Triumph of Hope

Ruth Elias, Margot Bettauer Dembo

Description

Triumph of Hope From Theresienstadt and Auschwitz to Israel
Now available in English, here is the award-winning and internationally acclaimed testament of a Jewish woman who was taken to Auschwitz while several months pregnant, where she was forced to confront perhaps the most agonizing choice ever imposed upon any woman, upon any human being, so that both she and her newborn infant should not die in a Nazi "medical" experiment personally conducted by the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele. And just as vividly, Ruth Elias recounts the aftermath of her imprisonment, and the difficult path to a new life in a new land: Israel, where new challenges, new obstacles awaited.

"One of the most powerful memoirs provided to us by a survivor." --Indiana Jewish Post and Opinion

"Well-written...not only provides a remarkably honest picture of the unspeakable reality of living in ghettos and slave-labor and death camps, but also what it meant to be Jewish in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s...This is one of the best Holocaust memoirs I have read." --Washington Jewish Week

"The understated tone of this memoir adds to the author's powerful re-creation of her life as a young Czechoslovak Jewish woman during the Holocaust." --Publishers Weekly

Sujets

• Holocaust
• Histoire
• Jews
• The Holocaust
• Jewish history
• History of Africa
• History
• Holocauste

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 1999
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780471673095
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Triumph of Hope
Triumph of Hope
From Theresienstadt and Auschwitz to Israel

Ruth Elias
Translated from the German by Margot Bettauer Dembo
Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
English translation copyright 1998 Ruth Elias. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
R. Piper GmbH Co. KG, M nchen 1988.
German edition published in 1988 as Die Hoffnung erhielt mich am Leben . New German edition published 1990.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone]. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley Sons, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158-0012, [phone], fax [phone], email: [e-mail].
The assertions, arguments, and conclusions contained herein are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council or of the United States Memorial Museum.
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Elias, Ruth
[Die Hoffnung erhielt mich am Leben. English]
Triumph of hope: from Theresienstadt and Auschwitz to Israel/Ruth Elias; translated from the German by Margot Bettauer Dembo.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-471-6365-1 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 0-471-350613 (paper : alk. paper)
1. Elias, Ruth, 1922- . 2. Jews-Czech Republic-Ostrava-Biography. 3. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)-Personal narratives. 4. Theresienstadt (Concentration camp). 5. Auschwitz (Concentration camp). 6. Holocaust survivors-Israel-Biography. 7. Immigrants-Israel-Biography. 8. Ostrava (Czech Republic)-Biography.
I. Title.
DS135.C97E45313 1998
940-53 18 092-dc21
[B] 97-37418
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4
This book is dedicated to my beloved and wonderful little family .
Contents
1 Growing Up in Ostrava
2 Going into Hiding in Pozo ice
3 In the Theresienstadt Ghetto
4 Auschwitz
5 In the Labor Camp
6 Liberation and Return
7 My Israel
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Time is passing quickly for me these days. I tend to look ahead, for the years have taught me not to look back. But from time to time I do-and then the immediate and pervasive sensation I have is of the concentration camp. It haunts me and has left deep scars. I cannot rid myself of it, even though I have tried all my life to push it aside. It keeps coming back , so I am condemned to live with it. I can t describe the sensation to anyone who has not gone through this kind of hell; after all , nobody can comprehend the incomprehensible. In a way , my persecutors have succeeded: Memories of their deeds continue to pursue me. To escape this feeling, at least in part, I keep running. Ever since my time in the camps I have been hurrying onward, moving forward without much thought or reflection. Running , always running. I am convinced that I have lost out on much that is beautiful because I could never stop long enough to get deeply involved in some of the things I would have liked to do. Will I ever be rid of this restlessness? The only time I seem able to relax is with my grandchildren. When I look at them I want to cry. Sometimes I think I have been allowed this happiness only in a dream, to experience something I once thought I would never have. My grandchildren are my triumph over my persecutors, and I rejoice that I have been able to start a new family whose roots are in our homeland. In Israel .
My dear grandchildren . . .
This book is dedicated to you. Your fathers grew up without a family. When they were still little boys, my heart would ache each time they asked me, Why don t we have a grandpa and a grandma? Why don t we have any uncles and aunts? Why do all our friends get presents from relatives and we don t? Why do we celebrate the holidays without a family? Their words hurt me deeply. How could I possibly explain to them , while they were still children , why they were denied these things? Your grandfather and I made a big mistake in bringing up our sons: We didn t want to burden them with our past, so we never told them about it. We wanted them to grow up as free citizens in a free Israel , without any involvement in what had happened to their parents. Consequently , a certain distance developed between them and us, a lack of understanding that is beginning to fade only now that they themselves are parents .
Years from now you will understand what I have written. When you are older you will learn about it in school, you will read books and see films about it, but it probably will sound only like a chapter from a history book. Whenever you hear or read about the persecution of the Jews during the Nazi period, think of your grandfather Kurt and grandmother Ruth, who endured this hell and who, in spite of the Nazis, managed to survive and pass along to future generations the truth about the horrors through which they lived . Soon my generation will be gone-that is Nature s law-and then only this account will testify to what happened to us .
I m glad I could write this book for you, glad that you have grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins . Please treasure the bonds of family. Don t ever let anyone destroy these ties, even though sometimes there may be disagreements among you. It was such a bond that gave me the strength to survive. Yes, I survived, but then came the day when I realized that I was alone. All alone .
1
Growing Up in Ostrava
It was a small house . A little shop in front, at the back a large yard with a huge chestnut tree, a stall for our horse and a shed for the carriage-all enclosed by a wooden fence. On weekdays we gathered for meals in the roomy kitchen that was presided over by our cook, Herminka, who invariably became upset when I refused to eat the good food she had prepared. We sat at a long kitchen table covered with a blue-and-white checkered oilcloth: my father; my mother; my sister, Edith, who had inherited my mother s good looks-a beauty so striking that people would turn around to stare at her on the street-and I, a plain little girl who always stayed in the background, embarrassed because I was not as pretty. Quite an average family, the Hupperts, living in P voz, a suburb of Ostrava, in that portion of Czechoslovakia known as Moravia.
Fanny Ringer, my grandmother on my mother s side, lived nearby. Once a week my sister and I got dressed up and went to visit her. On our best behavior, we would spend one or two hours there, consuming enormous amounts of sweets, but always glad to return to our own backyard.

