CZECH MOTHER'S TRAGEDY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 79, 8 June 1943, Page 6

CZECH MOTHER'S TRAGEDY

In December, 1942, Magdalcna Obenova was buried in a small cemetery near Chichester, in Sussex. Few attended the funeral of this stranger who spent her last days in the village in complete seclusion. More than three years ago Magdalcna Obenova camc to England from Czechoslovakia with many other refugees. She first lived in London, where I met her in Hyde Park. I shall never forget thai, meeting.

She was feeding the, birds near tile Serpentine on that sombre summer afternoon. Her behaviour was so strange that she attracted the attention of the children Avho were bounding about in their games. The old lady., dressed all in black, her head crowned with snow white, hair, raised her hand from time to time and began to count aloud on her fingers: "One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . The children thought she was being funny and started to laugh. Some of them mimicked her counting. They camc nearer and nearer to the old lady and, with a great, deal of noise, formed a circle around her until a nurse, hurried up, scolded the children, and dispersed them, tt was from this nurse that I learn., ed of the shattering tragedy of Magdalena Obenova. She was the widow of. a, highly respected Czech doctor who had had a large practice near Prague. Mag--dalena Obenova's tragedy when the Germans occupied Czechoslovakia. Her two youngest sons were still students at the Prague University for whom life under the Nazi rule was made intolerable. On November 17, 1939, they took part in a patriotic demonstration and were mercilessly shot by the Gestapo. Her third son was a Socialist member of *he Town Council in an industrial town in Moravia and on the night of the 16th, immediately after Hitler's invasion, was arrested, sent to the concentration camp in Dachau, and. died a few weeks latey as a result of the torture which lis was forced to undergo. Her fourth sqj.i Avas a trader Pilsen. During a house search lie protested against, this intcrfcrcii'je with his freedom and was knocked down with the butt of a revolver by the Gestapo. He suffered a terrible wound in the head an'dj, in spite, of the care, he was given in the hospital, died four days later without ever x-egaining consciousness. The

eldest son was liis mother's pride. He fled to_ Poland but presumably fell into the Hands of the. Germans Inquiries brought no results. From the time of her escape until. her death Magdalena Obcnova received no news of her eldest, son. Good friends helped her reach England through Switzreland. She lived in London for some months, but it could be seen that she was beginning to lose her reason. She could not realise that she had lost her five sons, but. again and again she would count, "One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five. . . Now her heart, which has known so much suffering, h{is ceased to beat. She has been buried in Susseqc, far from Her native home. But it rests with the living not to forget. When the hour of reckoning comes, men will remember Magdalena Obenova anil other mothers like her, who have endured so much sorrow and lost .so much.

Howard Payne, an American poet and author of the beautiful song, Home, Sweet Home.' It stands on what is English soil. In KM.) t-lie then Bey of Tunis, gave a plot of ground in the city to the Br,i,ti;Hh Con.sui far a Strangers' Burial Place, and ever since it has been British property. Payne was the American Consul in Tunis and while serving hi country there' wrote the words of the song, "Home, Sweet Home." When he died he was buried in this little bit of English soil in Tunis. On the simple monument are these words: "In the tomb beneath this stone, the poet's remains lay buried for thirty years. On January f>, 3 881], they were disinterred. and taken away Jo his: native ' where they received honour and iina'l burial in the city of AVashington. June <). 18s;J. v

The French have opened up the country by the construction of hundreds of miles of motor roads and I here M ere., before the present conflict, bus .services linking up the

country villages with the main towns. Every town and village has its gale. There may be no wall <i round the village, but it has gate, a crude archway perhaps, with earthen .seats on either side of the entrance way. where the men meet, sip coffee, and chat about the latest news. It is the village club.

NO starving with Bonkora reducing system. Eat big meals. F. G. Maclclow, Chemist, Whakatane. "Bonkora is a product of Battle Creek Drugs Inc. Battle Creek, Michigan, U.S.A."