Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Eva Ackermann - December 6, 1982

Had your father been a soldier in World War I?

My father was, as a matter of fact, yes, uh if you care to see a picture. Yeah, he was, I think, about eighteen years old.

Oh my. This is your--Hungarian uniform, so he fought for the Hapsburg...

Yeah, Yes. Yes and he was, he was in war in 1943 also and I really don't know, at this point, what, '42 maybe? I, I really, I should have uh, and that was my husband's father in the First World War. See uh, this is what I have to show. This is all what I have to show for a family of uh, gone and gone.

Six pictures.

That's all I have. That's all I have to show for.

Now, who are these people?

Cousins. From my father's side uh, he was a wrestler he won uh, as you can see, he won a medal. He was a wrestler and that's his sister, I think both of these pictures are the same. Now uh, that's his sister, never came back. Um, he uh, he was--he came--he never went. He uh, was a communist. He belonged to the Communist party.

This is a different person--same, same person?

These are brothers and that's a sister, that's from my father's side. They lived in Budapest and uh, my cousin who is out here, she gave me these pictures. That's how I got them that's--from my aunt. I had an aunt out here from my father and she gave me...

So these pictures were already here...

Yeah. See, he sent that to uh, in 1915, he send that over here. His sister was over here--look where he signed it.

I can't make out the writing. It's in Hungarian, right?

It's in Hungarian, but you can make out the date. The date is in, uh...

September 6, 1915.

Yeah.

United States, right? Is that what that is?

I don't know. I have to see. No, no. That means that um uh, to remember it, to remem... remember it, to remember, uh from your younger brother, there. Younger brother, we have uh, one word and that's his name. That was his name and that was like you would say, Mrs. uh, Stahlberg uh and that's, that's also Mrs. because Hungary was very famous for uh, it's not uh, it wasn't like Mr. or Mrs. They had uh, for each uh, if you were not a learned man, they called you differently. You had...

Very formal.

Very formal, yeah.

What was your father's name?

Elek Weis. Elek, yeah. That's E-L-E-K.

And your mother's name?

Cecilia Attel, A-T-T-E-L.