Eva Gertler b. 1946, Prague, Czechoslovakia. Immigrated to Australia 1948.

“I was born in Prague in 1946, probably the first child born there to concentration camp survivors. I have been told that I was an especially welcome baby, not only for my parents, but also for their close-knit group of friends, part of the remnant of Jewish Czechoslovakia. My parents, Tula and Moci, married in 1941, the year before their deportation to Terezin. Moci was deported to Auschwitz in October 1944, but both survived the war and were reunited in Prague after liberation. My father worked for the American Joint Jewish Distribution Committee, the highly effective relief organisation which assisted survivors. During the Communist takeover in 1948 he received ‘the wink’ to leave Prague immediately. We came to Australia aboad the Mirabooka, sponsored by close relatives who had arrived here by the skin of their teeth in 1939 as refugees from Austria.

Eva Gertler with her children

My parents worked long hours in Australia; my father first at the Frigidaire factory, then both parents together running a kosher restaurant and later a small blouse factory. Despite difficult conditions, they always behaved as if life could never be hard for them again. Other than having a working mother, there was nothing outwardly unusual about my childhood in a seaside suburb of Sydney. I attended public school, played with the children in the street. We spent weekends visiting our family who had sponsored us and going on outings with other survivors, mostly Czechoslovakian. They spoke Czech and occasionally German, were wonderfully warm and hospitable, and in retrospect, I can see, were extraordinarily close. They all adored Australia and often remarked that ‘the only thing important is to be happy’.

They never spoke about the Holocaust (a word not widely used then) and I cannot remember when I first learned about it. It is as if I always knew. I never questioned any of them, not about the tattooed numbers on their arms or why I had no grandparents. There were many topics off limits, but some information did slip out indirectly (e.g. ‘That woman was beautiful, even in Auschwitz with her head shaved.’).

When Tula passed away in 1962, Moci drew me close and recalled how she had attempted to join him and her mother when they were to be deported to Auschwitz, although she was not on the list. He pointed out that she would have clung to her mother at the selection and gone with her to the gas chamber. In 1967 I married Robert and then lived in the US for 4 years while he completed post-graduate studies. We now have three adult children: Greta, Paul and David.

In 1972, when Moci passed away suddenly, I discovered a cardboard box containing documents, some drawings and photographs. But it was many years before I could address this legacy. In this archive of Terezin memorabilia, I uncovered some of the personal history from which I had been sheltered and gained a greater understanding of people who had the courage and strength to set aside (or mask) their pain in order to rebuild life in a new country. With the fortieth anniversary of Liberation came a surge in interest in oral histories and survivors began to recount their experiences. Sadly, Tula and Moci could not be among them, although I feel that their meticulous safekeeping of the cardboard box archive is evidence of their intention to bear witness.

Today I hold the position of Coordinator of Volunteers and School Excursions at the Sydney Jewish Museum. In 1998, I co-curated an exhibition there called Within the Walls: Theresienstadt Ghetto 1941 -1945, which sheds light on the experiences of my parents and many others incarcerated in Terezin. I was immensely gratified at the response of the survivors, the public but especially that of my children and the other grandchildren of survivors who, often for the first time, came to understand some of the momentous events of their grandparents' lives. I feel privileged to have the opportunity to merge my personal journey with my professional interest in education and contribute to a rare and valuable program which is experienced by thousands of students a year.

The tragedy of the Shoah and the knowledge that my parents were defenceless slaves whose lives could have been snuffed out at a whim, continue to cause me pain. Nevertheless, I feel strongly that it is the duty of the descendants to transmit the history of the Holocaust to the next generation of Australians, accurately, and no matter how difficult we find it. In the end, the future is more important than the past, a future in which the lessons of the Shoah have been woven into the fabric of society, to strengthen the democratic freedoms cherished in this wonderful ‘New World’ of Australia.”