From a poor Jewish boy to a famous hotelier
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Ervin Eichner was born on May 4, 1926 in Vsetín. His father, Rudolf Eichner, held the high position of procurator at Gebrüder Thonet. Rudolf Eichner tried to become independent and start a business, but as a result of the global economic crisis in the 1930s, the family lost almost all of its assets. During the Second World War, Rudolf Eichner was arrested by the Gestapo because of his Jewish origin. Ervin and his three sisters remained alive only because they all had a Catholic faith and came from their mother Anděla Eichner, and their parents divorced to protect the children. Nevertheless, Ervin did not avoid a humiliating interrogation, when members of the Vsetín Gestapo examined whether he had a Jewish nose and, conversely, whether he had Aryan eyes. In June 1942, Rudolf Eichner perished in Auschwitz. The same happened to most of his relatives from the Jewish community in Český Těšín, where Rudolf Eichner came from. At the end of the war, his son had to do forced labour - digging anti-tank trenches in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm. After the liberation in May 1945, he trained as a waiter with his brother-in-law Ludvík Klímek, who ran the well-known Klímek Hotel in Zděchov. When Ervin returned from the war in 1958, he went back into the hotel business. He soon managed to work his way up to the position of operator of the Astra cafe in Vsetín, where he worked until 1968, when he started as the director of the Razula Hotel near Velké Karlovice. Thanks to his visionary, pro-customer approach and great business skills, he managed to transform Razula into a hotel where high-ranking state officials, normalisation pop stars and well-known athletes went on vacation. Ervin Eichner was registered in the Security Services Archive as an employee of the StB in the category of agent. He died on March 14, 2021.
