Frank Grunwald

 Frank Grunwald

77 years ago today (July 11, 1944) a Czechoslovak Mother and Wife - Vilma Grunwald -  about to knowingly die in the Gas Chamber (she could have survived the Selection, but didn’t want to have her 16 year old disabled son, John,  spend his last minutes alone, so she went with him) at the Auschwitz Death Camp in German-Occupied Poland wrote a short letter to her Husband and her 11 year old Son, Frank,  in another part of the Camp that was later delivered to them.

Vilma Grunwald's note of July 11, 1944: “You, my only one, dearest, in isolation we are waiting for darkness. We considered the possibility of hiding but decided not to do it since we felt it would be hopeless. The famous trucks are already here and we are waiting for it to begin. I am completely calm. You — my only and dearest one, do not blame yourself for what happened, it was our destiny. We did what we could. Stay healthy and remember my words that time will heal — if not completely — then — at least partially. Take care of the little golden boy and don’t spoil him too much with your love. Both of you — stay healthy, my dear ones. I will be thinking of you and Misa. Have a fabulous life, we must board the trucks. "Into eternity, Vilma.”

For those that don't know: The Germans kept a "Model Ghetto" at Theresienstadt (Terezín) in German-occupied Czechoslovakia for the sole purpose of showing the International Red Cross how well the Germans were treating the Jews. The façade of Theresienstadt was made to resemble an ordinary European town while behind the fake paint and fake food used for the cameras the residents were starving and dying as with any German-run Ghetto during the war.

After the International Red Cross visited Theresienstadt in 1943 most of the Ghetto was then shipped to Auschwitz where a few were selected for work. The rest were then kept together (whole families) for a few months without having their heads shaved or being tattooed and in their regular clothes while the International Red Cross team that visited Theresienstadt went to Auschwitz in 1944. The IRC were only allowed to see the one set of barracks.

After the IRC visit everyone in those barracks were taken immediately to the Gas Chambers - 6,500 from the Family Camp between July 10-12, 1944. Of the 17,517 Jews deported to the Czechoslovak Family Camp, only 1,294 survived the war.

The father told the son of the letter's existence back in 1946, right after the war, but the son, who was 11 years old, did not want to read it. He avoided even seeing it. "I was scared of the letter," said the son, then known as Misa Grunwald and now Frank Grunwald. Grunwald, who survived a Nazi Concentration Camp, is now a retired industrial designer living northeast of Indianapolis on Geist Reservoir. He is 85. "I was curious about the letter," he said, "but at the same time afraid, I think, for its sadness.

Kurt Grunwald, Vilma’s Husband and Frank's Father, was also a prisoner at sprawling Auschwitz Concentration Camp. He was at one of the work camps. A physician, his job was to treat prisoners' injuries so they could return to work. F Lager was the barracks where he was kept.  She handed the note to a German guard, and in what seems miraculous, the guard personally delivered it to her husband, Kurt Grunwald told his son later.  Auschwitz was liberated 17 months later. Some time after that Kurt Grunwald was reunited with his surviving Son, Frank, and said: I have a note here from your Mother. "I didn't want to see it, I was too upset," said Frank.

In 1951 the surviving Grunwalds moved to New York City. Kurt practiced medicine. Frank went to the Pratt Institute and studied industrial design. He got a job with General Electric in Syracuse and married his wife, Barbara. The couple had two children.

Kurt Grunwald died in 1967 at age 67, and it was while going through his Father's belongings that Frank came across the letter.  For two decades he showed it to no one, not even to his wife. Every few months he retrieved it and re-read it in privacy.  In the 1990s he showed it to his family. He then gave it to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

You can see more about the Letter and about Frank  Grunwald in the documentary “Misa's Fugue.”