Holocaust survivor speaks at Warwick

“I am a survivor – but only just,” the words of Holocaust survivor, Eva Clarke, who came to Warwick on November 24 to give a talk to a lecture theatre brimming with students.

Eva was only a few days old when she escaped Mauthausen Concentration Camp (Austria) in the arms of her mother. Eva was born on 29 April 1945, the day after the Germans destroyed the gas chamber at Mauthausen, and merely a few days before the camp was liberated by American soldiers.

“They did not consider the people in front of them as being human beings,” she said, referring to the selection process whereby prisoners were separated according age, gender and ability to work.

Perhaps the most touching part of the story was when she told of her mother’s transportation from Theresienstadt Concentration Camp to Mauthausen. When the convoy stopped in the countryside, Eva’s mother, weighing just five stone and heavily pregnant, was seen by a local farmer. In a act of human kindness, the farmer gave the emaciated woman a glass of milk – an act which she claims saved her life.

In giving her reasons for holding such talks as these, Clarke said she wanted to tell her story “for reasons of commemoration. To remember all those millions and millions of people who died in the Holocaust.”

Furthermore, she hopes to counteract racism of any form. “What happened to my family happened to them only because they were Jewish,” she said.

The hour-long talk was rounded off with a Q&A session. Students showed real enthusiasm for finding out more about her experiences and opinion on the Holocaust.

Responding to a question about asylum seekers in Britain, Clarke said, “I think it is so important to remember people who are refugees and asylum seekers. We have to remember people as individuals.”

When asked if public Holocaust denial should be made illegal, she said, “I think we should keep freedom of speech – unpalatable as it may be sometimes.”

At the end of the talk, Clarke urged everybody to go home and talk to their families, “because every family has a story, and if you don’t ask the question, all that oral history will just disappear.”

Louisa Ackermann, second-year History student and co-organiser of the talk, said, “I think it was very inspiring and very important to bring this kind of story to future generations.”

Clarke added, “I think everyone can identify with one family. No one can identify with 6 million.”