling and understanding that life was never as it truly should have been.

This book will inform, educate and inspire a wide variety of readers. Get ready to take a winding, enriching, sometimes difficult (other times funny) but always enlightening journey with Tibor and Sarlota Weiss.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Expert Promotions LLC
• Release date: Nov 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223305583

Book preview

Czech mates:

Holocaust Legacy

By David Weiss

A Holocaust Legacy Book

Copyright © 2021 by David Weiss, Expert Promotions LLC

All rights reserved. This book or any portion of it may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, Expert Promotions LLC and David Weiss, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. www.HolocaustLegacyBooks.com and www.ExpertPromotions.org

2nd Edition, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-945604-37-9

Published by Expert Promotions LLC

[e-mail]

www.HolocaustLegacyBooks.com and www.ExpertPromotions.org

Table of Contents

Prologue

Is This Two Books in One? Yes.

Before the Storm

The Worst of Times

Now What?

The People, The Legacy

Interviews with Grandma and Grandpa Weiss

Pictures

Prologue

"Vision must be met with Venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs".

—Vaclav Havel

(Czechoslovak Humanitarian, Freedom Fighter, President)

Soon after Grandma Weiss’s birth on March 7th, 1906, the doctors detected a heart murmur connected to a valve problem in her heart. My Grandmother’s mother, Ernestine Boschan Sarkany, was told to make sure Sarlota avoided strenuous activities. Unfortunately, her condition usually meant a shorter life span. But the next ninety-six years would not play out that way.

Sarlota Sarkany Weiss lived through unspeakable horrors, tremendous hardships and painful upheavals that seemed impossible to survive. She escaped a deportation train center, found a half-dozen places to hide during a horrendous three-year period, fled communism, settled in the newly established desert-land of Israel and resettled in the United States. Along the way, she had a fifty-seven-year marriage, raised a child, and had a major hand in raising and mentoring her two grandchildren. My Grandma Weiss survived a heart attack in 1969 and was given, at the time, a small chance for survival. But Sari Sharkany Weiss was still not ready to accept an ominous outlook.

My Grandma Weiss survived and thrived until May of 2001 when she fell and broke her hip. Ten months later, at the age of ninety-six, Grandma Weiss passed away. It was an improbable, inspiring, sad, and successful journey that spanned three continents and nearly a full century.

Nothing to it, just to do it.

—Sarlota Sharkany Weiss

(1906-2002)

Grandma Weiss was not the kind of person that told everyone she knew it all. But, she knew it all. She was the consummate adult, the quintessential grown-up in the room. Grandma Weiss was totally satisfied with who she was, what she accomplished and what she believed in. She had an infinite class. Grandma always wore formal clothing, dresses and blouses that were washed by hand and ironed. Even after owning a washing machine and dryer, she would wash the clothes before using the washing machine. Grandma Weiss never owned or wore a pair of pants or tennis shoes. Grandma always had her ducks in a row and her life was organized the way she envisioned it should be. She was incredibly tough, determined, and wise. I was in awe of the way she did things, especially how she accomplished her tasks with creativity and absolute pinpoint precision. Every sheet was folded properly, and every opinion backed up with both facts and anecdotal reasoning. Grandma Weiss was both street smart and book smart. She had it all.

My sister and I would joke around and call our other three grandparents by their first names from time to time. But not with Grandma Weiss. We respected them all, but she carried herself with a regal sense of class and formality that we recognized from an early age. She had no time for shenanigans or triviality. Grandma’s wisdom transcended the times. Her systematic methods were incredibly successful throughout her long, eventful, challenging life. Every day of my life I am guided by the lessons she taught me and the traits she unrelentingly exhibited.

As a child, I always worried about Grandma Weiss dying.  She was already sixty-nine years old by the time I was born in 1975. Grandma was about 4’10 and barely 100 pounds by the time I knew her.  Diminutive in size, she was a forceful lady who demanded respect and attention.  When we would say goodbye to her and say that we would see her soon, she would reply God willing or I hope so" or some version of that. She had an heir of strength but also a fragility due to her past health problems and diminutive size. I could not comprehend what would happen if she died. Grandma Weiss had all the answers.

For almost a century, no matter what the task or the goal, she did it the way it was supposed to be done. I have always had a special kinship, a special feeling of closeness and connectedness with Grandma Weiss. It is an intangible feeling that comes just once in a lifetime.

The Truth Prevails, but it’s a Chore.

