HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR TELLS HER STORY TO PACKED GERMAN AUDIENCES

BY ICEJ STAFF

In January, Holocaust survivor Eva Erben traveled to Germany to tell her story of suffering and loss to packed audiences, including over 3,000 German students, as part of a four-day speaking tour arranged by ICEJ-Germany to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Eva Erben, a 92 year-old Czech Jew from Ashkelon ended the tour at a large gathering in Stuttgart that drew over 2,100 German students – a record number for a Holocaust remembrance event.

The ICEJ’s German branch has invited Eva for several speaking tours now. They are always noted for her warm interactions with young German students eager to hear Eva’s personal story of surviving the Holocaust. Many times, Eva has been interviewed on stage by Germany’s most popular TV presenter, Günter Jauch.

Born in 1930 in Czechoslovakia, Eva lost her parents and grandparents in the Nazi genocide against the Jews. Somehow, she survived the Terezin, Auschwitz and Gross-Rosen concentration camps, as well as a grueling Death March late in the war that claimed her mother’s life. Three separate times, she stood in selection lines and came face-to-face with the monstrous Dr. Josef Mengele. After the war, she made her way to Israel and raised a family.

In December 1941, Eva’s family was taken to the Terezin camp, which was presented in Nazi propaganda as a model camp, though conditions were very difficult. In 1944, the family was sent to Auschwitz. Upon arrival at the notorious death camp, she stood for the first time in a selection line filing by Dr. Mengele. Eva recalls only looking down and seeing his shiny black boots. Though 14 years old, she had been told to lie that she was 18, which kept her alive to work.

Later, Eva and her mother were forced to walk to the Gross-Rosen camp. While leaving Auschwitz, a Nazi soldier gave her two left shoes to wear. She tried to swap one for a right shoe, but the soldier hit her in the face with his gun butt, dislodging two front teeth. So, she started walking to the new camp with two left shoes and two missing teeth.

Soon after, they were forced on a “Death March,” walking up to 30 kilometers per day. If you were too weak, they shot you, Eva explained. One marcher who did not make it was her frail mother. Eva was now an orphaned teen who weighed a mere 25 kilos.

A few nights later, the remaining marchers sheltered in a barn. Exhausted, Eva laid down in some straw that smelled of cow urine. When she awoke the next morning, everyone was gone, as the dogs used by the German soldiers to round up marchers did not smell her in the hay.

It was now late April 1945, and the war was almost over. Eva started walking east and finally came to a river, where she heard the click of a gun. A German soldier was readying to shoot her, but another soldier told him to save the bullet, as she was dying anyway. She fainted and woke up the next day on the farm of a Czech Catholic family who nursed her back to health. When Israel was founded three years later, she made her way there with Peter, a friend from Terezin who became her husband.

“Saving that one bullet has brought me three children, nine grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren,” Eva told her German listeners.

For 40 years, Eva blocked out the war and anything to do with Germany. That is until 1980, when she met some German youths traveling across Israel who were genuinely interested in the country and people. After that, she could speak German again, and in recent years she has repeatedly visited Germany to tell her story before gatherings large and small. Eva has become especially popular among German youths.

Eva added that one day of remembering the Holocaust each year is not so much to ask, given that her fellow survivors live with their memories every day. She concluded that it is extremely important for people to learn from history and stand up against antisemitism, now posing as anti-Israelism.