Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Eva Wimmer - January 1, 1985

Uh, we lived in Sweden nine years. In nine years uh, all of us during this time got married, my five sisters, my brother. Uh, each and one of us found their partners in Sweden, which are survivors also. Each and one we didn't marry anybody else, but the survivors. Uh, from different parts--from Poland. Uh, each and one has children. My--one of my sisters came to the United States in 1953 and we, four of us, came in 1954. And the one who got sick after the war came three years later. She came in 1957 because she was not allowed to come in before then. And uh, the reason we wanted to leave Sweden is not because we, we couldn't make a living or we didn't like living in Sweden. It is because we really wanted to leave Europe. We had such a bad experience. Our life until the war in Poland wasn't the best. The anti-Semitism in Poland was terrible. I still recall, and I will never forget, when I went to school when I was a little girl or every sign on the, on the, on the, on the houses or a store, a grocery store, whatever, was ???. This is in Polish, down with the Jews or, or uh, Jews to Israel to pick onions. Not Israel, then it was Palestine, and those terrible remarks always. We were never like free people, really, and then to, to have a job or, or, or to provide decent for our family was very difficult in Poland. So, I really don't recall even good years until--those thirteen times I lived before the war in Poland I don't recall so, so great. So--and then the war broke out and it was--everything was interrupted--school was interrupted, family lives, we lost everybody. I have nobody really to--okay, we guided one another, the sisters. We helped one another. We, we comfort one another. Uh, when one makes sometimes a mistake, we, we made a remark and, and tried to help, but it wasn't like having parents and raising, parents raising the children and guiding them. So, really, we wanted to leave uh, uh, Europe and, and we had that chance to come to the United States because the Jewish organizations paid for us and this is how we came to the United States and we are very grateful. We--all of us uh, somehow make a living. Better or worse we, we make a living and uh, the children, most of them--our children are born in Sweden except uh, two are born in, in the United States. One of my daughters and, and my oldest sister's son is born in the United States. The other children are all born in Sweden.