As of February 2013, at the age of 83, Helga still lives in the flat she was born in and the same flat from which she was deported from in 1944. In 2009, she was interviewed by a nonprofit, Post Bellum, for their Stories of the 20th Century Project. After the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, she exhibited her art many times both in Prague and in other places in Europe. She worked as an artist and raised a family. She also studied under the Czech artist Emil Filla from 1950. She remained there until the camp's liberation on by the US Army.Īfter World War II ended, Helga went back to Prague and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. She was then forced to join a 16-day death march to the camp at Mauthausen. After ten days, she was transferred from Auschwitz to Freiberg near Dresden, an auxiliary camp of Flossenbürg labor camp where she escaped death. She also successfully claimed that her mother was younger than she was which saved her mother's life. Helga convinced him she was old enough to work by claiming she was 18 and was told to go to the right. The person sorting that day may have been the infamous Josef Mengele. The ones sent to the left went straight to the gas chambers to die, and the ones sent to the right to complete forced labor until death. Whenever new victims arrived, they were sorted. In October 1944 at the age of 15, she and her mother were deported to Auschwitz. Her drawings are a testimony of what everyday life was like for Jews in Terezín. She was held captive in what was called the Girl's Home in room twenty four. Her father said to her in December 1941, 'draw what you see,' she did exactly that. Using her gift for painting and drawing, while at Terezín, Helga wrote a diary that included images from her life in the camp, which survived the war. Fewer than 100 of the Terezín children deported to Auschwitz survived.

It is estimated that 15,000 children (younger than 16) were deported to Terezín. Although they were separated in the camp, it was somewhat possible to see each other and exchange clandestine notes. She was raised in Prague, and shortly after her twelfth birthday on 10 December 1941, she and her parents were deported to the Terezín ghetto. Her mother, Irena Fuchsova, was a seamstress and her father, Otto Weiss, worked at the state bank in Prague. Helga Hošková-Weissová was born on 10 November 1929 in Prague-Libeň to an assimilated Jewish family. Pictures from Wandering Through the Holy Land

Jurnal (1938–1945) by Helga Weissová