Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Zyta Eliahu - February 3, 2008

So, did you help with the housework?

I was eight years old when I came, not really. I can't say--I would help lay the table, maybe eventually I started helping with the dishes but I didn't do more than the daughter--than the other little girl did. I mean, I was treated exactly the same. Whatever they decided two children--two little girls had to do, so I did together with the, with the daughter.

And what was the daughter's name?

Margaret.

Did you go to school--did they send you to school?

Yes. It was the summer holidays when I arrived and in September I was sent to the primary school. I was just put in class and I learned English and I happened to be good in English writing and English composition and English reading and English spelling. And um, I was happy and I--about half a year it took me to settle down emotionally. And I was corresponding with my parents until the end of '40 because they--while they were trying to get to Palestine their group had been moved to Bratislava, which was part of Slovakia. And the Germans treated Slovakia a little different to the Czech part of Czechoslovakia because they were--I think the--the Slovakia was sort of more--I wouldn't say they were close to the Germans but they--I mean, now they're two separate countries anyway. So, I was corresponding with them until the end of '40. I settled down and I wrote letters to them and they wrote letters to me and they wrote letters to my foster mother and my foster mother wrote to them and uh, they kept saying, "You've got to be good, you've got to be a good child and do what they tell you."