'My mother brought doughnuts ... '

  • Published
  • By Karen Abeyasekere
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  Born in Mauthausen concentration camp, Upper Austria, on April 29, 1945, Eva Clarke made her way into the world on the back of a coal truck, three days before the U.S. Army liberated the camp.

Less than three weeks previously, her heavily-pregnant mother, along with other concentration camp prisoners, had been put on the coal truck by German soldiers. They were being transferred from a slave labor camp in Frieberg, near Dresden, to Mauthausen, and during their nightmare trip were given no food and little water.

Not all survived the journey; those who didn't, had their bodies thrown off the coal truck along the way.

Eva, daughter of a Czech mother and German father, both of whom were Jewish, spoke at the Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony at RAF Mildenhall Chapel recently. She shared her parents' experiences of being kept prisoner for three years in the German concentration camps, adding her parents weren't the only family members who suffered at the hands of the Nazi soldiers.

"During World War I, my (paternal) grandfather was in the German Army, and received the Iron Cross 1st Class (the Iron Cross was awarded for bravery in battle). In World War II, however, because he was Jewish he was put into a concentration camp at Theresienstadt (in the Czech Republic)," she said.

"My parents spent three years at Theresienstadt, until the end of September 1944, when my father was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The next day, my mother volunteered to go to be with him, but she never saw him again. She later found out that he'd been shot dead Jan. 18, 1945, just over a week after liberation."

Eva's parents married in 1940. Her father was an architect and interior designer, and had a small workshop in Prague before the beginning of the war. Her mother was a law student at university, but when all the Czech universities were forced to close, she became an apprentice to a milliner, making hats. When they were sent to their first concentration camp at the end of 1941, Eva's mother was 24; her father was 34.

"I asked my mother how she was taken prisoner, because I imagined that in the middle of the night, German soldiers with guns came banging on the door, dragging people from their beds. But she said it was nothing like that. She told me they had received a card in the post saying that on a certain day, at a certain time, they had to report to a warehouse in Prague, near one of the mainline railway stations.

"When the Jews were sent to Theresienstadt, they were also told to take a small suitcase, and advised to take warm clothing, and pots and pans. When my mother went to report to the Germans, not only was she carrying her handbag and a suitcase, she was also carrying a large cardboard box, held together by a piece of string," recounted Eva. "When I asked her what on earth she had in the box, she said she was carrying two to three dozen doughnuts, 'because your father liked doughnuts.' For her, it was a very natural thing to do, as she had no idea where their next meal was coming from."

Eva said her mother had to spend three days and three nights in the warehouse; she had to sleep on the floor, weren't given much food or water, and at the end of the three days they were marched to the railway station by the German soldiers.

"There was one young German soldier who knew he had a bit of power, and he wielded it. He didn't harm them with a pistol; he was just a bit sarcastic. My mother was having great difficulty carrying her luggage and the box of doughnuts - the moisture from the doughnuts was making the cardboard soft, and the whole box was coming adrift.

"The soldier said (in German), 'I couldn't give a (expletive deleted) if that box goes with you - or not.' He implied that it wasn't going to do much good where she was going. He wouldn't have had any idea whatsoever what was going to happen to her, but it wasn't going to be good. He was just twisting the knife, metaphorically," said Eva.

When the families arrived in Theresienstadt, they were immediately split up. Men went to one part, women to another, and children to another. They were able to meet up sometimes during the day, but largely they led separate lives.

"My mother was fortunate enough to be given a job - it didn't pay, but it did make her life a bit easier. Her job was working with the man who had the responsibility of (distributing) the food," she said.

That meant her mother had access to food.

"When I say 'access to food,' she would actually steal it - a potato, a carrot; anything to make a more substantial soup to feed the 15 members of her closest family. That was her main worry - how on earth was she going to find food for all those people, amongst whom were her parents."

During 1943, Eva said her mother discovered she was pregnant.

"When I was about 10 or 12, I asked her how come she'd (gotten) pregnant, and she replied in a very clever way. She said, 'In the circumstances, you found comfort where you could, and to hell with the consequences.'"

But to become pregnant in a concentration camp was considered a crime punishable by death, because the Germans were trying to annihilate every single member of the Jewish race.

"When the Germans discovered my mother was pregnant, they made my parents sign a document saying that when the baby was born, he or she would have to be handed over to be euthanized - but what they really meant, was murdered," she said.

Eva's brother, George (his name in English) was born in February 1944. He wasn't taken away from her parents, but actually died of pneumonia, two months later.

"His death meant my life," said Eva. "Had my mother arrived at Auschwitz holding my brother in her arms, she would have been sent straight to the gas chamber. But because she'd arrived and wasn't holding a baby - although she was pregnant again with me, but hadn't told anybody else - she lived to see another day."

Retelling her mother's personal tale, Eva explained to those at the ceremony that when her mother arrived at Auschwitz, she was so bewildered and frightened that she just couldn't imagine what the place meant.

