Born June 12, 1928, Znojmo, Czechoslovakia
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I remember the time in the Czernowitz ghetto when I used to take off the star from my coat, leave my ID, and go out to look for food. I was always hungry and scared. I went to a store that sold food to the clergy, because I knew my father had a priest who was an old schoolmate. It was easy for me to go out since I was blonde, blue–eyed, and spoke German fluently.
One day I saw a German soldier beating a man on the ground who was bleeding. The soldier was on crutches and his chest was full of decorations. He stood on one of the crutches and with the other he beat the man. I approached the soldier and in my perfect German lectured him on how wrong he was to beat a man who did not defend himself. As I was busy giving my lecture, people stood around listening. All of a sudden a policeman touched my arm and said, “That will be enough little girl; let’s go home.”
At that moment I realized, “I can’t go home. If I take him to the ghetto my whole family will be killed.” So I took him to an opera singer who lived not far from the ghetto. She was, of course, a gentile. When we arrived at the door and rang the bell a beautiful lady opened the door and I said, “Mama.” The policeman at the same time said, “Is this your daughter, Madame?” She ignored him, and pointing a finger at me, she said: “I told you once, I told you twice, home and homework.” The policeman in the meantime kept repeating his question, and, in desperation, she started hitting me in the face. It was so painful that I hardly cared what happened at this point. Then, as if in a dream, I heard the policeman saying, “Keep her, keep her, just stop hitting her.” After the policeman left, she took me inside, gave me a hug, and asked, “Are you from the ghetto?”.
I have forgotten so many names from during the Holocaust, but I still remember her.
©2002, Erika (Neuman) Eckstut. The text, images, and audio and video clips on this Web site are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.
One day in 1941, four men came to our house. They took my family and me to the outskirts of the town, where all the Jews from the town where gathered. We were about 500 Jews. The saddest part was that a lot of the killers were our neighbors. Up to that time, we had a very good life. The first ones that they shot were the Rabbi and his two sons. They continued to shoot only men. People were crying and praying. I turned to my father and asked him why I had to die. My father did not have an answer for me. He said, please don’t cry. When they ran out of ammunition, they took us to the courthouse until they could get more bullets.
As my father stood there, a man offered to take us back to our house. When we arrived at the house, it had been ransacked. The next day they came for my father. My sister went with him. On the way they met a man in a gray suit. He said that my father did not belong there and sent my father and sister back home.
The same afternoon the police chief came to us and helped us get away from that little town. We had several valuable possessions including silverware. We gave all of it to the police chief. He took us at night part way to the town of Czernowitz. When we arrived at the town we were forced to go into the town ghetto.
I now go as a speaker to all kinds of groups of people—from schools and the military, adults and children.
I was called to speak to eight year olds at the Children’s Museum. At first I did not want to speak because I did not know how I could talk to young children about the Holocaust. But I did go, and I told them about my happy childhood. I could not talk about my Holocaust experiences to them.
But then I thought of the movie The Hundred and One Dalmatians. I asked if any of the children had seen the movie. They all indicated by raised arms that they had. The five teachers had frowns on their faces. They expected me to talk about the Holocaust, not a movie. I asked the children to tell me the moral of the story. They did not answer. I said to them that we would go through story together and find the moral. And so I said: “There was a Mama dog and a Papa dog. They had nice little puppies. There was a mean lady who wanted a fur coat and was willing to kill all the puppies to get her coat.” And I asked the children what happened. They answered, “The puppies were saved.” I said that was true.
And then I asked them who ran with Mama dog and Papa dog when they ran in the street. I answered, a white dog, a black dog, a bird, a mouse, and so on. They all ran, small and big, to help Mama and Papa dog. But when my Mama and Papa ran in the street with my sister and me, no one ran with us. The moral of the story is, if you see anybody who needs help, don’t worry if he is white or black or yellow, or a Jew or a Muslim or a Christian. If you are a good human being, the first thing you must do is help those in need.
