Dagmar Lieblová memoir

Dagmar Lieblová was born on 19 May 1929 in Kutná Hora, Czechoslovakia, the daughter of Dr. Julius Fantl, a medical doctor, and Irena (nee Reitman) Fantlová. In addition to Dagmar, the Fantls had one other daughter, Rita. Following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, Dr. Fantl's medical license was revoked, and gradually other restrictions were placed on the Jews of Kutná Hora, until the population began to be deported to Theresienstadt. The Fantl family were deported there in June 1942. Once there, Dagmar was placed in one of the children's homes, and although soon forced to work, also participated in other events, including several performances of the children's opera "Brundibár." In December 1943, Dagmar, along with her parents and sister, were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In mid-1944, Dagmar, whose age had been erroneously listed as being 19, was ordered to join a transport that would take her to a women's work camp in Hamburg. Her parents and younger sister, who remained behind, were murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz in July 1944. While in Hamburg, she was in a forced labor group that cleared out the ruins of buildings that had been bombed in Allied raids. In March 1945, she was sent with others on a transport to Bergen Belsen, where she and other prisoners were liberated by British forces in April 1945. Because of her poor health, she was kept in a hospital at the camp until July 1945, when she returned to Czechoslovakia. After her return, she contracted tuberculosis and was placed in a sanatorium for treatment and convalescence, where she remained until 1948. Returning to Kutná Hora, she went to live with her family's former maid, who had recovered their house. She studied German and Czech at Charles University in Prague. She married Petr Liebl, a mathematician, in 1955, and the couple had two daughters, Rita and Zuzana, and a son, Martin. Dagmar pursued a career as a secondary school teacher of German and Czech, and following the Velvet Revolution of 1989, she, with a group of friends who were former inmates at Theresienstadt, founded the "Terezin Initiative," which sought to open a ghetto museum in Theresienstadt and organize memorial and commemorative events.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Dagmar Lieblova

Gift of Dagmar Lieblová, Rita McLeod and Marek Lauermann, 2015.