Theodora "Dora" Klayman (Teodora Basch-Vrančić)

Theodora “Dora” Klayman was born Teodora Rahela Basch in Zagreb, Yugoslavia (present-day Croatia), on January 31, 1938. Her father, Salamon, owned and operated a small brush manufacturing plant. Her mother, Silva, grew up in Ludbreg, a small town northeast of Zagreb. She was a teacher. Her mother’s father, Josef Leopold Deutsch, served as the community rabbi for more than 40 years.

In April 1941, Teodora—whom the family called “Dorica”—was visiting her grandparents and extended family in Ludbreg. During that time, the Axis powers invaded and occupied Yugoslavia. The area in which Teodora’s family lived became part of the so-called Independent State of Croatia. It was under the control of the Croatian fascist Ustaša movement. The Ustaša-run Independent State of Croatia collaborated with Nazi Germany. They instituted their own antisemitic policies, perpetrating the mass murder of Jews, Roma, Serbs, and political opponents. By June, Teodora’s parents and infant brother, Zdravko, were arrested in Zagreb. Their housekeeper was able to get Zdravko released. Silva’s sister Gizela “Giza” and her Catholic husband Ljudevit “Ludva” Vrančić then took him to Ludbreg. Salamon was deported to the Ustaša-run Jasenovac concentration camp. Silva was deported to Stara Gradiška, a subcamp of Jasenovac.

In Ludbreg, Teodora and Zdravko’s maternal grandparents first sheltered them. In 1942, nearly the entire Jewish community of Ludbreg was rounded up, including their grandparents and their mother’s sister Blanka Apler and her family. All were soon killed in Jasenovac. Teodora and Zdravko were left behind with Giza and Ludva.

In order to avoid arrest, Teodora and Zdravko were sometimes taken by train, with little warning, to a nearby town. At other times they were sheltered by various neighbors. Sometimes they would not be allowed to leave the house for fear of attracting the attention of the Ustaša forces. During the fierce battles that often raged in Ludbreg between the Ustaša and the anti-fascist Partisans, they would spend nights in their cellar or cower in the corners of the living room. Bullets pierced the windows and became lodged in the furniture. When the Partisans prevailed, Teodora and Zdravko were allowed to move around the town freely. But these periods of relative safety were short.

Eventually, Ludva was arrested on suspicion of supporting the Partisan resistance movement. He was sent to Jasenovac, where he saw Salamon, who was forced to perform heavy labor and had access to very little food. Ludva was released after serving a 10-month sentence as a political prisoner.

During Ludva’s detention in Jasenovac, Giza was denounced. Giza managed to take Teodora and Zdravko to their Catholic neighbors, the Runjaks, who pretended that they were their children. Giza was soon arrested and deported to Auschwitz. On Ludva’s return to Ludbreg, he tried in vain to find his wife and have her released. Giza died from an “intestinal illness” after her arrival at Auschwitz. Ludva took over the care of the children. Most people in Ludbreg knew Teodora and Zdravko were Jewish, but they never denounced them. Due to threats from the local priest to turn in the children, Ludva had them baptized in 1944.

After liberation, when Teodora and Zdravko’s parents did not return, it was assumed they had been killed. Ludva legally adopted the children, who took the last name Vrančić. Sadly, Zdravko died of scarlet fever at the age of six. Teodora remained with her uncle, attending high school in Varazdin and then the University of Zagreb. Her paternal uncle, Josef Basch, contacted her. He had managed to escape on the Kasztner transport. Josef and his wife Magda remained in Switzerland following their release from Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. In 1957, they invited Dora to stay with them so she could study at the University of Lausanne.

On her way to Switzerland, Teodora met Daniel Klayman, a Jewish American research chemist. He was en route to New York after spending a year as a postdoctoral Fulbright scholar in India. They corresponded for a year before Daniel returned to Switzerland. The two married in the fall of 1958. Later they settled in the Washington, DC area. Thanks to Teodora’s efforts, Ljudevit Vrančić and the Runjaks were recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations. 

Teodora—now Theodora “Dora” Klayman—earned a degree in French and teaching English as a second language from the University of Maryland. She went on to teach in the Maryland public school system for 30 years. She has two children and three grandchildren. Dora began volunteering at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1999.