I would like to leave you with the thought of how important it is to love and never to hate.
©2002, Erika (Neuman) Eckstut. The text, images, and audio and video clips on this Web site are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.
My family came to Romania in 1931 from Znojmo in the Czech Republic when I was about three years old. My parents moved us to Stanesti, a town in the Romanian province of Bukovina where my paternal grandparents lived. My father told my grandfather that he wanted to take the whole family to Palestine and my grandfather said that it was a good idea but he would have to find someone who would take the cow, the horse, and the chickens. Father, unfortunately, could not find anyone. My family consisted of my mother, my father, and my older sister. A lawyer by profession, my father became the chief civil official of the town and we lived in the house assigned to him in that position.
In Stanesti, I attended public school as well as the Hebrew school, which my father helped to found. I enjoyed playing with the children in the town and in the school and I very much liked to be with my grandfather. In school I had very good grades. In the first grade I got all A’s with a star and then one day when I came home I saw the principal of the school coming to my father’s office. When I saw him, I told the girl who took care of us that I was going to go to my aunt’s and she said to be sure I was back for dinner and I said I would be. At dinnertime all seemed well and when dinner was over my father asked if I would bring the book we were reading. I brought the book and my father opened it and said that I should read it. I did a beautiful job. He closed the book and opened to a different page and I read it perfectly. These books had pictures at the tops of the pages. He turned to my mother and said that he could not understand what the principal was talking about. My father opened the book again and put his hand on a picture and then I could not read at all. What he had not realized before was that I had a photographic memory and had memorized the pages according to the pictures. My father wanted to know why I got all A’s on my report card and I told him I loved the teacher and the teacher loved me too. Then my father hired a teacher who taught me how to read and now I can read very well.
In the Hebrew school I also had a little problem. At the end of each year we put on a show. One year I had a long poem to memorize. My father was the one who quizzed me until I knew it by heart. At that time I went to see my grandfather and he wanted to know what took me so long to come and I said I had to learn the poem first.
My grandfather was very self-sufficient and did everything himself, from taking care of horses to making cherry wine. He would give me the cherries from the wine. He wanted to know when I had to recite the poem and he told me to come to him first and he would give me some cherries since I loved them so much. I did come and he gave me a little bowl and I ate them all.
When I recited the poem at the show I said the first few lines and then the last few lines. Then I started again from the beginning and everything went well. I could tell because the applause was outstanding. When I came down from the podium my father was standing there and he told me to breathe on him. Before I could breathe, my grandfather said that if my father had any questions he should come to him. They did not speak to each other for a whole week. Then all was well. I used to get a lot of lectures from my father as he did not agree with my grandfather a lot of the time.
My childhood was filled with hopes and dreams. In 1937 members of the Iron Guard tried to remove my father from his official position. Eventually a court cleared him of the charges and he was restored to his post.
In 1940 the Russians occupied Stanesti. At that time, Russian became the official language and we had to learn everything in Russian. I had difficulty learning but we were afraid of the Russians and we tried very hard to learn the language. The Russians were there for one year.
After they left, our life changed in a terrible way as that was when the pogroms began. Three men came to our house and asked us to go with them. When my father asked where we were going, they replied that he would see. We were taken to a large park outside the town and we saw that all the Jewish residents were there and in the middle was the rabbi and his two sons. They shot the rabbi and his sons and then killed almost all the other men. The last man to be killed was my uncle and as they had run out of ammunition they killed him by hand. I asked my father if I would also be killed and he said, “Please don’t cry.” All the children were crying, so how could I not?
Then the man told us that we would go to the courthouse. When we got there my father did not go in but stood outside and smoked. A man my father knew from our neighborhood came and said he would take my father home but my father would not leave without the family so the man said he would also take the family and my father’s parents and that is when we went home. When we arrived, the house was not the same as when we left it. The books in my father’s library were all torn and my grandmother and I started to cry and I must have cried a lot because I fell asleep and when I woke up it was morning.In the house were two men who wanted to take my father and my sister wanted to go with him. They did not want to take her but finally agreed to let her come along.
