This timeline tells the story of the pendant and its owner, Eva Roček, and draws heavily on her memoires and those of her husband Jan, links to which can be found on the links page.

1927: 29 May - Eva Porges born in Prague to mother Anna Maria Porges (nee Bondy) and father Viktor Porges.
1939: 15 March - Nazi army marched into Prague 
Some time between 1927 and 1941: Eva's uncle Vilém Werner, a silversmith married to her father's sister Anna, crafts a gold pendant with her name, which she wears every day.

1941: The Werner family moves in with Eva and her parents in Prague, after the death of her grandfather;                   The Werners are then sent to Riga, Latvia, never to return.
"Unfortunately, the Werners did not live with us for too long; they soon vanished in the East never to be heard off again." p29, p30, Shakespeare saved my life
1942: Vilém and Anna Werner die in Riga, Latvia.  Their son Eda, Eva's favourite cousin, also dies in Riga, aged            13.
         
          Eva and her father are transported to Theresienstadt (Terezín); Eva's mother arrives a week later.  Eva's            pendant is left with her mother's friend, a Christian who saved it for her whilst she was in the                  camps.
"Mother was told by the Jewish official who actually drew up the deportation lists, that I had bawled him out so vehemently for sending me - a little girl - without her mother, that he had to put her into the next transport. Some favor!"  p30, Shakespeare saved my life
1944:​ Eva meets Jan ('Honza') Robitschek in Theresienstadt and they fall in love.
"I became interested in him when we were saying goodbye and he clicked his (bare) heels, bent from the waist down, offered me his hand and said: “If you allow me to introduce myself, I am Honza Robitschek”." p37, Shakespeare saved my life
"The period between June 26 and September 28 1944 was a very happy period of my life. Both my parents were alive and I was seriously in love." p39, Shakespeare saved my life  
         In Terezín, Eva sings in numerous performances of Verdi's Requiem, led and conducted by her piano                 teacher from Prague, Rafael Schächter.  On June 23, the choir sings "before high-ranking SS officers                   from Berlin and the International Red Cross to support the charade that the prisoners were treated well           and flourishing" (as described on the Defiant Requiem website).  This incredible act of musical resistance           is the basis for the 2012 feature-length documentary Defiant Requiem. ​
"When my parents led me from the hospital, we met Mr. Schächter. He took one look at me and said: “Evicko come and sing in my chorus. “ So from then on I spent much of the time after work singing with Mr. Schächter. During the time I sang in the chorus we performed Smetana’s operas “The Bartered Bride” and “The Kiss” as well as Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro” and Verdi’s “Requiem.” " p34, Shakespeare saved my life
​         Eva and her parents are transported to Auschwitz in October. 

         Upon arrival, her father, suffering from tuberculosis, is put in a queue of sick people, and she never                   sees him again.  Dr. Mengele allows Eva and her mother to live, and 4 days later, they are transported to           a small camp in today's Poland, Kurzbach.

​         It is here that a guard overheard Eva reciting Shakespeare's Titania, which she believed saved her life                 (see The Times: The Jewish girl saved by her love of Shakespeare 6 January 2020).
 1945: ​Eva and her mother join a death march "evacuation", and escape following advice from Mr Suchy, the                aforementioned guard (see pp 47-48 Shakespeare saved my life).
           
           Liberation by the Russian army, and return to Prague.

           Eva is reunited with her pendant, kept safe by her mother's friend during the war.
           
​           29 May - Believing Jan to be dead, Eva receives a letter from him on her 18th birthday to say he is alive               and in hospital 45 miles away.
"When I found Honza in the hospital, he was so weak that he could not even leave the bed. I think that he was glad to see me, but that he was still very much in shock after learning that neither his parents nor his sister had survived. From then on we exchanged frequent letters, but Honza’s “love letters” consisted mostly of re-ports how his diarrhea was improving. He returned to Prague only after four months, in September, and from then on we saw each other regularly." p53, Shakespeare saved my life
1947: 26 June - Eva and Honza marry in a civil ceremony.
1954: 13 January - birth of Martin, their first son.
1956: 13 February - birth of Thomas, their second son.

