Overview
- Description
- The Michael J. Kraus papers contain documents and diaries concerning Kraus’s experiences as a child survivor of the Holocaust. Selected by Dr. Josef Mengele as one of the "Birkenau Boys," Kraus was interned at Theresienstadt, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Mauthausen before being liberated in 1945. Included in his collection are records pertaining to his parent’s property and assets and letters his parents wrote from the concentration camps. Among the post-war material is correspondence between Michael and his liberators, a diary describing his memories from the war written between 1945 and 1947, and a memoir written after a journey back to Austria in 1994, among other materials.
The Michael J. Kraus papers contain diaries and papers collected by Kraus during and after World War II. Papers from the wartime period include his parent’s property lists, receipts, and financial information. Also included is postcard sent by Karel from Auschwitz in 1944 and a letter sent by Lotte to her sister in 1945 under a false impression that she had survived. Documents from the immediate post-war period include a series of correspondence exchanged between United States liberators and medical personnel and Michael between 1945 and 1947. Michael met the correspondents in 1945 when they rescued him and treated him for typhoid. A scrapbook with notes and various post-war identification documents pasted in in also included here within. The diaries comprised in this collection were written and illustrated by Michael in Nàchod, Czechoslovakia between 1945 and 1947 and describe his memories of the German occupation of Czechoslovakia and of the Holocaust. A short memoir written by Michael titled “Austria Revisited – Fifty Years Later” is also included among these materials and recounts Michael’s visit to the concentration camps in which he was interned with his family in 1994. - Date
-
inclusive:
1937-1994
bulk: 1945-1947
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Michael J. Kraus
- Collection Creator
- Michael J. Kraus
- Biography
-
Michal (Miša, now Michael) J. Kraus was born on June 28, 1930, in Trutnov, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic), the only child of Dr. Karel Kraus and Lotte (Lola) Goldschmid Kraus. His father was born in Nachod in 1891 and received his medical degree from the University of Vienna in 1910. While serving as a physician in the Austrian Army during World War I (1914-1918), he was gassed and wounded. After the war, he returned to Nachod and opened an office as a general practitioner. His mother was born in 1898 in Nachod, where her family had lived since the 1600s. Both parents were from large families and they often visited relatives in Prague. They spoke Czech at home, but were fluent in German. They were well off and, until he was eight, Michal had a nanny who was from the Sudetenland region bordering Germany. This region was identified by Hitler as ethnically German territory to be reclaimed by the Third Reich. In summer 1938, the Czech Army mobilized because of this threat. Nachod was near the border, so Michal and his mother left to stay with relatives in Hlinsko. That fall, Germany met with Great Britain, France, and Italy at Munich and it was agreed that Germany could annex the region. Michal and Lotte returned home.
On March 15, 1939, German soldiers invaded the Bohemia and Moravia provinces, where Nachod was located. Michal’s aunt committed suicide after seeing troops camped outside her windows. The Germans enacted antisemitic ordinances. Michal was expelled from school and his father was prohibited from practicing medicine. The family's valuables were confiscated. In mid-1940, two families were moved into their house. In September 1941, Michal’s family was evicted and forced to live in a single room in a house without running water. In December 1942, the Kraus’s were sent to Hradec Kralove and on December 12 were put on the CH transport to Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp near Prague. Men and women were housed separately, but Michal was allowed to stay with his mother in L-425. In March 1943, he was moved to the boy's dormitory B-IV, the Hanover Barracks. In June, he had an abridged bar mitzvah in the attic of a former army barracks. In September, Michal was moved to Q-609 with about two dozen 12-, 13-, and 14-year-old boys. One of the boys, Ivan Polak, a friend of Michal’s from Nachod, got the others to contribute stories and poems which he illustrated and with string and scrap paper made into a magazine, “Kamarad” [Friend.] Michal contributed a poem about a mouse that rescues a captured lion and a serial story about trappers looking for fortune in the Canadian northwest. On December 15th, Michal and his family were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Michal was tattooed with the number 168497, his father with 168496, and his mother 71253. For six months they lived in the so-called family camp B 11.b. In June 1944, his mother was sent to Stutthof concentration camp in German occupied Poland. His father was ill when they liquidated family camp and was sent to the gas chambers on July 11, 1944.
On July 6, Michal was one of 89 boys between the ages of 14 and 16 selected by Dr. Mengele and sent to a neighboring men’s camp, Maenner lager B.II.d. Later known as the Birkenau boys, they were housed on the punishment block number 13 under the command of the Blockelteste Bednarek. Michal was eventually moved and assigned to work in the Unterkunft where he ran errands. From here he could occasionally see neighboring camps as well as communicate with and provide minor assistance to recently arrived prisoners from Theresienstadt. In January 1945, as Soviet forces advanced towards Auschwitz, the camp was evacuated. Michal and other prisoners were put on a death march in extreme cold and snow to a railway station in Gleiwitz. Those who could not walk were shot. They were then put on open rail cars arriving after four days in Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. After a short time, they were shipped to Melk, a Mauthausen subcamp, where they worked peeling rotten potatoes. As the front advanced, Michal and the other boys were returned to Mauthausen. On April 28, they were put on a nearly forty mile death-march to Gunskirchen concentration camp. On May 5, the German guards fled and American troops arrived. Michal was severely ill with typhus, and was taken to an American-run hospital in Hoersching. In mid-June, he left for home, travelling by boat, on foot, and by train, reaching Prague on June 28. Michal learned that his mother was transferred from Stuffhof after two months to Danzig-Praust, then, in November, because she was ill, back to Stutthof where she perished in January 1945. Of Michal's large extended family, only an aunt and one cousin survived.
