Eva Brettler

Eva Katz / Eva Brettler (F / Hungary, 1936), Holocaust survivor

• KEYWORDS : <Ravensbrück> <Bergen-Belsen> <Liberation of Bergen-Belsen> -- <Sweden> <Hungary> <United States>

Biography

Eva Brettler (née Katz), born November 29, 1936 in Cluj, Romania, describes her life before the war; her parents Aleksander and Margit Katz; her father’s occupation as a printer and her mother’s as a hat maker; her family’s religious beliefs; her family’s move to Budapest, Hungary; antisemitic acts of the Arrow Cross party; her trip to visit her Grandmother in Tashnalt, Transylvania when the Jewish population, including her Grandmother, was rounded-up and taken away; her time hiding in the woods after attempting to visit her Grandmother; her return to Budapest; the ghettoization of Budapest; her time in hiding with false papers; her transport to Germany after someone discovered her and her mother’s true identities; her mother’s death; her time in Ravensbrück and Bergen-Belsen; her liberation in Bergen-Belsen by the British Army; her time in an orphanage in Sweden post-war; her return to Hungary in 1947; the communist revolution in Hungary; and her decision to immigrate to the United States.