Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Zyta Eliahu - February 3, 2008

Do you think it was--you were separated from your family once and then you were separated from your second family again?

Um, you mean I was separated from own family a second time--from my own family?

No, from your own family and then you were separated from your foster family.

I didn't really feel I was being separated from my foster family because I was in continuous contact with them and many years later--maybe twenty years later. No, I didn't really feel that. I really felt like I came back to my family. I didn't feel like I was separate from them. I think, you know, I think my foster mother was sorry to see me go and she said, "You know if you don't feel happy or something doesn't work out you can come back." But, I didn't feel separated. I mean, when I--when all of us children arrived in England--first of all the war hadn't broke out yet and even after it did we never imagined we would be staying such a long time with our foster families. So, and when--and those that knew that their parents were living--I think that most of did know eventually--so, we knew that we were going to join our parents again.

And when did you hear about what had happened in Europe during the war?

Uh, I think it was only when the war ended and they started showing us films.

In Israel?

Yes, but I wasn't aware of what was going on in the concentration camps but then again at that time children weren't so involved in the news because there wasn't this communication there is today.

So, how did you and your family react to it?

To the war?

To the stories of...

You mean the Holocaust?

Yeah.

You know, when I think back now and when I met my parents, they started telling me this brother--this sister had lost--it wasn't--it was like they had already got used to it and um, it was an accepted fact because um, they hadn't been in daily contact with their brothers and sisters that were lost in the Holocaust. I remember one of my aunts from my father's side; they visited us in Czechoslovakia once with their children and only her husband survived. And um, so, you know, that--this is the only person from my family that I remember that was lost in the Holocaust really.