For five long years, while Milena had belonged to the Communist party, her friend Wilma, like many other friends, had avoided her. No doubt this had been partly due to Wilma’s own experience with the Communist party. Soon after 1933, Wilma had joined a Committee to Assist Refugees from Hitler Germany and thrown herself into the work with enthusiasm. The Czech Ministry of the Interior put the Msec” castle at the committee’s disposal as a home for the refugees. The ancient building with its enormous rooms, its yard-thick walls, and deep recesses was more like a dungeon than a place to live in. The committee was faced with the well-nigh hopeless task of converting the castle into a human habitation. Although the right-wing attitudes of the representatives of the ministry made for complications, it was possible to work with them, for Wilma and her colleagues stood by their guns and usually got their way. With difficulty they convinced the press and a part of the Czech public that even refugees were entided to decent lodgings; they raised money wherever possible, and after grueling work, in which Dr. Alice Masaryk, director of the Czech Red Cross, gave generous help, succeeded in putting the castle into habitable shape.
But little by little Communists had wormed their way into the committee. To this no one had any objection, but before the “bourgeois” members realized what was happening, the Communists began using the committee for their own purposes. Stubbornly and ruthlessly, they thrust aside those refugees who were most endangered but less valuable from the Communist point of view and soon gained absolute control over the committee. Only Communist refugees were lodged in the castle, and the committee was turned into an institution devoted solely to Communist interests. Wilma and those who shared her opinions looked on in helpless rage while the Communists took full control over the committee they had built up. Incapable of combating these ruthless and unscrupulous methods, one after another of them withdrew from the project.
Such had been Wilma’s bitter experience when in 1937 she chanced to meet Sataša in a train, and Sataša told her about Mi-lena’s “Trotskyism” and her expulsion from the Communist party. Delighted at the news, Wilma longed to see Milena again. On her return to Prague, she called her up. Milena invited her over. Anxiously, Wilma stepped into the large apartment, wondering what had become of Milena in all these years and whether she had really broken with communism. Then she sat facing her on the airy terrace of the “hanging gardens,” relieved to find that “nothing had changed. It was a strange thing with our friendship. Like the Moravian river Punkva, which is suddenly swallowed up by the earth, flows underground through caverns and grottoes, and rises to the surface somewhere else, as if it were an entirely different stream, so Milena would disappear for years; but when she rose to the surface, the same old sympathy revived, as if we had never parted. At every meeting I sensed that she was still the same and that our friendship was indestructible….
“Hesitantly we revealed our disillusionment with the Communists, came to the same conclusions, and, filled with new sympathy, fell into each other’s arms….”
Wilma, who always stepped in where people needed her, had not let herself be discouraged by the perfidy of the Communists. Along with several friends, she set up a new committee, which concerned itself chiefly with the increasingly numerous intellectuals among the refugees. On hearing about it, Milena showered her with questions, showing a passionate interest in every detail of the work. Unable to satisfy Milena’s journalistic curiosity to the full, Wilma mentioned Mafka Schmolkova, chairman of the Jewish Aid Committee, who was at the very center of refugee work and, Wilma felt sure, knew everything Milena wanted to know. Wilma had been friends with Mafka for years, and, in anticipation of Milena’s meeting with her, she proceeded to tell Milena all about her.
Mafka had been born and bred in the same Old Town as Franz Kafka, and in a very similar atmosphere. Her mother owned a small dry-goods shop, in which Mafka, the youngest of the children, had helped after her father’s death. She seemed to be a born shopkeeper. Then she married, but before long her husband died. It was only then that she began to take an interest in the problems of Judaism. She went to Palestine and returned a Zionist with a passionate interest in Zionist ideas and plans for the future. She had been given a thoroughly Czech upbringing and felt herself to be a Czech. But she was able to combine her Czech feeling with her fervent hopes for the Jewish people.
After 1933, when thousands of Jewish refugees poured in from Germany, Mafka Schmolkova would make it her business to help them. Though retiring by nature, she soon found herself at the center of refugee relief work, and became a well-known figure both in Czechoslovakia and abroad. Up until then she had attached no importance to her appearance. How could she bother to think about clothes when the lives of thousands were at stake? But Mafka’s friends disagreed. At length they prevailed on her to buy some fine material for a fashionable suit. The address of a tailor was found, and everything seemed in good order. Time passed, and in answer to her friends’ questions Mafka assured them that the suit would be a masterpiece.
One day she appeared at a meeting in her new suit. Her friends gaped in horror. The suit had been totally bungled. “But no tailor could have done such a thing!” they cried. And Mafka replied with a shrewd smile: “Right! He’s not a tailor. He’s a housepainter.” She had wanted to give one of her Jewish refugees a chance. A former housepainter, he had decided to learn the tailor’s trade. To obtain his certificate, he was required to produce a “masterpiece.” But no one would entrust him with a piece of goods for the purpose. So he had told Mafka his troubles. “What could I do?” she defended herself. “And besides, the goods were lying around the house. So I just let him have them. Isn’t it a masterpiece?”