—Czech Proverb

My Grandpa Weiss was a true gentleman. He was the definition of a Mensch.  Neatly attired, diligent, task oriented with an uncompromising commitment to provide for his family. When I was born, Grandpa Weiss was sixty years old. He was not an affectionate warm-and-cuddly  person by nature. What always impressed me was his determination to push his boundaries to show his grandchildren how much he loved us. He would walk with us to 31 Flavors, and he made jewelry for us from the excess gold he kept in his workshop. Grandpa brought us $2 bills, half-dollars, and silver dollars from the bank as gifts. To this day, I have every $2 bill he gave me as well as every Half Dollar and Silver Dollar. They are worth the world to me. These were gifts from the heart and symbolic of the understated and loving man he was. I can still hear him saying Umbaroofen, a German word that translates roughly to mean this child is the world.  His modest smile showed a satisfaction and love that was as genuine as the man himself.

Grandpa Weiss was born into tragedy. His father died when he was eleven days old in World War One. He then lost every relative he had in the Holocaust except for a few second and third cousins. Tibor Weiss married Shari Sarkany right after the war. They met while hiding together for four months at the end of the war. Life at that point was all about rebuilding and rebirth.  Having a child was a blessing but again there was sadness when the new family was forced out of Slovakia due to the communist takeover in 1948. For a quiet man who liked routine, leaving The Old Country was difficult. He found success on all fronts in Israel and then in the United States, but Grandpa Weiss was forced out of his physical and emotional home never to return.

There was an undercurrent of sadness to Grandpa Weiss’s life. When he retired in 1981, I think he took a deep breath and finally had a chance to play back the events of his challenging life.  As his work of being a dental technician ended, more sadness set in.  He had time to think about the people he had lost and how much his life had been affected by things completely out of his control. In 1989 Grandpa Weiss had a stroke that limited his ability to do the few things he truly enjoyed. My Grandfather, Tibor Weiss died in 2002, just six weeks before the death of his wife of fifty-seven years.

Grandpa Weiss wanted the traditional life of a Czechoslovak Jew. Smiles and true joy were hard to come by, but he did gain a measure of satisfaction with everything he had accomplished. Grandpa Weiss deserved better than what he got from the world. He gave much more than he received during his eighty-seven years on this earth. On the other hand, as a young boy, Grandpa Weiss had two goals; to see the ocean and to live to see the year 2000. He did both and a whole lot more. 

I will always remember the kindness Grandpa Weiss showed to me. Personal warmth did not come easy to him, yet he was very sympathetic, caring and kind. Every time I saw him, he found at least one way of showing me he loved me and that seeing me was important to him.  He was the most decent, humble, competent person I have known. And a terrific grandfather. My Grandpa Weiss was a wonderful man, and I will never stop admiring him and trying to live up to the standards of gentleness and personal ethics he set.

I was given an incredible opportunity to speak to my grandparents on countless occasions about the incredible lives they lead. I enjoyed asking my grandpa about his life because it provided him moments of fondness and nostalgia. Grandpa was always so thoughtful and generous with his time and knowledge. Grandma Weiss always believed in passing down knowledge from generation to generation. As far back as I can remember she would teach me a variety of lessons. She was an expert in using her life experiences to help others. Grandma Weiss always wanted to make sure that my sister and I had the knowledge, perspective, and drive to pass along the rich legacy that her parents gave to her.

From the time Grandma Weiss broke her hip in March of 2000 she had one health issue after another.  During these months, I spent a lot of time with Grandma. I had the foresight to ask her everything I wanted to know.  It was an amazing learning experience to spend this time with the smartest person I have ever met. I was getting to hear all about her ninety-six years, every theory, thought and opinion from the person who truly had more of life’s answers than anyone. 

In this book, I will refer to my grandmother as Sarlota, Sari and Grandma Weiss. I will call my grandfather Tibor and Grandpa Weiss. While they Americanized their names to Ted and Charlotte, these were just names they decided to take up. Essentially, their names changed legally and for convenience, but they were born Sarlota (Sari for short) and Tibor. When writing about times before I knew them, I tend to use Sari and Tibor and after I knew them, Grandma and Grandpa Weiss.

Is This Two Books in One? Yes.

I wrote Czech Mates, 1st Edition, about my grandparents’ full-life experience, in 2016. I used the transcripts and tapes of interviews I did with my grandparents in 1989, 1991, 2000 and 2002 as well as my life-memories with them. I was twenty-seven years old when they passed away. I certainly had a unique opportunity to get to know my grandparents very well.

At the start of 2018 I decided to fix-up and release the information in interview form. These interviews have more of my Grandparents’ voice in them. They are also focused almost exclusively on their experiences up until they arrived in the USA in 1952. This has been sold as a separate book Holocaust Underground.

This 2nd Edition of Czech Mates includes Holocaust Underground. The full interview that IS Holocaust Underground is at the end of this book. You’ll learn all about my grandparents’ journey in this book even before you get to the Interviews with Grandma and Grandpa Weiss section. Then you get to hear things