Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Eva Ackermann - December 6, 1982

I don't have any needs uh, great needs for luxury, jewels, or furs or uh, for me, a comfortable home that I need peace of mind with the kids, but uh, to raise the two kids and have one of them say uh, when ??? was about five years old and uh, there was Captain Kangaroo that they used to watch and someone came in with their grandchild, a lady and played with my son in--and then after a while, after a half hour, she said uh, "Let's go see grandfather," and my, my little boy looked up and he said, "Grandfather clock?" That's the only thing he knew about grandfather--a clock, do you know what I'm talking about? Uh, this is about twenty-two years ago. We're talking about twenty-two years ago and it, it still--I thought a knife, just a knife went into my heart to, uh. That here was a beautiful little boy who should have had a grandfather if there wasn't uh, for uh, the irony or the cruelty or whatever you want to call it. The brutality of uh, of one man, not even one man, because uh, he had many to help him out. I think they were all--I think they were worse. I really do. So to, to associate the word that should be, that should absolutely mean happiness, because now I see what it means from my friends, but the kids uh, are--I mean it means love that even a parent can't give that he should--he shouldn't uh, because at that age, I was not able to explain why would they remember, nor would they realize what I was talking about and I did have a hard time explaining uh, uh, at any, at any time, but uh, so that's why I'm saying um, or whenever I see, even to this day--I used to work at Hudsons and I used to see girls my age, because I was in my twenties then, come in with their mothers. Just every time I saw someone-- I mean it just, I really--I just--pulling something out of a hat uh, there is just no way that I, that I was not reminded that I don't have it and I was robbed and I--the way I raised my kids uh, there was just uh, by then I really had--peace of mind, I didn't have and uh, I see it so much for the kids, because I was always afraid uh, something shouldn't happen to them because I had no family. This was it.