As they went, they realized that they were going the same way as the night before. My sister did not feel very well so my father said he wanted to take her back but the men replied that it was too late. When they were almost where they were the night before, a man in a grey suit came and said that my father did not belong there and sent him home.
When he returned home a little while later, the chief of police who held that post before the Russians told my father that he would take him and our family away from Stanesti. My father was told to bring whatever he could carry. My mother made two bundles with about three changes of clothing for each of us and when darkness came we were taken away. It was 15 kilometers from Stanesti to Czernowitz. It was a difficult walk for my father as he was not feeling well and had to walk with a cane, and for my grandmother who was elderly. Suddenly my father stopped walking and sat down on the ground. My mother and sister went to fetch some water. My grandparents started to cry and I tried to get my father to speak to me by hitting him on the chest. Then he motioned that he was alright. We finally arrived at Czernowitz and about a week later they set up a ghetto and we went there.
The ghetto was one of the worst places on earth. We had no food and we had to sleep on the floor. My grandparents were with us in the ghetto but in a different room. There were many people in the room that my parents, my sister, and I occupied. My father decided that all the children should be schooled, even though teaching was against the law. I was not a good student and paid no attention to my father who was trying to teach us. When he questioned me, I could not answer the first time or the second time. He said that I hurt his feelings because I did not have an answer to his question and I explained that I really did not pay any attention because the only thing on my mind was a piece of bread. I felt badly that I hurt my father because, although I was a tomboy, I adored him and wouldn’t purposely hurt him.
I decided to go out and look for food and so I took my ID card and the yellow star and left. I had blonde hair and blue eyes and spoke German so I was not afraid of being stopped. My father had a friend who was a Greek priest. I knew his name so I decided to go to the store where the priest and nuns went to purchase their food. When I came there I picked out what I thought we could use and when I went to pay I gave the priest’s name and they wrote down what I took. Then I left. When I returned to the ghetto, my mother fainted and my father wanted to know how I paid. I told him that I gave them the name of the priest and they gave me the food. My father wanted me to go to the priest and tell him what I had done and I went. The priest told me that I could come for food as often as I wanted but not to talk about it to anybody else. I did as he said. After about eight months I went out as usual and I saw a soldier on crutches beating a man. I went over to the soldier and started to give him one of the lectures that my father used to give me, asking him why he was beating a man who was doing nothing to him.
The soldier said the man was nothing but a dirty Jew. I asked him what difference did it make as the man was doing nothing to him. At that time, a policeman took my hand and said that we would go home. I could not take him to the ghetto because I knew my whole family would be killed. I took him to a house where a Christian lady was living. I rang the bell and when she started using the key to open the door, I said, “Mama.” When she opened the door, the policeman asked, “Is this your daughter, madam?” She ignored him and said to me, “I told you once, I told you twice: Home and homework.”
Then she started to hit me right and left in the face and I thought she would knock my head off, it hurt so bad. Like in a dream, I heard the policeman tell her to stop hitting me so that I could go in and do the homework and he left. She very slowly took me in the house. She wanted to know where I came from and I told her the ghetto. She said that I would have to go back there. I thanked her and left. When I came home I told my family what had happened and my father said I would not go out again.
©2008, Erika (Neuman) Eckstut. The text, images, and audio and video clips on this Web site are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.
On April 16, 1957, my husband, Robert Kauder, passed away. He would have turned 37 on May 27, his next birthday. I lived in Prague had two children at that time—my daughter was ten and my son was five. Every day, after my husband passed away, I went for a walk and left my children with “Babinka” (grandma), who stayed with me. She was like a mother to me although she was not technically family. I did this for about a month. One day she told me that when I returned, the children would be in an orphanage. I hesitated for a moment and then left. Then I started to think about how she was not my mother, she was really a stranger to me and my children, and I could not believe that she would do this to me.
When I returned from my walk I went to my children’s room and my daughter was still awake. We hugged and cried and then my daughter said, “Maminka, you came back.” We both cried and cried. That evening I did not speak to Babinka at all.
In the morning the doctor came to the house and he gave me a long talk, asking me why I would not talk to Babinka. He said that he would put me away in a psychiatric ward because for the last month I would not speak to anybody. Babinka said that she would try her own home remedy. The doctor agreed to this as Babinka would not let me go to the psychiatric ward. But it did not work out the way she thought so she called for help.
I felt very bad when I realized what really was going on and I excused myself to Babinka for my behavior. I was in such deep mourning at that time that I gave no thought to what I was doing to my children and to Babinka. Then when Babinka and I talked we loved each other even more than before.
After that, I received a letter from my mother and sister, who were living in New York at the time, and they asked me to please come and live with them. I went and applied to come to the United States and a few weeks later I got a call to come and talk to the government official. When I got there the guy who was in charge asked me why I wanted to go to the United States and I told him that I did not have anybody in Prague and I would like to go see my family and be with them. He said, “What did you lose, just a man? You are a young woman and you can find another one.”
I got very angry and I told him that if my husband had not fought in the army, he would not be sitting here being rude to me. From there I went to the castle to see the president of Czechoslovakia and when I got there, I had my little son with me and there were two soldiers with bayonets up and they crossed them so I said I was going to leave my son with them and if one hair would be crooked on his head I was going to cut both of their heads off. I went through the bayonets and as soon as I took a step there was a man and he asked me what I was doing. I said I was coming to see the president and he asked me if I had an appointment. I told him I thought the president was for the people and I am one of the people.
He said to come with him and when he opened the door I saw the president leave and I spoke to him and he said the secretary is very capable. The secretary asked me what was the problem and I complained about the other government official. She said that there is no problem in sending me to the United States but the children of a Czech officer cannot go to a capitalistic country and be beggars on Broadway. I told her that I would like to see my mother but I would never, never leave my children behind. That was the end of my interview with the secretary and I went home and was very scared about what was going to happen to me because we were under a communist regime.
Early in 1960, I received a letter from the minister and he said that if I wanted to go to the United States I would have to give up my pension, my citizenship, and my house. I waited two weeks and went to see General Svoboda (my husband had been his adjutant) and he said he understood my fear. Then he told me I should not let my children go to school and he would come and stay with them until I got back from court. He told me that he would guarantee me that I would see the children again.
So I went to court and I was told that I would also have to go to court to give up the children’s citizenship. I listened to everything and then left. Then I got a letter for my court case and went with a lawyer friend. They took my citizenship, pension, and house away and then I had to go for the children. When it came to the children and I had to give away their citizenship, a woman got up and said that she was appointed guardian of the children by the courts. I jumped up and told her I had never seen her. I asked her if she knew that the children had been very sick, and the friend who came with me tried to tell me to keep quiet and finally told me to shut up. Then people came to my house to take inventory to tell me what I could and could not take with me and I still have the papers to show.
I came to the United States with my children on April 11, 1960, and I said “God bless America” in Czech as I did not speak English.
©2011, Erika (Neuman) Eckstut. The text, images, and audio and video clips on this Web site are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.
I was very fortunate to have had a happy childhood. The memories of my childhood kept me going during the terrible war. My childhood was just beautiful. I received a great deal of love and caring from both my parents and grandparents.
When we first moved from Czechoslovakia to Romania, close to my grandparents, I was almost two years old. My sister was nearly seven years old. My grandparents did not have any other grandchildren in Europe. My sister was a real little lady, perfect in looks and behavior. I, on the other hand, was very lively and my behavior left a lot to be desired. Our grandparents loved us with all their hearts. I loved them both very much. We became friends from the first moment I came to their house. My grandfather would take me to see his horse, his cow, and his chickens everyday. My sister did not like to visit the animals but I loved seeing them.
When I would go out with my grandfather to feed the animals I was always nice and clean and my clothes were neatly pressed, but by the time we returned home I was a big mess. My grandmother was always very upset with my grandfather because of the way I looked. As a result my grandfather gave me a red shirt and pair of pants to wear when I went with him. However, he was unable to provide me with shoes, so then my grandmother complained about my dirty shoes.
We were all very happy in Romania. The reason we had moved from Czechoslovakia to Romania was that my father wanted to take his parents with us to Palestine because Hitler had come to power. When my father spoke to his father about leaving, his father, my grandfather, said that if he could take his horse, his cow, and his chickens he would gladly go to Palestine but he would not leave without them. My grandparents had a little farm there in Romania and they would work the whole day on it.
As soon as I was old enough my grandfather bought me a pony to ride. We had great times with my grandparents on their little farm; there was always something going on. I could go on and on and spend a whole hour talking about everything I could have done. I loved the Passover time. My grandmother would change the dishes at Passover. The whole house was scrubbed and it looked like new. My grandfather would sit in a white kittel. My grandparents were very religious. I would ask the four questions at the seder. The seder was a big event in our family. When I had a problem finding the afikomen, my grandfather, who had the most beautiful blue eyes, would wink at me in order to show me where it was.
At home our parents were quite strict and the only shadow in my childhood was that we had to read a great deal. My father was very strict about our studies. I did not like having to study. My sister, on the other hand, always had her nose in a book. After I would finish a book, my father would sit me down and ask me what the moral of the story was. I did not like to tell the moral of the story because it took me an hour to figure it out. In this hour I could have had lots of fun. I could have climbed trees or played with my grandfather.
My childhood memories were all happy ones. The good memories are the ones that kept me going when times got so bad. We had plenty of bad times when we were in the ghetto and our grandparents wouldn’t eat anything because it was not kosher. They were strictly kosher and if they did not believe the scarce food we had to eat was kosher, they did not eat.
One day I was sitting with my grandfather and talking and he asked me to go and bring my father into the room to him. I found my father and sent him to see my grandfather. When my father came back he told us that Grandfather had just died. I couldn’t believe it. I had just been sitting and talking with him. My father buried him in the Jewish cemetery in Czernowitz. That was a terrible time for me to lose my grandfather. He was so close to me. It was terrible for me. My father tried to console me by saying that my grandfather had died a natural death and was not murdered by Nazis. I was still so very unhappy when my grandfather died.
©2011, Erika (Neuman) Eckstut. The text, images, and audio and video clips on this Web site are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.
I remember the time we left Russia and we fled to Poland. We had to leave Kiev in a hurry in 1944. My friend Monika told me that the NKVD secret police were coming to get my sister and the lady we were with, Mrs. Dirnfeld. Monika didn’t know that Beatrice was my sister. I never talked about my sister and who she was, or the lady, Mrs. Dirnfeld.
So it was that we left through the forest, Katarinovka. In the forest, we came upon a group of Czech soldiers, one of whom happened to be Mrs. Dirnfeld’s son. They tried to take us along but were told it is against the rules to take civilians along. After a while Mrs. Dirnfeld’s son returned and said that two of his friends would take the girls, and he would take care of his mother. He planned with his mother where she should go and told her that he would come and pick her up later. Everything went according to the plan and we met up again in Poland with Mrs. Dirnfeld.
