Klement Family Papers

The Klement Family papers consist of “birthday books”- albums created by Anna Pachner Klement for her grandson, Tomaš (Tomi), beginning at age two, when he was diagnosed with Sydenham’s chorea. Albums depict stories of a young boy and his adoring grandmother and the life of one Jewish family in Prague during the 1930s. Two years after Tomi’s birth, Adolf Hitler came to power, and the albums begin to record the changing attitude towards Jews in Czechoslovakia. The last album was written in 1940 and in it Mrs. Klement describes how they are forbidden to go to the theatre or the movies. In July 1943, the Klement family was deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp and fourteen months later they were shipped to Auschwitz where Tomi, his grandmother Anna, and mother Heda were gassed. Also included in the family papers are photo albums, photographs, Anna Klement’s diaries, poems by Anna Klement, family papers including obituaries, marriage certificates, etc., and Olga Klement’s diaries as well as her art work, autobiography, correspondence, notebooks and betacam tapes.