These excerpts are from a letter written by Anka Fischer to her cousin Franta Justitz in New York and translated into English from Czech. Anka arrived in Australia in 1949 and passed away in 1989.

Prague, 24 November 1945
…You could not possibly understand the way we felt when we saw your handwriting after so many years. We are unable to comprehend that there were some lucky people who lived in other parts of the world and were spared the horrors of humiliation which are beyond description. People in the free world did not have to wear the Jewish star, they were not degraded or deprived, they could visit cinemas, theatres, walk freely through parks without fearing for their lives.

This is over now, but our minds are burdened by bad memories and they linger on. We would like to describe our sad fate to you but it is so very painful, since it all happened only a short time ago. Our health has not improved to a normal state yet. Regarding our health, I can only say and tell you about Vera, who returned in a terrible state. The doctors did not give much hope for her recovery, they thought she could only last for 2-3 days. She had jaundice, her entire body was covered with horrible boils and she looked like a skeleton. You cannot possibly visualise how she looked, her weight was only 30kg. Today Vera is an unbelievable and wonderful person, relatively well, she just turned 31. My heart aches to tell you about this 31 year old. She has great difficulty getting up from a chair, she looks somehow odd, like a disabled cripple. She suffers from severe rheumatism, this being an everlasting memory of the past.

I wonder whether you remember me? I too, like Vera, was in many concentration camps. I was in the 'so very famous' death march, without shoes, without a coat, no undergarments and no food or water. We were made to walk for six weeks through Poland and Germany, criss-cross for days and days and countless kilometres, from 2 February until late March. We walked through heavy storms and snow. Finally we were allowed to rest overnight in the open before arriving in Bergen Belsen the death camp. There they had a motto which said: "Hey! You! Rot in your own dirt!" Hundreds and hundreds were shoved and pushed into wooden barracks. To sit or lie down was impossible. Upon our arrival many were trampled to death and many suffocated. That was our so-called accommodation. We were kept there for one month, 4 - 6 days without any food or water. The worst was when we were stricken with dysentery and we had no toilets. The sad fact is that we had no control over our bowel movements and we were virtually drowning in our own faeces and urine for the entire month. Then came the lice. I was covered with thousands of them and typhus raged and took over.

Masses of tortured dead bodies were lying next to us, they were beaten up in indescribable ways. Many were our friends. It did not take long before these pitiful bodies decomposed. One week later they were dragged out and thrown onto the heaps of dead. It really is a laughing matter, magazines and books write about the miseries in concentration camps. Nobody but nobody, unless a survivor can comprehend what German culture means! I myself was also thrown out onto a large 2-storey high mountain of dead bodies. Having been unconscious for two days, they took me away to join the dead ones. Luckily at "5 minutes to 12" we were finally liberated.

I was unconscious at the time and cannot remember the event. The British soldiers arrived. They tried to resuscitate people from the 2-storey high mountains of dead. We were completely naked, not a stitch on our bodies. I showed a sign of life. I woke up from the coma and found myself in an English hospital. I was weak and sick with typhus, they kept me in the hospital for nine weeks. My weight was 32kg. When I was given the possibility and was able to write, I wrote a letter to Jarmila. I told her that I was in Bergen Belsen and I asked her to trace Vera through the Red Cross. I had no news of her for several years. Well! Can you imagine! A Czech courier arrived one day and brought a parcel with the most vital provisions and also a letter written by Vera. She had survived the same concentration camps as me. She was also in Bergen Belsen, but when I arrived there, she was moved away. It was possible not to have seen each other, the female prisoners were in large groups of 1000 and were behind fences which were charged with high voltage electricity.

The courier who brought me the parcel, told me that Vera had arranged for me to be picked up by private car which would bring me to Prague the following day. All this happened all of a sudden, we met again - and alive - standing there face to face. Dear Franz, believe me, my hands still shake and my heart beats fast whilst I am writing about this episode. Vera, the poor darling, suffered more than I did. Over the past years I always considered her as my beautiful, vivacious and clever sister. This was the way I remembered her. But now: an old, wrinkled, shabby-looking widow stood in front of me. Her beautiful hair was shaven, her hands were raw, her skin was red with spots and sores, her feet were swollen - but she was alive! Franz! That was how we met again. From all our family, only the two of us are alive.

We try very hard to fit into everyday life again. But it is not easy. Anti-semitism is flourishing. Many people are disappointed and it disturbs them that some of our Jewish people have survived and returned home….