"She said to some of the women there, 'What goes on here? What happens here? When will I see my parents again?' But the women just laughed at her, in what she thought was a hysterical fashion, as though they'd lost their minds - but they hadn't. They just couldn't understand that anybody arriving in Auschwitz didn't know what went on there.

"They said, 'Well, we'll all go up in smoke, and you'll never see your parents again.' She just couldn't believe what they were saying."

The rest of Eva's family, apart from her parents and grandfather, were all sent to Auschwitz long before her parents. When they got there, they were able to keep their clothes and luggage, they weren't shaven or tattooed, and they were sent to what was called a 'family camp,' which were one or two huts where families could be together, so they could be forced to write postcards home.

"My aunt wrote a postcard to her cousin, who still lived in Prague at the time. It translated as follows:

'My dear ones, I am here with my husband, my sister and my nephew. All are well and in good health. My husband received a parcel yesterday from our housekeeper, and I would ask you to confirm this to her. I hope you are well and happy. Your parents were very well at the time of our departure. Write soon. Peter (Eva's 8-year-old cousin) looks well and looks forward to receiving news from you. Greetings and kisses, yours ...'

"At first glance, this looks like it says, 'All is well, having a wonderful time, wish you were here.' But my aunt was desperate to get a message out in code. She got the message out, it was understood, and it was acted upon.

"On the top left of the postcard was her full name. Underneath that was her birthday, March 21, 1904, but in the first line of the address was the Hebrew word for 'bread.'"

Eva's aunt was sending the message that they were starving. Her cousin understood and sent a parcel.

But even before the postcard was sent from Auschwitz to Prague, they were all dead.

Her mother was sent out of Auschwitz to a slave labor camp near Dresden, Germany. She was put to work on the VI unmanned flying bomb, riveting on the tail fin.

"My mother spent the next six months there, becoming more obviously pregnant, which became very dangerous for her," said Eva. "My (future) father-in-law was from South Wales, and was a navigator in the British Royal Air Force at the time, on bomber command taking part in the raids."

The raids started when her mother was in the slave labor camp. She said the Germans locked all the prisoners away during the raids, but the prisoners were pleased because they knew it was the Allies coming for them - even though they knew the next bomb could fall on them.

"When my father-in-law first met my mother after the war, when my husband and I first became engaged, he was absolutely devastated that he could have killed my mother," Eva said.

At the end of March, beginning of April 1944, the Germans started evacuating the camps. They wanted to leave as few living witnesses as possible as to what actually happened inside those camps, according to Eva. That's when the notorious death marches took place.

"My mother was on a coal truck for three solid weeks. It was only stopped to throw off the dead bodies. One time when it stopped, my mother happened to be standing by the door, when a farmer walked up to the truck," she said. "My mother was a scarcely living, pregnant skeleton - she weighed about five stone (70 pounds).

"The farmer brought her a glass of milk, but a Nazi officer standing next to her raised his whip, ready to beat her if she accepted it. But for some reason, he changed his mind, lowered his whip and let her drink the milk. To this day, she maintains that's what saved her life."

As the coal truck arrived in Mauthausen, Eva's mother saw the town's sign. At that moment, she started to give birth to Eva, and they both survived the experience.

Eva said there were two reasons for that. Firstly, on April 28, 1945, the Germans blew up the gas chamber at Mauthausen - one day before she was born.

The second reason was that three days after her birth, the U.S. Army liberated the camp.

Later, newborn baby Eva went with her mother back to Prague, and went to live at her aunt's house. They asked to stay for three weeks; they stayed for three years.

In 1948, Eva's mother was ready to consider marriage once more, as she knew for a fact that her husband had been shot dead in Auschwitz. Her stepfather, who was also Czech and Jewish, had previously escaped from his home country to England, joined the RAF and later met her mother. The family then moved to South Wales, where they settled, and Eva later met her husband.

The story of her mother's life during the war tells of the strength and courage that lady had.

That lady is now 91.

Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Michael Moore, 100th Air Refueling Wing chaplain, attended the ceremony, and said he was touched by Eva's story.

"Eva's perspective, both as a young survivor being born in the camp, and as the child of a survivor added a completely different perspective than any accounts I had previously heard," he said.

"It was a moving account of the horrors of the genocide, as well as a personal tribute of hope that came, even out of that extreme darkness. The fact that a little baby survived and lived ... wow!" he said.

Editor's note: Eva Clarke has asked if any members of the U.S. Army (or their families) in the 11th Armored Division, who were at the Liberation of Mauthausen Concentration Camp at the beginning of May 1945, might have a photo taken of "a skeleton weighing 70 pounds, holding a three-day old baby weighing three pounds". If anyone knows of such a photo in existence, and is able to get hold of a copy of it, please e-mail it to karen.abeyasekere@mildenhall.af.mil, along with your contact details, and the 100th ARW Public Affairs staff will ensure it is sent directly to Eva. She has requested this because she was the baby, and the "skeleton" was her mother.