In the building of the former school, a Home was estabilished in 1942 for boys from the Protectorate aged 10 to 15. In the attic, the children were clandestinely taught, in the gym several performances were held (the ''Bartered Bride''). In Home 1, under inspiration from their educator, the boys formed a self-governning body, the so-called Republika Škid, and clandestinely published the journal ''Vedem''.

Ze vzpomínek Jiřího Kurta Kotouče, předsedy samosprávy „republiky Škid“ (rozhovor s Marií Rút Křížkovou):

Marie: What was an ordinary day like for the boys in L 417?
Kurt: Every day about forty boys went out to do various jobs in the ghetto. They were chosen from the two oldest houses, Numbers One and Five. From 1943 onwards, I too went to work. The work wasn't heavy; mostly we worked in the kitchen garden on the "Schanzen," the ramparts surrounding Terezín. At least we got outside. Our only supervisor was a Jewish gardener, a very pleasant young man we calledManci. I think his real name was Manuel. Every now and then we managed to steal a tomato or a kohlrabi. The gardening group was unique in another way too: to get to work they had to mareh a few hundred meters through "free territory," if you could call a road in the Protectorate free. In special cases boys were put to work elsewhere. George Brady was apprenticed to a plumber and Jan Boskovic to an electrician. Marie: Did all the other children from Number One, Five and the other eight homes go to school? Kurt: Yes, but only after a rather hectic and strenuous morning. Morning wake-up call was at six or seven o'clock. Then we washed under a dribble of cold tap water, and made our beds. After that the day's duties were assigned - for cleaning the rooms and corndors, the lavatories and the courtyard. Then came breakfast and roll call. All Homes fell in line in the corndor and the head of L 417, Otík Klein, read out the "daily orders." It was only then that classes started. Because of the shortage of space, classes were sometimes held right in the homes, but mainly they were held in the attics, where there was less danger that the SS would suddenly burst in on us. Whenever classes were held, some of the boys would be put on lookout duty. In case of an inspection by the SS, each form had to pretend to be doing something else, like cleaning the room. Marie: Was the teaching systematic, according to a syllabus? Kurt: Of the eight or ten teachers, only two or three were professionally trained. There were no teaching aids and the classes often contained children of different ages and very different previous schooling. Still, the teachers tried to maintain a certain system, and they consulted eachother in what they called pedagogical councils. There were three or four hours of teaching a day. I can still remember my math, history and geography lessons. Hebrew was optional. Like children everywhere we were sometimes very naughty, but in spite of everything we completely accepted our teachers' maxim that we must keep up with the children in schools outside. Perhaps the best answer to your question is that the system was created not just by the teachíng, but by the daily líving together - the boys, the teachers and supervisors. I only realized how effective it had been when I came back from the concentration camp and attended a normal school again. I had not really fallen behind the others in any subject. Marie: Were the children free to do what they wanted after school? Kurt: After taking our mess tins to get lunch, which we had to line up for outside the kitchen in the Hamburg barracks, we reviewed what we had learned that day, without the teachers present. There could be other activities as well. The favorite was Physical Training, such as a football match in the yard. The most unpopular was "the big cleanup." The only real free time was in the late afternoon before supper, roughly between four and five o' clock. A number of children had parents in Terezín, or at least some relatives, and that was when they went to visit them in other barracks. After supper the Homes became worlds unto themselves, where the children, depending on their age and their supervisors' abilities, amused themselves before bedtime. In any case, in the younger homes lightsout was very early, but we older ones stayed up late. We also went to see the famous Terezín performances - cabarets, plays, recitals, and concerts. And I also remember the coal-stealing expeditions after dark, one of which very nearly finished me because I couldn't get back out of the cellar I was in. And of course the most "advanced" of the boys already had their eyes on the girls. After lights-out at ten o'clock we went on talking in our bunks for a long time, until even the most persistent were finally overcome by exhaustion and fell asleep. I should explain that it wasn't usual for the pedagogues to live in the home with the boys. They had their own quarters in L 417. The fact that Eisinger decided to live with us and sleep in one of the three-tier bunks - just like one of us - says more about him than words can tell.