Jiří Löwy

* 1957

  • "I was expelled from the Socialist Youth Union because I refused to demolish the mill in Horní Bříza. There was a beautiful backup mill there, made entirely of wood. It was a beautiful building. There was technology inside, and during Action Z, it was supposed to be used to extract iron, but there wasn't much of that because those mills were mostly made of wood back then. It belonged to some Mr Kovář. That owner was lucky that they let him live in a villa that was adjacent to the mill across the yard. I said I wasn't going to do that, I just wasn't going to take part in it, because it wasn't right. They didn't like that very much, so they expelled me from the SSM (Socialist Youth Union - transl). I didn't mind, but they were bitter about it. And I couldn't become a member of the Communist Party. But I wouldn't have become one anyway, because when they pressured me, all of us, even my brother-in-law, were employed in that [state enterprise] Mlýny [Plzeň]. My brother-in-law [Jaroslav Uhel], when he got married, worked as a guard at Bory and we told him that it was not a much nice profession that would fit into our family. So he went to work for us, that is, Mlýny, as a chauffeur. And then we convinced him that it would also be good if he left the [Communist] Party. Because as a guard, he had to be in the party. So he [actually] left the party, which was a big trouble. That was worse than someone not wanting to join. But somehow, we got through it. So he [only] wasn't allowed to drive the director and the deputies in a private car. He could only drive a truck. That's how they punished him. Then they started pressuring my father and me to join the party. But we said, 'You can't be serious. You've been accusing Dad all along of being a Jew, a kulak and a Western soldier. How can you think he would be convinced to join the party?' Whereupon they didn't push him too much, they understood. But my dad was no longer allowed to park his žigulík in the parking lot that was designated for employees."

  • "There was a stronger community of German Jews in Pilsen than Czech Jews. They lived together. There was no conflict between them. Here in Pilsen, there was no conflict even among the Germans who were not Jews, and there were also many of them. There was no conflict until Hitler ordered to divide people. [Until then] everybody got along living together quite well. Of course, we got some information from Germany, but nobody believed it. [Dad] said to me [once], 'It was not expected the horrors would come here.' For anyone to have any tangible evidence at that time, that was not possible. It was well contained, well hidden. But then, when it was just before [Hitler] came, Dad said they gave him some gold bracelets, pendants and rings to get him started. Since Oscar wasn't here in Pilsen and Leo was already married, so he didn't want to leave and he didn't want to leave his parents alone, well, Dad was the only option, so he went to England. And why did he choose England? He said they assumed England was an absolutely free country and that Hitler wouldn't get there. Fortunately, they guessed right."

  • "My great-grandfather David's brother, Vilém Löwy, also died, but they were survived by a daughter who survived the concentration camp and the death march because she managed to escape. She emigrated in 1948. She has two children who live in the United States and whom we see occasionally. I have been to see her about three times. She was born in the '24, I believe. She told me what it was like in Auschwitz. She went through Terezin and was in Auschwitz. She was lucky she didn't stay in Auschwitz long. Then she went to work camps on German territory. They were making weapons there. Then, when the end of the war was approaching and the death march went through the town where she had to work, they were including them in the death march. Because they stopped working and they didn't know what to do with them. And she said that when she saw the impoverished condition of the people who were walking the death march, she realized she wouldn't last long, she wouldn't survive. So she and her friends - there were three of them altogether - decided that they had to escape immediately, as long as those who were guarding them didn't remember them yet. And while they still had enough strength and were still dressed so that they could blend in with the locals. So the very next day, they ran away and hid in that German town. They were also hiding on a farm, then they were at some mayor's house where they got betrayed, but also got an echo they could go somewhere where they would be taken care of. Her name was Hana Weiner, [maiden name] Löwy. Then they arrived to some parish where the nuns took care of them. They were in some convent where she worked as a seamstress, fixing clothes. Here in Pilsen she transferred from school, which she didn't enjoy, and she learned to be a seamstress, which came in handy there. And that's where they stayed until the end of the Second World War."

  • "[Dad and his brother Oscar after the war] did not return to Pilsen at the same time. They didn't come as liberators either. They came with the Czechoslovak army, and by then, Pilsen was already liberated. When they came to Pilsen, they were, of course, wondering what happened to the family because they didn't really have information [about] what has been going on, although they had suspicions, there were rumours... Then they found out that the worst reports were true. The properties remained, they reportedly weren't damaged much, but no one from that family remained alive. The parents, Moritz and Berta Löwy died in Estonia in Kalevi-Liiva. Leo, the eldest brother, with his wife Marie and daughter Helenka, who was four years old when they went to the transport in January 1942, died in Zamość. And the brother of the great-grandfather David, Vilém, also died. But they were survived by their daughter [Hana], who survived the concentration camp and the death march, from which she managed to escape."

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Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

The ones in our family who did not escape or hide died in the concentration camps.

Jiří Löwy in the army, just before his return to civilian life
Jiří Löwy in the army, just before his return to civilian life
zdroj: Witness archive

Jiří Löwy was born on 23 September 1957 in Pilsen into a Jewish family. His father, Rudolf Löwy, and his brother Oscar joined the 1st Czechoslovak Independent Armoured Brigade Group in England. However, a lot of his ancestors perished in concentration camps during the Holocaust. The family initially lived in Touškov in a mill and then moved to Pilsen in 1962. However, the Pilsen city council decided they were undesirable in the city, so the parents and their daughter had to return. They could only return a year and a half later. Until then, Jiří Löwy was growing up with his grandparents. After the February 1948 coup, the communists took away his father‘s large estate in Kunějovice and then forbade him to work in agriculture, even though he had graduated from an agricultural school. While his mother worked in a confectionery factory in Pilsen, his father was employed as a chauffeur. From an early age, Jiří Löwy was interested in Jewish monuments, history and life in the Jewish community. In Pardubice, he apprenticed as a repairer of mill machinery. After his apprenticeship, he worked as a locksmith in the state-owned company Mlýny Plzeň until the Velvet Revolution. In 1976 he joined the army, after which he married a non-Jewish woman. During Action Z, when he refused to take part in the demolition of the mill in Horní Bříza, he was expelled from the Socialist Youth Union. In July 2018, he was elected chairman of the Jewish Community of Pilsen and initiated the reconstruction of the Great Synagogue. He became vice-chairman and member of the board of directors of the Jewish Museum in Prague and a member of the praesidium of the Federation of Jewish Communities. At the time of filming (2022), he lived with his wife Marie on the family farm in Kunějovice, which his father had regained after the Velvet Revolution.