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The Positive Aspects of Aging for Holocaust Survivors


Eva David
Participant, Café Europa Program
Los Angeles

For Holocaust survivors to reach old age is not only a privilege - it is a miracle. It certainly isn't what Hitler had planned for them. If the victims were not exterminated on arrival at the Concentration Camps, he meant to use them for slave labour and dispose of them when they collapsed from hunger and became "useless" and "unwanted".

I survived the Holocaust at age 17. Despite the suffering imposed on me by the Nazis, I tried to set positive goals for myself. I kept hoping I would be liberated from imprisonment. Knowing that my family (killed brutally) could never be replaced, I wanted to start a new life. I got married, gave birth to three healthy children. Then (22 years ago) my good husband succumbed to his third heart attack, at age 55. He could not enjoy our lovely children's graduations, weddings, and grandchildren. He did not reach retirement, nor fulfilled his dream of travelling with me.

As a widow, besides working very hard to keep the home for my children, I had to be their caring mother and father. There were no relatives to help us. My poor children never knew the love of grandparents, as all four perished in the Holocaust.

In my retirement, I enjoy being with my three grandchildren. I just play with them, without doing anything else at the same time. I can even read the newspaper, not only the headlines. I volunteer to help a first grade teacher and every child calls me "Grandma Eva". I go to weekly meetings with Holocaust survivors, at Café Europa. I attend a Creative Writing Workshop at Roxbury Park, where I write my essays, recording my experiences in the Concentration Camps. Now I pamper myself by taking exercises - aerobic classes, five times a week. I exercise my body and mind. I also walk a lot and eat a good diet, trying to keep myself in good shape. I am grateful for every day and I have a lot to live for. Maybe this explains why I think that I am not as depressed as some others, who were also deported by the German Nazis.

We, the Holocaust survivors, suffered so much, then became orphaned and uprooted. Our new life is shadowed by the bitter memories. We miss our dear parents, brothers, sisters and dozens of other relatives who perished and don't even have a grave that we could visit. Therefore, we appreciate the Annual Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony at Mount Sinai Memorial Park. In the still of the cemetery, in front of the six memorial statues, we feel that we pay respect to our lost dear ones. We remember the six million Jews and the five million other martyrs of the Holocaust. Many families perished completely, leaving no survivors who would say Kaddish for them (prayer for the dead). So I quote the Hebrew sayings : "Zachor" and "Chazak Vaamatz". Let us always remember the innocent victims of Nazi hatred and never forget Hitler's cruel barbarism against mankind in Europe, in the 1930's and 1940's.

Let us, all the remaining Holocaust survivors, be strong and brave - we have to continue to fight. Now, at our old age, our mission is not only to stay alive, but to prolong our lives - so at least our dear children (who were deprived of growing up with the families they originate from), and our grandchildren could feel the love of a parent, or a grandparent for a little longer.