Most of what they told my father, a refugee in China, consisted of tender stories, likely to prevent alarming him. However, as they kept updating him via their letters, the harsh reality of their diminishing freedoms gradually seeped into their reports on life in German-occupied Prague.

As you review this list of their slowly eroding rights, consider how you would react today if someone threatened to kill you unless you handed over your cell phone, radio, or computer. Visualize being confined to your house or apartment with no access to entertainment. This list is only a sample, not comprehensive.

From Arnošt and Olga Holzer’s Letters… Comments on Nazi Oppression:

1941 Nazis restriction of the Jews from living normal, free lives in Prague

January – restriction of Jews from traveling (could not visit Arnošt’s ill mother in the hospital outside Prague

January – could not go to the cinema

March – telephone disconnected

June – curfew: you had to be home before 8 p.m.

August – could not go to the concert hall

September – to be identified by the Germans, made to wear Jewish Star “in about one week we should be getting a special sign to wear on our breast”

October 21, 1941 – mention of transports of relatives to concentration camps; considers seriously for the first time to emigrate (but too late by Nazis)

When democracy finally dies, it can happen fast.