Playing outdoors in early summer 1938

Antonie (Toni) Eckstein-Bloch was adopted by Františka Kapoun (1873–1931), a Catholic housekeeper for the Bloch family. Toni’s first husband Emerich Schmeer (married in 1917) was killed in WW1 when he had to return to the battlefields. After the death of her step-father, Leopold Bloch, in March 1933, Toni became the successor of the Bloch properties in Brno and Veverská Bítýška. She married Leopold's close friend, Dr. Michael Eckstein, a Jew who was nearly 20 years her senior in March 1934. Toni and Michael lived primarily in two homes: Hlínky 35 (a prestigious boulevard with tram connections to the center of Brno in a bourgeois neighborhood) and the summer residence at Veverská Bítýška [Eichhorn-Bitischka] 238. Both properties are prominently pictured in Toni's films. Toni and Michael had two children, Michaela (born April 27, 1935) and Antonín (born October 19, 1936). Michael chose to move away from his Catholic wife, Toni, and the children on August 14, 1940 in order to protect the family. They officially divorced on September 19, 1940. In the last years of war Toni and the children stayed in Veverska Bityska, where they survived. Michael Ekstein was born in Galicia in 1873 and moved to Brno (Brünn) as a child. He was a lawyer. He and his wife, Antonie (Toni) Eckstein-Bloch (married in 1934) lived in Brno at Hlínky 35. In an effort to save his Catholic wife and children, Michaela (b. 1935) and Antonín (b. 1936), After the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, Michael divorced Toni in September 1940 and relocated to their home in Brno at Zeile 12. He maintained correspondence with his wife and children. Michael was deported to Terezin in April 1942 on transport Ai, č. 226 (08. 04. 1942, Brno -> Terezín https://www.holocaust.cz/databaze-obeti/obet/81503-michal-eckstein/) and died there on August 12, 1942. Toni and the children survived in Veverská Bítýška. Berta Freudenfeld (nee Eckstein, 1875-1953) is the sister of Michael and mother of Juliane (Lilli) Landsmann, Richard Herdan with her first husband, and Stefan Freudenfeld with her second husband Oscar. She is the grandmother of Gustav (b. 1926) and Felix (b. 1930). Berta survived Terezin. Gustav Petr Landsmann, 4. 12. 1926, Praha – murdered in Auschwitz https://www.holocaust.cz/databaze-obeti/obet/103981-gustav-landsmann/ June 1938. Antonín and Michaela in the garden in Brno, Hlínky 18, bright red tulips. Michael on the balcony of the family home. Michaela pulls her brother in a toy car, the nanny helps. The children play with a toy castle doll-house with the red/white flag. 01:02:00 A woman walks from the house along the garden path. Garden furniture. The children play outdoors. Slow pan of the gardens. Woman (possibly the sister of Michael, Berta Freudenfeld, or her daughter, Lilli?) and teenage boy in dark suit (grandson of Berta, Gustav Landsmann, died in Auschwitz) closes the garden gate. 01:03:12 Veverská Bítýška, at their summer cottage: Michaela and Antonín play with toy trains in the sandbox, explore the meadow and a pile of hay. The children sit and pose on top of the hay. End 01:04:13