The house in which I was born (top) and one of our family s shops. Photographed in 1965.
Our paternal grandmother, Emilie Huppert-we called her Oma, the German word for grandma -lived in Mariansk Hory (Marienberg), which, like P voz, was a suburb of Ostrava. We had to take the streetcar to get there, and because it was far and the trip took a long time we didn t visit her very often. But whenever we did, it was always with great enthusiasm. She lived in a large one-story house with many small rooms. Facing the street was a store where one could buy just about anything-food, spices, candy, liquor, soap, shoelaces, and lots of other things. The smell in that place was wonderful.
The image of my grandmother is deeply engraved in my memory. A stately, vigorous woman, she presided over the store and managed everything by herself. Nothing escaped her. Although she was strict, she had a kind and loving heart. As soon as we arrived, she would give each of us a small colored candy stick that, when licked, would turn our mouths red, blue, or orange. The more we licked, the smaller and pointier the stick became. Then Edith and I would run into the big courtyard, where a huge lilac bush grew. In spring I couldn t get enough of this bush, with its glorious fragrance and lush white panicles of blossoms. Nearby stood a linden tree, its trunk encircled by a narrow bench. In bloom it gave off a marvelous aroma. During linden blossom time we visited Oma quite frequently because the flowers had to be collected and dried to make linden-blossom tea, which replaced the regular tea Oma drank. She had to be frugal because she was rather poor.
Not far from the house was a small field that provided fodder for the horse. Some of this was dried as hay and stored in the barn for the winter. Chickens ran around the yard, and Oma knew exactly where to find their eggs. There were geese and ducks too, and Oma stuffed the geese. I always felt sorry for one of these creatures when she forced her homemade Schlischken into its throat, massaging the thin neck until the mixture had gone down. The poor goose grew so fat that after a while she couldn t move anymore, so she just sat there in a large shallow basket lined with straw. What was she waiting for? Oma deftly continued with the stuffing, testing the goose s weight every time she lifted her. Sometimes two or three geese were stuffed at the same time. On our next visit, if the geese were gone I knew they had been slaughtered, and this always made me sad. But then I would get