A Coach With A Big Heart

Martin Cejka, a non-Jew, played a key role

Center Ice: Coach Martin Cejka with Jack and Joshua Lewittes, brothers and teammates on the NyICECATS.

by Joshua Lewittes

Martin Cejka, my hockey coach for the NyICECATS and junior varsity coach at Ramaz high school, played a key role in helping the Jews of Ostrava. Coach Martin, now in his early 30s, grew up in Ostrava, Czech Republic. He has been a hockey coach for the last six years. Even though he’s not Jewish he was instrumental in arranging my visit with the Jews of Ostrava and with my ongoing fundraising projects.
To start Coach Martin was my lead contact with the JCC in Ostrava since they only speak Czech and I was unable to communicate with them. He was my interpreter when we met with the leaders of the Jewish community and with Walter Kranz, the Holocaust survivor and native of Ostrava,

who gave us a tour of the former Jewish sites in Ostrava. Coach Martin also translated many documents relating to the history of the Jews in Ostrava for me from Czech into English.
“There are still people to be helped and there are still those who get out of their comfort and busy lives to help them,” said Coach Martin. “That is inspiring.”
Coach Martin grew up in a totally atheistic environment of communist Czechoslovakia. All of his classmates and friends were not religious except for one family in the house across the street from him. They were Catholic and Coach Martin felt sorry for their kids that they missed playing street hockey on Sunday morning since they had to go to church. The children were often teased at school since their parents were very open about going to church and being practicing Catholics.
Coach Martin never knew any Jews while growing up in Ostrava but he learned a few years ago from his mother that two of his friends were of Jewish descent. His parents did not keep it a secret from him. Rather, religion was rarely discussed and was considered a private matter. He thinks that for many people who survived the Holocaust blending in with society was a natural part of their survival. Any religion in a communist regime was formally tolerated but people who spoke openly about their beliefs risked being accused of propagation of religion.
In high school Coach Martin enjoyed studying history and Russian. He was very interested in World War II since his grandfather served in the Czech resistance and spent five years in concentration camps. When learning about the war, the focus at school was always directed at the 20 million Russians who died then the Jews, Poles, and the 250,000 Czechoslovakians who perished in the resistance.
Coach Martin said that children and adults in Ostrava were fully aware of the terrible fate of the Jewish people and nobody he knew would ever think of denying the Holocaust. He found it hard to fully understand that anything like that happened to his neighbors. “It was easier to imagine and understand Russian partisans to fight Germans in the mountains than six million people being killed and tortured as a part of a program of the Germans,” he said. “Why? As kids we obviously had questions about who really are Jews but I don’t remember having any discussions on that subject. Again, religion is a private thing.”
Coach Martin remembers overhearing his grandparents talking about “this or that by the old Jewish cemetery” so that he knew there had been a Jewish presence in Ostrava.
Coach Martin wanted to help me with this project because he is interested in history and because it is an “issue of conscience.” In 2000 when he moved to the United States many people helped him without asking for anything in return. Coach Martin admires this quality and tries to follow that example.
Also the growth of neo-Nazism in Europe is alarming and embarrassing to him and he believes that Europeans cannot be passive about this trend. From the Holocaust survivors Coach Martin learned that people survived against all odds and people risked their lives to help them.
“The JCC project in Ostrava needs immediate help and it is not just about the money,” he said. “Sometimes people just need to know that somebody still cares about them. The JCC in Ostrava works tirelessly on several projects. It will be very motivational for them to see that it interests other people too.”

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization