My name is Eva Falk, born Klein. After the war, my mother remarried so my last name changed to Klima until I got married to Paul Falk.
I was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, on October 11, 1937, and lived there while the Nazis moved in. I was hiding with my mother and grandmother in a few different places, including a cleaning store, which was the last place for me because it was too dangerous, as I was only a child and didn't understand the importance of keeping quiet for my own survival. By then, my father had already been taken away to a concentration camp. For my own good and the safety of my mother and grandmother, I was placed in a Christian orphanage with false papers acquired from a good Christian friend. There were other Jewish children hidden there also. I was there approximately a year, where I was not allowed to be visited by any member of my family because I cried while they were there and wanted to be taken with them, even though I realize now that it was better for me there.
One day, even though she was not supposed to come, my mother came to visit me, which made me extremely happy. Shortly after she left, the Gestapo came into the orphanage, having found out that there were Jewish children hidden there. Then they demanded of the Mother Superior to hand over all the Jewish children. We were taken with some Christian children also to the Gestapo where they held and interrogated me for three weeks, trying to find out where my mother and grandmother were, which for their sake I did not know so I could not tell them. They tried to give me chocolate bars and sweets in exchange for the information. They brought in a Christian friend of my mother's and interrogated and beat her on the whereabouts of my mother. Still I couldn't help them, so they put me aboard a cattle car and deported me with other children to the concentration camp of Theresienstadt. In Theresienstadt we stayed in a small building where all the inmates were supervised by a woman Nazi officer. We were stripped of clothes and had our heads shaven. Each day, the only food we received was some diluted soup and a tiny piece of bread. We were made to work in the so-called garden. Even though I was only there for a few months, I became extremely sick, physically and mentally.
The day of liberation -- I remember it quite well: American and British airplanes flew overhead, dropping small parcels right where we were. The small parcels contained dolls, cookies, and chocolate. We grabbed at them and ate as much as we could. The next thing I remember, I was aboard a transport heading back to Bratislava, where I was met by members of the Jewish Committee, who set up, in a large hall, tables to feed the starving survivors. I was eating soup when I thought I heard a familiar voice saying, "My daughter is not among them." I got up feebly and ran to the lady, who proved to be my mother, and cried, embarrasing her while I said, "I thought I would never see you again in my life." She took me to the place where she was staying with my grandmother, and with the help of a good friend, a doctor, and medicine, I was nursed back to health -- but only physically. I kept on having nightmares of the Gestapo era, but didn't understand till later why I was involved and why this horrible thing had to happen. I found out later that my father was killed in a concentration camp; I also lost my grandfather, my uncle, and other members of my father's family. My mother remarried and we tried to pick up the pieces where we had left off before the war. It wasn't easy, especially because the Russians, as our liberators, tried to control our lives and took away our freedom again. We couldn't live this way, so in 1949 we emigrated to France, temporarily because my parents were not allowed to work there. A good friend of my mother's sent us an affidavit that gave us permission to enter the United States. We left December 19, 1951, from Bremenhaven on a boat supplied by the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society, and arrived in New York Harbor on January 2, 1952.
We lived in the HIAS building until we learned to speak English and my parents could find jobs and an apartment. Back in my native country, I was not taught much about Judaism, as the war started when I was about two years old. After the war, there was not too much time. While going to the school, a girl who became my best friend reawakened Judaism in me, and from then on I knew I was Jewish and tried to be the best Jew I could be. I started school and was put into the seventh grade. It was hard, but in a few months I spoke English, and did my best in school. I graduated from high school in June 1957. I started night college for accounting and working full time. I quit college because it got to be too much. I met Paul Falk, who I eventually married. A son was born to us in 1958, a daughter in 1962, and another son in 1968. During the early part of our marriage, the nightmares regarding the Holocaust persisted and I needed psychoanalysis to relieve my anxiety and nervous condition. Since then, our children have grown up, and our oldest son has finished college, gotten married, continued college for his Ph.D., and presented us with a cute grandson born March 19, 1981. We live in a New York suburb, in our own home. My husband works as an accountant. My husband and I belong to ZOA and B'nai Brith and are members of a synagogue at which my oldest son had his Bar Mitzvah, my daughter her Bat Mitzvah, and my youngest son will have his Bar Mitzvah at the end of November of this year [1981]. We visited Israel for the first time in 1976 but I know in my heart that we will be back again. We try to support Israel as much as possible by buying Israeli bonds when financially possible.
I hope that such a tragic era in our history will never be repeated. The memories of the Holocaust should be kept alive to ensure that future generations know the horrors that we endured, so they can prevent it from happening again. We can not and we will not permit another regime like the Nazis to take over and control and slaughter the Jewish population of Europe without fighting back.
Epilogueby Yehuda N. Falk My mother, Eva Falk, wrote the above in 1981. In preparing this version for the Internet, I have made a few grammatical corrections, but otherwise left the text untouched. My mother was one of the over one and a half million children that the Nazis sent to concentration camps. She continues to bear the psychological scars of the unspeakable horror to which she was subjected. As her first child, I was naturally named after her murdered father, Jenö Klein. Yet, there is hope at the end of this story: the intent of the Nazis to destroy the Jewish people was foiled. At the time of the writing of this document, my first son had been born -- Eva Falk now has seven grandchildren: my four sons and one daughter, and my sister's son and daughter. This continuity of the Jewish people represents the real victory over the Nazi monsters.
My mother continues to live in the house in suburban New York. Her connection to Israel, alluded to above, has been strengthened: she visited several times with my father (who passed away in December 2006), and my family and I live in Israel. My children, Eva Falk's grandchildren, are one by one taking their turns serving in the defense forces of the state of the Jewish people, helping to protect the world from a recurrence of an attempt to perpetrate a genocide of the Jews. Eva Falk's mother, Barbara Klima, lived to the age of 98. Her more extensive memoirs are also available on this site -- see the link below. Both of them are testimony to one of the darkest periods in the history of the human race, one which all of us must dedicate ourselves to "prevent ... from happening again". September 2004; revised January 2007 |