Michal spent another six weeks in a sanitarium in Stirin, and then went to live with a friend of his parents, Vera Loewenbach, in Ceska Skalice. In September, he returned to Nachod to resume his schooling. He lived with family friends, Rudolf and Vilma Beck, who had survived the camps but lost their son who was Michal’s age. Rudolf was involved with Bricha, the organization which helped Jews from Eastern Europe travel illegally to the West and eventually to Palestine. That fall Michal began a memoir of his war years to honor the memory of his parents which he completed as a three volume work in 1947. In summer 1948, Michal's guardian arranged for him to join a Joint Distribution Committee orphans' transport to Canada. He sailed from England on the S.S. Aquitania and was sent to Montreal where he completed high school and attended McGill University for two years. A cousin had come from New York the week he arrived to register Michal for US immigration and, in September 1951, Michal immigrated to America. He enrolled in Columbia University's School of Architecture in New York and lived with his cousin’s family in New Jersey. After working for a NY architectural firm for two years, Michael returned to Europe in September 1957. He traveled until June 1958 when he accepted a position with an architectural firm in London. In October 1959, Michal took job in Geneva, Switzerland. He married Ilana Eppenstein, an Israeli medical student, in May 1963. During their honeymoon, they visited Nachod and Prague. In 1964, they moved to New York. They eventually settled in the Boston area and raised two daughters. Michael’s memoir was revised and published in English as “Drawing the Holocaust: A Teenager’s Memory of Terezin, Birkenau, and Mauthausen” in 2016.
Physical Details
- Extent
-
1 box
1 oversize box
17 folders
- System of Arrangement
- The Michael J. Kraus papers are arranged as a single series.
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- The donor, source institution, or a third party has asserted copyright over some or all of these material(s). The Museum does not own the copyright for the material and does not have authority to authorize use. For permission, please contact the rights holder(s).
- Copyright Holder
- Michael J. Kraus
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Czech Republic--Terezín (Ústecký kraj)--Personal narratives, Jewish. Jews--Czech Republic--Biography. Jewish children in the Holocaust--Biography. Child concentration camp inmates--Biography. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives.
- Geographic Name
- Náchod (Czech Republic : Okres).
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- Michael J. Kraus donated his papers to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum through three separate donations in 1995, 2004, and 2006. These three donations have since been unified into this collection.
- Funding Note
- The cataloging of this collection has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
The accessibility of this collection was made possible by the generous donors to our crowdfunded Save Their Stories campaign.
- Record last modified:
- 2024-01-25 11:41:55
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn535243
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Also in Michael J. Kraus collection
The collection consists of two pieces of Theresienstadt scrip, correspondence, documents, memoirs, and three handwritten notebooks created from 1945-1947 relating to the experiences of Michal J. Kraus, (later Michael) who was interned in Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Mauthausen, Melk, and Gunskirchen concentration camps during the Holocaust.
Date: 1937-1994
Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp scrip, 50 kronen note, owned by a child inmate
Object
Theresienstadt 50 kronen receipt that belonged to Michal Kraus, who at age 12 was interned with his parents Dr. Karel and Lotte Kraus in Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp from December 1942-December 1943. They were then deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and placed in the family camp. In June 1944, his mother was sent to Stutthof where hse perished in January 1945. When the family camp was closed in July, his father was ill and sent to be murdered in the gas chamber on July 11. Michal was one of 90 boys selected by Dr. Josef Mengele to live at a neighboring men's camp, later known as the Birkenau boys. In January 1945, as Soviet forces approached, Michal and the others were sent on a death march and then taken by train to Mauthausen, then to Melk, and then back to Mauthausen. On April 28, they were sent on a 40 mile death march to Gunskirchen where they were liberated by American troops of the 71st Infantry. Michal was ill with typhus and after several weeks in hospital returned to Czechoslovakia. Of Michal's large extended family, only an aunt and one cousin survived.
Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp scrip, 100 kronen note, owned by a child inmate
Object
Theresienstadt 100 kronen receipt that belonged to Michal Kraus, who at age 12 was interned with his parents Dr. Karel and Lotte Kraus in Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp from December 1942-December 1943. They were then deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and placed in the family camp. In June 1944, his mother was sent to Stutthof. When the family camp was closed in July, his father was ill and was murdered in the gas chamber on July 11. Michal was one of ninety boys selected by Dr. Josef Mengele to live at a neighboring men's camp. In January 1945, as Soviet forces approached, Michal and the others were sent on a death march and then taken by train to Mauthausen, then to Melk, then back to Mauthausen. On April 28, they were sent on a 40 mile death march To Gunskirchen where they were liberated by American troops of the 71st Infantry. Michal was ill with typhus and after several weeks in hospital returned to Czechoslovakia. Of Michal's large extended family, only an aunt and one cousin survived.