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.
Refer to the files for digital copies of the tragic correspondence and diary entries written by Michael Eckstein after he separated from his wife and children in August 1940 and moved into the apartment at Zeile 12,
November 1938. Antonín with a knit cap and suitcase on the gravel walkway in the garden of the family home in Veverská Bítýška (Note from Antonin: “October 1938 departure from Bítýška”). INT, Antonín and Michaela play indoors in the children’s room in Brno, putting the dolls to bed. Dark shots, Antonín plays with a toy car on the floor. 01:01:54 More INTs of children’s room, with projected lights. Antonín and Michaela ride on toy stuffed animals. 01:02:16 Antonín in the vestibule with jacket and hat, he carries postmail and a newspaper. Michaela washes and hangs laundry in a sunlit room. She gets help with her hat and paces in the vestibule. End 01:04:27.
Children play in their room in Brno