Zdenka Fantlova spent three years in the Terezin ghetto-camp. In autumn 1944 she was transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau with her mother and sister. Zdenka managed to save her sister from selection when they arrived, but her mother was sent straight to the gas chambers. After a few weeks they were transferred to the Kurzbach labour camp in Silesia where they endured the winter of 1944-45. In January they were transferred to the Gross Rosen concentration camp, then to Mauthausen and finally to Bergen-Belsen in February 1945. Sadly Zdenka’s sister died from typhoid. On April 15th 1945 the British Army liberated the camp. Although Zdenka had survived the war, her entire Czechoslovakian family perished.

THE TIN RING.

When she and her soul-mate Arno were together in Terezin, in 1942 he snuck into the woman’s barrack one evening to give her a handmade tin ring for their engagement. Not until after the war that the very next day 13th June 1942, he was sent east and never seen again. However, the ring was the very thing, symbol even that gave her hope, a reason to try and stay alive. She risked death just to keep it safe until they met again. To this day, Zdenka keeps her now very fragile tin ring close by her side.