           Beginning of secret police interest in Jan (see p99 onwards, My life 1924-1966). 

           Police intercept a letter from Jan to my paternal grandfather, Otto Saxl, which they claim contains                       information of a "confidential nature", and use this as a basis for his ongoing harassment and repeated             questioning (p101).
"...they told me that I had committed a crime and they would have to turn the case over to the State Prosecutor, unless I could persuade them of my devotion and loyalty to the regime: the only way I could do that would be to work for them." p101, My life 1924-1966.
1957: Jan's first visit to England.
"My stay in England changed my attitude completely. No longer was I willing to let myself and my family suffer “for the good of the workers,” no longer did I believe any of the anti-western propaganda, and my supreme desire was to leave Czechoslovakia and to bring my family to the West. I did not want our children to have to grow up in a system where they would have to learn to lie, to suppress any independent thought and just to repeat what the system expected of them on any given day." p106, My life 1924-1966.  
1960: Jan, Eva, her mother and sons Martin and Thomas escape from Czechoslovakia:
"While everybody’s attention was focused on the shore side and on the Western tourists leaving the ship, we were preparing to jump into the water on the other side. We were practically alone in the back of the ship. Eva told me that she could not jump by herself and asked me to push her in. She climbed on the railing holding Martin and I pushed her and immediately took Thomas and jumped with him into the water." p124 My life 1924-1966
           The next day, their friends the Reisers make the same jump to freedom.
           
          After 18 days in Danish prison, Jan is released and the family spend 3 months in Denmark whilst they                wait for visas to arrive.  During this time, they receive financial support from Jan's cousins Hella                            Kleeman and Susie Lind, who live in England. 

          The family are given the ok to travel to America, and request their jouney go via London to enable them            to visit the Kleemans and the Linds.  It is during this visit that Eva gifts her only possession of                        financial worth besides her wedding ring, and one of only two pieces of jewellery she is                              wearing, to Susie Lind's 8-year-old daughter, Anne, as thanks for the family's support.             
2006: Eva and Jan return to Terezín for a special performance of the Defiant Requiem, accompanied by                           members of three generations of our family, including me.  This performance is filmed and later forms             part of the feature-length documentary about the requiem released in 2012, Defiant Requiem. 
2015: Eva dies ages 88, June 28 in Greenville, Delaware, USA.
           Anna returns the pendant to Jan after Eva's death.
2016: Eva Saxl is born in Oxford, UK, in October, and named after Eva.  She is Eva Roček's first cousin three                 times removed.
2020:  20 March - Jan is due to travel with sons Martin and Tom, and his wife Karen, to Copenhagen, for the                  launch of a book about their escape to freedom, marking 60 years since they jumped from the boat.  I              (Mim Saxl) plan to join them in Copenhagen with my daughter Maya.  Jan intends to give the                              pendant to my daughter Eva, who was born a year after Eva's death and is named after her, to                wear in her memory; in the interest of fairness, he gets another pendant made, in the same                    style, for my other daughter, Maya. 

           Coronovirus means the trip is postponed, and lockdown begins.

​           21 March - unbeknownst to us, Jan puts the pendant in the post with a letter explaining its                         significance and sends it by USPS registered delivery to our address in Oxford.
          
           3 April 7:29am - the pendant is marked as arriving at Heathrow, awaiting delivery.  This is the                   last confirmed USPS record before it disappears.

           27 April - Jan submits an online search for the parcel via the USPS, and receives confirmation it               is awaiting customs clearance.  It is marked as such on the Parcelforce tracking system, dated                 April 28.

          6 June - Jan receives a message from the postal service to say they are giving up on the search                  for the package and consider it lost.
All content on this website is (c) Mim Saxl/Jan Roček 2020
Site powered by Weebly. Managed by 34SP.com