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Oral history interview with Eva Burns

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1997.A.0441.4 | RG Number: RG-50.462.0004

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    Oral history interview with Eva Burns

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Eva Burns (née Gerstl), born in 1924 in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes her father, who was a pediatrician, and her mother, who was a concert pianist; living a mostly secular life with some intermarriages in her mother's family; how the German takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1939 drastically affected their lives; her brother being sent to Kladno and the rest of the family to Theresienstadt; receiving help from non-Jews; being deported to Theresienstadt on November 17, 1942; how Theresienstadt was a "show" camp with books, a coffee house, and concerts; being part of a chorus preparing Verdi's Requiem and observing religious activities and humor; being transported to Auschwitz in May 1944 and six weeks later to Christianstadt, a women's labor camp; helping to sabotage grenades in the ammunition factory; the cruelty of the women SS guards; escaping from a death march in February 1945; assuming a German identification and working in the Sudetenland; how in the spring of 1945 she went to Prague, where she worked for the family of an SS officer serving at the front; revealing her Czech identity in May 1945; getting married in November 1947 in Prague; and immigrating to the United States in June 1948.
    Interviewee
    Eva Burns
    Interviewer
    Josey G. Fisher
    Date
    interview:  1980 February 10
    Geography
    creation: Melrose Park (PA)
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Gratz College Holocaust Oral History Archive

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    2 sound cassettes (60 min.).

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
    Conditions on Use
    No restrictions on use

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Burns, Eva, 1924-

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    The Gratz College Holocaust Oral History Archive conducted the interview with Eva Burns in Philadelphia, PA on February 10, 1980. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received the tapes of the interview from Gratz College on September 26, 1997.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:35:55
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn508625

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