When we arrived in Poland, we went to a house and Mrs. Dirnfeld told the lady of the house that she was the wife of an officer and that my sister and I were her daughters. She said that her husband would come to pick us up later. The lady brought us to a room upstairs where we could wait. When we arrived there, it was January 1945. It was very cold, so none of us took our jackets off. All of a sudden, my sister came in and said we have to go out through the window. Mrs. Dirnfeld started to protest and my sister did not listen, she just ran to the window, pushed it open, and told me to just throw Mrs. Dirnfeld out! Mrs. Dirnfeld had been trying to say that she could no longer run and that she would stay with these people. My sister said that she heard the lady say that she has three Jews and if you want to, come and get them. So I asked Mrs. Dirnfeld if she would go out the window and she said no. Then I showed her my fist and asked her if she wanted it in her mouth. She said no, so I pushed her to the window and then shoved her out. Outside, my sister was already waiting, and with her hands extended, she broke Mrs. Dirnfeld’s fall and she was okay. I looked out, but there were no hands held out for me, so I jumped and we all ran.
We found military trucks when we came to Snina, a place in Slovakia. There, we found a whole brigade of Czechs. They were happy to see us. They could see we were hungry so they gave us food and we ate and ate, until there was none left. At that point we were all three very sick. Then it became a problem of what they should do with us. Mrs. Dirnfeld was able to join the army and my sister was ready to join too, but I needed to be 21 and I was only going to turn 16 in June. That was not enough. They thought we should get married. One of the officers came to see us and he looked at my sister and saw how beautiful she was. He said he would marry her and take me along too. My sister did not agree. She said she did not even know him or love him and she did not know how to cook. She did not want to get married. The officer left and when he went to his friend, his friend asked him how the girls were. He said the older one is beautiful and he would like to marry her, but the younger one, me, was not worth a mention. The army left and again we were alone. We were staying in the home of a peasant.
That first night, someone trying to hurt us threw a rock through the window where we were staying. During that night, 16 other Jews were killed. When we woke up, we knew we needed to change our loca- tion, so my sister gave the man a four-leaf-clover charm as payment. She used to have the charm on a chain but had already given it away. At this point, she had been holding the charm in her mouth. I also had a charm that I was hiding in my mouth but my sister did not need it for the payment. I was actually able to hold on to mine and now my daughter wears it.
The peasant took us to Humene, where the army was. He left us with a young lady who he said she would help us. She came out with a little baby in her arms. She told us that she had to go to the village to do something for her mother and she needed to have the baby fed and the floor needed to be washed because the soldiers had slept there the night before. So she left and my sister told me to take care of the baby and she would clean the floor. There were noodles to feed the baby, but I didn’t know what to do with them, so I asked my sister. She said to just put them in water and boil them, so I did. I did not know how to get the water hot first. I just put it all in a pot and cooked it. After a while, I looked into the pot and what was there was a big lump, all stuck together. I couldn’t feed it to the baby like that, so I took it in bites, chewed it up to make it soft, then put it in the baby’s mouth. The baby was very good and did not mind at all. She ate whatever I put in her mouth.
All of a sudden, I heard guns and yelling “You German Nazis!” So I opened the door with the baby in my arms, went in front of my sister, and told her to disappear. The soldiers started yelling “Where is she?” and I told them that she was not away, that she is here but she is not a Nazi but a Jewish girl who is married to a Czech officer. Then I started to make up a story that she was crazy and he did not know it. When I let her wash the floor she did not know who was who and they were yelling we are brothers. I said I know that, but she does not.
At that moment, a Czech soldier came in and I could not understand what he was doing there. I started to tell him that the Russian officers thought my sister was a spy. He took over and made such a tragic story of it that I started to cry and the Russian officers had to leave. They told me not to worry, that they would come back and marry me. When they left, the Czech soldier told me that there were 16 Jewish people there and they were all killed the night before and they were worried that we were there too. So they sent out soldiers and they went to the farmer we stayed with. They asked him what happened to us and he told them that he brought us to the house with the baby during the night. My sister wanted to know where the officer was who wanted to marry her. The soldiers told her that he was fighting somewhere. This was January 1945. My sister found him some weeks later and on March 31, 1945, she married him. And that was very good for us. He took me along with them.
©2011, Erika (Neuman) Eckstut. The text, images, and audio and video clips on this Web site are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.
