Ivonne Weinerová

* 1954

  • "My dad's family was the first in Ecuador; he had an older relative. Ecuador invited people to come and work in farming because they had a lot of land and they were looking for people. But my parents didn't work in that [farming]. When they were about to arrive, their relatives knew that my father had worked with clothes. I think he told me his first job was with shoes. His grandson [meaning nephew] didn't want to, didn't listen to him, then he found a girl that daddy said no, she's not for you, but he said no no, I want her. So they got married and came to Ecuador too and then they lived together."

  • "My grandfather, my mum's dad, finished the house just as it all started [World War II]. He didn't want to leave because of that house. It had three floors, they owned everything, and my grandfather had a shoe shop in the house. Daddy started in Týn na Vltavou, where they also had a clothing store. Daddy and his nephew were the only ones who came back after the war. They went to Týn and tried to run the store again but the nephew wasn't interested, so Daddy ran it. He kept telling his nephew, 'You have to learn, you have to be something.' He didn't want to, he chased girls, he was much younger."

  • "Mum ran off into the woods by herself and met two other girls, so they went together. They walked together until they came across a small town. They spoke German to each other and made up stories because they couldn't tell the truth. Nice people helped them. Then they met a mayor who also helped them, then they were sent to a convent because they were three women. Good people helped them, but there were also others who didn't help them and denounced them when they could. It happened. I don't know how long it took, but then the mayor probably helped them or sent them somewhere. They made up a story that they got lost in the forest and their parents had died because they didn't have any documents."

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Plzeň, 14.05.2024

    (audio)
    délka: 51:29
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
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My parents wanted everything for us that they were denied

Ivonne Weinerová in 2024
Ivonne Weinerová in 2024
zdroj: Witness's archive

Ivonne Weiner was born in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, on 12 April 1954. Her parents, Hana and Max Weiners, had arrived in September 1948 with their son Michal who was a few months old. Their greatest wish was to give their children everything they could not have themselves, especially education. They never talked about their experiences during World War II. It was too painful. Ivonne Weinerová first attended an American school for twelve years where classes were taught in both English and Spanish. She continued her studies with a focus on administration. In order to improve her French and German, her parents sent her to Switzerland. After her studies, she began working for an airline in Ecuador, but was drawn to her brother in the U.S. where her parents eventually moved and died. It was only towards the end of her life that Ivonne Weinerová‘s mother told of her imprisonment in Terezín, Auschwitz and the Christianstadt labour camp, from where she escaped during the death march under very dramatic circumstances. Ivonne Weinerová took care of her mother until her final day and had her name symbolically engraved on a tombstone in the Jewish cemetery in Plzeň.