This story delighted Milena, and she was wildly enthusiastic about Mafka Schmolkova even before meeting her. Wilma promised to bring about the meeting as soon as possible, but as they were all extremely busy, this took time.
Then one day the three of them met in the attractive rooms of the Spolecensky Klub. Wilma remembered this meeting as a great event. The two women were instantly drawn to each other, and as they were both keenly perceptive, each took note of the other’s exceptional qualities: Both were distinguished by a remarkable gift of observation, by unusual quickness, and, perhaps most important of all, by the same love of humankind and the same passionate sense of justice. And last, not least, both had a fine sense of humor.
Beginning with the first cup of coffee, Wilma was treated to a dazzling display of eloquence, wit, and human warmth. As the conversation turned to the social and political problems of the day, it became evident that the two women shared the same deep sense of responsibility.
This meeting had a profound effect on Milena. It was then that she wrote “Ahasver [the Wandering Jew] in Weinberg Street,” her first article about the fate of the Jews in 1938. Together, she and Mafka visited a refugee camp in southern Slovakia. Under the impact of that experience Milena wrote: “Who is Mafka Schmolková? I made her acquaintance while I was writing my first article about refugees and looking for facts and figures. Mafka Schmolková lives in the Old Town of Prague, in a narrow little street that I hardly knew though I was born in Prague; she lives in a small, crooked house with a wooden stairway. But the moment I stepped in, I was enveloped by a wonderfully harmonious and cultivated atmosphere. The room contains any number of books, sculptures by Stursa, beautiful dark old furniture, and a telephone that never stops ringing. At first sight you would probably not call Mafka Schmolková pretty. Women who work from morning to night, who for years have lived face-to-face with the sufferings of others, are not likely to be pretty. But she is wonderfully beautiful. Something that comes from inside makes her face as strong and expressive as if it were carved from stone. Mafka Schmolková is personally acquainted with every refugee who has crossed our borders in the last few years. She knows his story, knows the danger he has been through. So much suffering has made her forget her own. She spends her life among the sick, carries on an existence between life and death, runs from office to office, from London to Paris, from Paris to Prague. She has visited refugee camps and has been in no-man’s-land, that steamer packed with fugitives who after the occupation of Austria were admitted neither to Czechoslovakia nor to Hungary, and for two months lay at anchor on the Danube off Bratislava. Whichever way she looks, she sees only despair. Only occasionally, after tireless efforts, does she feel that she has accomplished something. But this woman has the admirable serenity that comes of faith.
“In September, when I was at my lowest ebb, I went to see her, intending to sit with her for just a little while. This woman emanates such tranquillity, such quiet good sense and courage, that the short hour I spent in her easy chair was among the most beautiful I have ever known.
“A good many women are engaged in so-called social work, but few are deserving of admiration. Mafka Schmolkova is not a social worker, she is a champion of her people, whom she serves with the humble pride typical of its finest representatives.
“Years ago in Prague I saw the German film No-Man’s-Land. No-man’s-land is a term used in the First World War to denote the zone between the front lines, the strip of scorched earth between the trenches and barbed-wire entanglements of the contending armies. In the midst of a battle, four men, an Englishman, a German, a black American, and a French soldier who happens to be a Russian Jew, meet in this no-man’s-land. Four terrified animals from the four corners of the earth, from widely different social classes, speaking different languages. In this film the Russian Jew is mute. The part was played by Sokolov, one of the greatest actors of the day, a man with a sad monkey face and typical Jewish eyes, those sad eyes that gaze out of past centuries upon the centuries to come … to my mind there was something prophetic about this character: the disheveled little Jew from no-man’s-land, silent among talkers, a pariah among pariahs, his smiling eyes full of intelligence, heart and soul, fraught with the centuries-old suffering of his people—a man without a country, without a home, without a language. Mute indeed. I have heard of a rabbi who lives in Palestine and has stopped speaking any other language than Hebrew and does not let his family speak any other language. But sometimes at nightfall, he sits in the corner and hums tunes … the tunes of Russian songs. Palestine is his home and Hebrew is now his language. But Russia is his native land and its songs are Russian folk songs. Mothers, the village women, the men at work, the schoolchildren—all sang them. This man’s soul was imprinted by his native land with all its sounds, habits, colors and shapes. He formed his ideas and his words in his native language. Then someone came and said: ‘You have no business here. Go away.’ The Jew left home and wandered and finally reached the Promised Land. Since then he has spoken only Hebrew and worn himself out working in a field which once again is not his own; he has worked hard and willingly, with his usual proud humility. But at nightfall in the corner of his room he softly hums his Russian songs. That is the mute Jew from no-man’s-land.
“I saw the No-Man’s-Land film years ago, but because the action took place before 1918 we fools believed all that to be a thing of the past. It left me feeling confident, convinced that all of us today were moving toward a free and radiant future. At that time we were still unaware of the strange twists and turns that history can take.
