Jenny Scharpnerova

In the photo you can see my (maternal) grandmother, Jenny Scharpnerova, nee Fischlova. The photo was taken in Hermanov Mestec, probably in the 1920s. I used to stay with my grandparents during summer holidays, because they lived in Hermanov Mestec and that's only a hundred kilometers from Prague. I knew my grandfather, Leopold Scharpner, as already a very old man. Grandpa was a shoemaker. My grandma was of course a housewife. They probably lived well, because they had a multi-story house built on the main square. They lived on the first floor, where they had four rooms, and the rooms downstairs were rented out. Plus in the back there was a general store, so they must have lived well. Hermanov Mestec was a small town of several thousand. There were relatively a lot of Jews living there, but I don't know how many. The last time I was there was in 1937 or 1938, and at that time I was seven years old. So I don't remember much. My grandparents had non-Jewish neighbors. There were no Jews in their street, only a bit further on. There were the Schultzes, Neumanns, Pokornys, but they weren't immediate neighbors. My grandmother died on a transport from Terezin to Auschwitz. It could have been in 1943, she could have been over 70 as well.