As of: January 27, 2024, 9:00 a.m
By: Rudolf Ogiermann
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“At first I thought that every person has a number”: Eva Runde (81) is one of the youngest survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The native Slovakian has lived in Munich since the 1960s.
© Jens Hartmann
She is one of the youngest survivors of Auschwitz.
For a long time, Eva Runde (81) remained silent about her fate and that of her family.
But for several years now, the native Slovakian, who has lived in Munich for decades, has been bearing witness “so that something like this doesn’t happen again.”
A conversation.
Eva Rund owes her life only to the fact that - in view of the advancing Red Army - the gas chambers were shut down three days before her arrival in Auschwitz on November 2, 1944.
She was just two years old and terminally ill when the camp was liberated almost three months later, on January 27, 1945.
She returns to her Slovakian homeland with her mother and sister.
Eva Rund, who has lived in Munich since the 1960s and worked as a pediatrician, does not talk for long about her fate and that of her family.
That changed when she gave a speech on January 27, 2011 at the commemoration of the anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp.
The beginning of a conscious confrontation with one's own past.
In 2016, the now 82-year-old and mother of three sons published her autobiography.
Bayerischer Rundfunk is now dedicating a portrait from the
“Lines of Life”
series to her .
It's called "I Survived Auschwitz" and will air Monday at 10 p.m.
When you discovered the so-called prisoner number as a child, you probably asked your mother what it meant.
Eva Rund:
Yes, of course.
At first I thought that every person has a number.
Until I discovered that my younger sister, who was born after the concentration camp was liberated, doesn't have one.
And then your mother explained this to you?
Eva Rund:
Yes.
She answered our questions, but we asked very little because we felt it hurt her.
And we didn't want that.
In the BR portrait you speak of “inheritance of feelings”. How would you define this term?
Eva Rund:
An emotional inheritance is something that is passed on non-verbally from one generation to the next and the generation after that.
A family trauma.
In relation to Auschwitz, this means that in Slovakia, for example, when asked about the relatives they said: “They stayed there.” In order not to have to say that they were murdered there.
It's something you don't talk about.
But the term “emotional inheritance” can also be transferred to other constellations, think of the so-called cuckoo children.
Everyone in the family feels that they don't belong, but it's not talked about.
This used to be a big problem, but nowadays you do a genetic test at some point, then at least you know what's going on.
You came to Germany from Slovakia in 1967, you knew what had happened between 1933 and 1945 - didn't you hesitate to go to the country of the perpetrators?
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Eva Rund:
Yes, but I didn't come voluntarily, so to speak, but because of love.
I married a Holocaust survivor from Poland who lived in Munich after the war and followed him there.
The plan was to go to America.
That didn't happen because my husband died early.
And so I stayed in Germany and feel very comfortable here.
You soon started working as a doctor, so you probably had to deal with Germans whose relatives might...
Eva Rund:
Not maybe, definitely!
...were involved in the crimes of the National Socialists.
Eva Rund:
No, they were all in the resistance.
At least that's what they told me, without me asking them what their fathers and grandfathers or themselves did during this time.
But if you imagine how many people cheered for Hitler back then, how many were in the party, then there couldn't have been that many opponents of the regime.
Have you encountered anti-Semitism?
Eva Rund:
Well, I've heard sentences like: "I didn't think you were a Jew, you don't look like that at all!" What do Jews look like?
And when my senior doctor sat down with me at lunch in the clinic cafeteria and said: “You work and have a child like in the kibbutzim in Israel, do you think that’s right?”, then I said: Sir Anyway, you'll understand that I'm going somewhere else.
You avoided such conversations.
Eva Rund:
Yes, but now I don't do that anymore.
A lot has changed.
A place of horror: Auschwitz in German-occupied Poland was the largest concentration camp.
© Michael Hellstern
How do you see your current work? To give evidence? Keep the memory alive?
Eva Rund:
Yes.
We have to do everything for this!
And do you know why?
So that something like this doesn't happen again!
That's why I go to schools, read from my book, talk to students.
Young people are our future.
Hopefully you had a good experience during your visits?
Eva Rund:
Very good!
The schools that invite me prepare the students well.
They are in the 9th or 10th grade and are currently learning about the National Socialist era in history; many have already been to Dachau.
The state government is very supportive of this.
Do you think enough is being done?
Eva Rund:
I believe that the people who are on the right side - the one that you and I believe is right - are interested in protecting democracy and raising their children in this spirit.
Because they see what's going on in the countries where dictators have taken power.
More and more Germans are voting for the AfD...
Eva Rund:
Yes, that's frightening.
I've also asked myself why this party can't be banned.
These are fascists, they are being watched by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution!
But many experts warn against this and say that this would bring even more support to the AfD.
But look, I wouldn't have thought it possible how many people are suddenly taking to the streets against right-wing extremism, in Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne.
I have the impression that something has changed since this secret meeting in Potsdam was reported.
We also survived the NPD, the Republicans and the DVU.
They believe that the AfD...
Eva Rund:
...dismantles itself, yes!
I am an optimist.
Your appeal to the young generation who may be voting for the first time this year?
Eva Rund:
Watch or listen to the news, get information from media you can trust.
Then you make the right decision.
Eva Rund's book is entitled “The number on your forearm is blue like your eyes” and was published by Hoffmann and Campe.