“Today there’s a no-man’s-land right behind the barn, only a stone’s throw away. Between the German and the Czech borders—dear God, what a shameful border!—they have strung a length of wire across a field, put a barrier across the road, stretched a rope between the trees—a child could tear the whole thing down. It’s a border that could bring tears to your eyes. And in some places a strip of no-man’s-land has been left between the two borders. First the Czech army moved out; then came German (or Hungarian, or Polish) heroes and moved the Jews from the occupied territories into this strip of no-man’s-land, then more Jews arrived from other occupied territories. Some came because they had been ordered to move here, others because they feared for their belongings, still others because they feared for their loved ones, who had remained in the occupied zones. The Czechs let them through their barbed wire, but they were not allowed to cross the German barbed wire. Nor were they allowed to cross back into Czechoslovakia. Yes, the barbed wire of 1938 is strong. One night some young Hungarian louts woke up a whole village and dragged the Jewish inhabitants—men, women and children—out of their homes, loaded them into trucks, drove them to no-man’s-land, dropped them there and disappeared. At first there were only ten people, exposed to the cold in an open field. Then a hundred. Then a thousand. Much later and only after the British authorities had pledged that these Jews would emigrate and not become a public charge, they were given permission to cross into Czechoslovakia and stay with some Jewish families. All the time they were living in the open, in the wind, rain and bitter cold, they were fed by Jews who had not yet been driven from their homes. They came from far away to help. Czech, Slovak, even German peasants brought food.
“But how is it possible that human beings could force three hundred people, those in Bratislava, for instance, to sleep in an open field in the bitter cold? And this in the century of scientific progress and comfortable housing? Such things have been happening since the peace of Munich.
“A few examples: With his bare hands a father digs three pits in the hard clay of a field. In each hole he puts a child. Then he plaits three little roofs from corn husks and puts them over the pits. He himself sits on the ground nearby. If the people in the vicinity had not helped, the refugees would probably have starved. But they do come and help, they bring food, warm clothing, blankets, a tent, and an old moving van with a bit of straw on the floor to house the neediest: the man with gastric bleeding, the woman who is expecting a child in a few days, the woman who has already borne her baby in the open and wrapped it in rags someone had given her, the blind old man who is sitting on a pile of straw in the corner….
“A Jewish doctor from Austria is running himself ragged, caring for these people. He was the first to receive permission to leave the camp and emigrate, but he only laughed: ‘How could I possibly leave at a time like this?’ And indeed he was the last to leave no-man’s-land. He could be seen at all times running about in a shabby coat, and not for one moment did he lose his composure. When children came to him with frostbitten fingers, he would say, ‘Come, I’ll put on some ointment.’ And to the people from the aid committee, aghast at the sight of so much human misery, he explained comfortingly: ‘It’s not really as bad as it looks. Come, I’ll show you around…. You’ll get used to it….’
“They lived like that for weeks. Today they have roofs over their heads. But on the Czech-Polish border 6,000 people are still waiting in no-man’s-land. Some sort of temporary shacks have been put up for them. Soon they will all leave. Only the old and the sick will be left there to die. But the young and strong will emigrate. Next Christmas they will be living far away under roofs of their own….
“It’s not our fault that their lives are so hard in our country. As long as our own house was in one piece and hadn’t been cut in half, we could be hospitable and helpful. The best we can do now is to wish them a good life somewhere else. And that we do with all our heart.”*
Mafka Schmolkova carried on with her work until the Gestapo arrested her three days after Hitler’s entry into Prague. Before being arrested she spent hours at her fireplace burning papers connected with her proteges.
At first the Gestapo put her in a cell with criminals and prostitutes, thirty-three in all in a cell with four cots. Then she was taken to the Pankrac Prison in Prague. What happened next seems almost miraculous: The Czech authorities demanded her release, because the refugee problem was more than they could handle and they needed her help. Then they persuaded the Gestapo to send her to Paris to make arrangements for Jewish emigration.
Soon after her arrival in Paris, war broke out. Her road back was barred. It drove her to despair that she couldn’t get back to her refugees. Instead, she crossed over to London, where she resumed her relief work. There she learned of the cruel persedition of the Jews in Germany and the German-occupied territories.
In March 1940 Wilma went to see her in her London office; Mafka had just received a letter bearing the news that her niece and former secretary, a woman in the prime of life, had been deported to Poland with her husband by the Gestapo. They were the first Jews to be deported from Czechoslovakia. Six million Jews from all Europe were to meet the same fate. Mafka read the letter and grasped its implications. She covered her face with her hands and for a long time sat silent. When she arose from her desk, she was a different woman. All the life had gone out of her. One morning a few days later she was found dead in her bed. The diagnosis was heart failure. Grief over the fate of her people had killed her.
* Milena Jesenska, “No-manVland,” Pfiwmnosi, December 12, 1938.