Franz Kafka's Brave And Compassionate Sister, Ottla

Ottilia (called Ottla) was the youngest of Franz Kafka's sisters. She was his favorite sister, and they were very close, helping each other when help was needed. 

Franz and Ottla

For instance, he supported her decisions when she, as a very young woman, entered an agricultural program. Being the only woman, she met problems that were difficult to handle, and he told her that it would be perfectly all right both to stay and to leave if that was what she felt was the best. As it is, she persevered and got herself an education that made it possible for her to manage her brother-in-law's farming estate. 

In 1920 Ottla married a Czech Catholic, Joseph David, and the couple had two daughters, Vera and Helene. Ottla had been able to keep the contact with her brother, but mostly by letters. However, the tuberculosis of Franz Kafka worsened, and in 1924 he died. 

With WWII life became very difficult for Ottla and her family. Presumably, in order to protect her daughters and their father against the Nazi persecutions she divorced her husband in 1942, but that didn't save herself from being deported to Terezin. 

Ottla and her husband, Joseph David 

When her daughters begged to follow her their request was refused, and somehow they were not deported, but were able to stay with their father. They may have spent their time collecting and editing the letters from their uncle to their mother which later on were published as "Letters to Ottla and the Family" by Franz Kafka. Sadly enough, her letters to her brother were lost.

Franz Kafka made his name as an author, but his sister, Ottla, made hers as a genuine heroine when she volunteered to follow a group of Polish, Jewish children to Auschwitz. She did so because she took compassion on them when they arrived in Terezin, sick and terrified, with shaven heads and weak from hunger. On the 7th of October 1943 she was murdered with them. In Terezin she had secretly been their councillor, trying to console and comfort them, and she didn't want to let them down as they were terrified of what might happen to them.

https://read.dukeupress.edu/new-german-critique/article-abstract/52/1%20(154)/31/394922/Death-Writes-Franz-Kafka-Tubercular-Soundscapes?redirectedFrom=fulltext 

 

https://dailykafka.tumblr.com/post/741124990537285632 

 

Wikipedia