Eta’s Parents

What happened to your family during the Holocaust?

My mother was a slave laborer in Kielce Poland, Czestochowa, Poland then taken to Bergen Belsen and liberated from Dachau in April 1945. My father was first in hiding, but captured and sent first to Auschwitz, then to Melk, and finally liberated in Ebensee Austria. 

What would you like the world to know about your parents?

Even though both my parents lost everything..their families completely destroyed, they had the fortitude to start again. While the Holocause definitely scarred them both, neither lived their lives consumed by hate. We were taught to treat all with respect and dignity but to stand up for ourselves and others when we saw discrimination.

How do you think the legacy of the Holocaust has affected you and your family?

My sisters and I grew up without any grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins...and we were mindful of this as we raised our own children.  Because our parents had no one else besides my sisters and me, we were exceptionally careful to not cause further trauma to them.  There was always a heightened sense of vulnerability to stress which we did anything to avoid for them.