Walter Weitzmann (M / Austria, 1926), Holocaust survivor

Walter Weitzmann (M / Austria, 1926-2019), Holocaust survivor

Eva Weitzmann / Eva Moore (F / Austria, 1930), Holocaust survivor

• KEYWORDS : <Austria> <Refugees,France> <Refugees, United States>

See <1940 JDC List> <USHMM Database>

Biography

Walter Weitzmann (18 Aug 1926) and Eva Weitzmann (17 Dec 1929) were born in Vienna, Austria, to Rudolf and Margarete. As refugees in France at Chateau de la Guette, they were among the unaccompanied children aboard the SS Mouzinho (August 1941), reaching the United States.

Personal statement

I was born in Vienna 14 August 1926 to loving parents of the middle class. My father was Jewish my mother not. My mother promised that my sister and I would be raised in the Jewish faith which was done. We had a comfortable life, going to school, playing in parks, and summer vacations on farms. In December 1936 my (our) father died after a long illness. Naturally life changed and then in March 1938 when Germany annexed (Anschluss) Austria to Germany that turned our lives around. As Jews we could no longer go to the same schools, were not allowed in parks, and former friends spit on me and hit me. My mother after consulting with people found out that we could leave Vienna with a Kindertransport to France. Our names were placed on a list by the Kultusgemeinde and on March 14, 1939 we left our mother and Vienna for Paris, France. In France we were sponsored by the Rothschild family who took in 13 Jewish children from Austria and Germany. We were well taken care of until June 1940 when the Germans were close to Paris. We were evacuated from Paris to La Bourboule in the central part of France which became part of unoccupied France (Vichy France). In 1941 (August) my sister and I were told we were to go to America and so on September 1, 1941 we arrived in the USA. I was placed with foster parents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, went to school and was drafted in the army in 1945. Was on my way to the Pacific Theater when the war with Japan ended on my birthday. While in Japan on occupation duty I decided to enlist for three years so I could come to Europe and be reunited with my mother who survived World War II. And so it came to be in July 1946 after more than 7 years separation, I left when I was 12 years and came back when I was almost 20. It is said one learns from past history which I find hard to believe with what has and is going on in the world. I also believe that we were victims of the Holocaust but in my thinking my mother was more of a victim.

USHMM

Eva Moore (born Eva Weitzmann) is the daughter of a Jewish father, Rudolph Weitzmann and a Christian mother, Margarethe (Mayer) Weitzmann. Eva was born in Vienna, Austria where her father was a businessman. She had one brother, Walter. On December 31, 1936, Rudolph died from kidney illness. Margarethe, now a widow, had to manage the family stresses brought on by the volatile political situation on her own. On March 12, 1938 Germany annexed Austria and immediately instituted antisemitic decrees. Eva, who has been attending the Schubert Schule in Vienna, now had to attend a Jewish school instead. On March 13, 1939 Margarethe sent her children on a Kindertransport to France. They went to the Chateau de la Guette, a mansion owned by Edouard and Germaine de Rothschild located in the Seine-et-Marne district near Paris. She remained in la Guette until it was evacuated in May 1940 to the village of La Bourboule in the Massif Central region. She remained there for little over a year, and in August 1941 she boarded the Mouzinho in Lisbon for New York. After arriving in America she was sent to Minneapolis where she resumed her education and subsequently moved to Los Angeles. Eva married Mortimer Moore in 1958 in Vienna.