Eva Parush
Author: Eva Parush
Publisher: Makor Jewish Community Library
Place of publication: Caulfield South, VIC.
Year of Publication: 2006.
Location of Book: Lamm Jewish Library, State Library of Victoria and National Library of Australia.
Cities/town/camps: Carpathian Ruthenia: Ruske Pole, Berehove ghetto; Poland: Auschwitz; Germany: Unknown labour camp, Lübeck; Czechoslovakia: Prague; Australia: Melbourne
Note: those cities/towns/camps underlined are those which are most central to the narrative.
Genre: Memoir
Key events/experiences: ghetto; concentration camp.
This is my life is a short 87-page memoir written by Eva Parush, who survived the horrors of Auschwitz before creating a new life for herself in Australia.
Pages 1-17 detail the history of the author’s hometown, Ruske Pole, family tree and early upbringing. Pages 18-43 recount her wartime experiences in Auschwitz and an unknown forced labour camp in Germany. Pages 44-76 describe her return to Prague after liberation and eventual emigration to Melbourne in 1949 as well as recounting her life in Melbourne, and the tragic death of her daughter Gilda in 1997. Pages 77-87 present photos of the author’s children and grandchildren in Australia as well as a family tree. The memoir includes 48 family photographs which are interspersed throughout.
Eva was born 27 November 1927 in Ruske Pole, a small village at the foot of the Carpathian mountains of Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine) close to the border with Hungary and Romania, a region known as Carpathian Ruthenia. She was the first-born child of Chaya Slomovic and Moshe Klein. Eva was raised in a Yiddish-speaking religious family within a small, strictly Orthodox Jewish community, though she spoke Czech at school. She had a younger sister, Mindu, and two younger brothers, Yechiel and Shmulie. Her extended family lived in nearby Tacovo on the border to Romania.
Though Eva does not recall these events, the southern part of Carpathian Ruthenia was awarded to Hungary following the Munich Agreement in 1938. The remaining portion, including Ruske Pole, was soon occupied and annexed by Hungary in March 1939. Sometime in 1941, Eva recalls the first signs of war when Hungarian authorities took her father to a labour camp. The Germans subsequently occupied their district in 1942 and the Jewish villagers were subjected to antisemitic discrimination and forced to don the yellow star. As Ruske Pole was too small for a ghetto, Eva’s immediate family were sent to the Berehove ghetto whilst her extended family was interned in the Tacovo ghetto. Eva and her family spent about two months in the ghetto before being loaded onto trains to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Then fifteen years old, Eva survived selection with her sister Mindu. Upon arrival in Auschwitz, Eva’s aunt Bertie, who was already a prisoner, found the girls and brought them to her barrack saving their lives as the young women in their original barracks were killed the following day.
Eva spent approximately 6-8 months in Birkenau under her aunt’s care (alongside her sister and four cousins) until the group was selected for a labour transport. However, after an hours-long delay, the girls were instead sent to the gas chambers due to an allied railway bombing halting their transportation. They were forced to undress and crammed into the chambers, certain of their death. Miraculously, however, the whole group was pulled out at the last second – as the railway had reportedly been repaired. After this narrow escape, the women were deported to an unknown labour camp near the German city of Bremen where they were forced to work in gruelling conditions at a munitions factory for several months. When the allies began bombing Bremen, the prisoners were all put on a train towards Lübeck. However, the train was bombed by the allies enroute, killing many. Eva and Mindu survived the bombing, though many in their carriage perished, and ran into the forests where they took refuge in a nearby farm for more than a week until they were finally liberated by American soldiers in May 1945.
The girls then stayed in UNRRA run camp near Lübeck for 2-3 months. There, they learnt that their parents and younger brothers had been murdered in Auschwitz. They then travelled to Prague with their surviving relatives, aunt Bertie and her daughters. Eva and Mindu moved in with their pregnant aunt Ida and her husband Mali. In 1948, amidst growing uncertainty under the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, Mindu emigrated to England upon the urging of Uncle Zoli who was stationed in Birmingham with the Czech British Legion. However, Aunt Ida made plans to emigrate to Australia with her husband, Mali, and their two young children with Eva, however their landing permit only covered Ida’s immediate family. In September 1948, Ida and her family emigrated to Australia in September 1948 leaving Eva behind for nearly a year. Eva supported herself working at a woman’s clothing store and was eventually able to join her family in Melbourne in 1949 after Ida sent her a landing permit. It is unclear how the family managed to obtain the original landing permit or if they were aided by any Jewish organisations.
Mindu, having met her future husband, Alan, chose not to emigrate to Australia and the couple were married in 1950. Mind and Eva would not see each other for 25 years when Eva travelled to England to visit her. In Australia, Eva lived with her Aunt Ida and Uncle Mali, who were able to establish a successful fur trading business. After six months in Australia, Eva met her future husband, Nelson Parush and they were married in 1952. The couple had two children, Morry and Gilda. Gilda’s son Ricky was born in 1993. Tragically, Gilda passed away in 1997, after a long and difficult battle with mental illness and Eva dedicated her memoir to her grandson.
This is my life is a brief memoir providing a general overview of the author’s wartime experiences. As such, certain details, such as the author’s age and chronology are estimated or missing. Eva’s memoir was written and dedicated to her grandson, Ricky, as a gift on the occasion of his bar mitzvah. In 1993, she was interviewed by her niece, with the tapes providing the details for her memoir, which often reads as a transcript. Eva’s memoir was written as part of the Makor Jewish Community Library’s “Write Your Story” Program under the editorial assistance of Adele Hulse and Lionel Sharpe of the Jewish Genealogical Society.