From Ungvar to Beverly Hills: One Survivor's Journey

By Alice Neuman Schoenfeld

“Run! Hide!” someone was shouting from the street. “The Germans are coming!”

So begins Alice Neuman Schoenfeld’s remarkable tale of survival, From Ungvár to Beverly Hills: One Survivor’s Story. Indeed, Alice and her family spent more than two years of her childhood running and hiding. Her story—full of drama, tension, and insight—is a testimony to the human will to survive against all odds. With the startling perspective of a young girl caught up in events larger than she can grasp, Alice’s memoir brings the reader to wartime Europe, a time and place where the people close to her made life-or-death decisions every day. Equally enlightening and engaging are her descriptions of day-to-day life in Germany’s Displaced Persons Camps, where she became a Zionist and fell in love. With humor, integrity, and grace, Alice shares her inspiring and moving story of emerging from one of history’s darkest chapters and forging a new life in a new land.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781937650384

Book preview

2012

PROLOGUE

These are my recollections of my childhood—though childhood is probably the wrong word.

When most people describe their childhoods, they speak of all the things we consider to be childlike: games and friendships, schoolteachers, songs, sports, toys, and dolls. Adults who are long past the years of youth yearn to return to those days, the carefree time before they faced the pressures of life; before they had to worry about livelihood, money, and health; before responsibility for other people became a heavy burden. We pine for childhood because, for most of us, it symbolizes innocence, freedom, and hope.

My childhood was something different entirely.

My story is not about games or school or toys.

My childhood was cruelly interrupted so early that I recall little of those innocent early days. What I remember is hiding, undertaking clandestine travels. I remember being surrounded by a world in chaos, a society turned upside down. I remember fear. I remember confusion. I remember the awful feeling of not knowing what dangers the next day might bring. Or the next hour.

Most of all, though, I remember the things that kept me alive. I remember being sustained by a loving family, and benefiting from a series of small miracles that kept me safe through one of the darkest chapters in human history. I am profoundly grateful for my adoring parents, for my sister, and for the faith that upheld us all.

Of course, when most of these events occurred, I had little real understanding of what was going on around me. I knew it was a dark period; I knew that most people we knew were enduring awful and painful fates. I did not understand why. As a girl, I lacked the capacity to comprehend the political forces at work in the larger world. I knew only what I needed to know to survive from one day to the next.

I tell most of this story not as I understand it now, many decades later, but rather as I perceived things at the time, as a curious but frightened young girl. These are difficult and painful memories, but they are also memories of what made me the person I became, someone full of life and hope and faith.

My childhood was no ordinary childhood. It was hardly a childhood at all.

This is my story.

One

A SMALL MIRACLE

Run! Hide! someone was shouting from the street. The Germans are coming!"

My heart skipped a beat. I was nine years old. It was the middle of the Passover holiday. I was standing with my mother and my sister, Édike, in the courtyard of the small apartment building where our family of four had recently been forced to move into a one-room apartment.

Alizka, come! my mother whispered, gesturing across the courtyard. I followed her, grasping the hand of little Édike, who was only four. The other tenants—all Jewish families, like ours—had managed to hide themselves quickly, scurrying off into their apartments or God knows where. But the three of us, caught off guard, fled to the only place that seemed to make sense: a storage cellar whose entrance was on the edge of the courtyard. I was filled with fright and panic; I had no idea what might happen if we were caught. Would they arrest us? Kill us? Just interrogate us until we turned in Father? I simply didn’t know. But I keenly understood that we needed to keep quiet and hide from view.

It was April of 1942. Prešov, Slovakia. In a few short few weeks, my world had changed. The government, in full cooperation with Nazi Germany, had enacted edicts against Jews, limiting our ability to travel, rationing our food, and requiring every one of us to wear a Star of David—a yellow cloth patch of regulation size—on our outer garments whenever we were in public. Most terrifying of all, Jewish men were disappearing, abducted by German captors and their collaborators, the Slovakian militia known as the Hlinka Guard. Where were they going? We didn’t know. Word was that they were being sent to Arbeitslager—German work camp. Perhaps. But most didn’t return.

Just a few nights earlier, our family had joined together for a most strange Passover seder. Every year, for as far back as I could remember, it had been my father’s job to preside over the seder, the traditional feast that opens the holiday marking the ancient Israelites’ exodus from Egypt. But this year, as we celebrated the freedom of our ancestors, we did so without Father—in fact, without any men at all, save for a single gentleman so elderly and frail that it was presumed the Germans couldn’t use his services at the Arbeitslager. Instead of a lively family feast with singing and celebration and delicious matzah ball soup, we marked the evening with a hushed, meager meal.

At the table, as I examined the faces around me—Mother, Édike, the women from neighboring apartments—I couldn’t stop my mind from wandering to my worries about Father. Where was he? Was he safe? Would I ever see him again? We all shared the same fear: that the Germans, knowing full well it was seder night, would launch searches from house to house to find able-bodied men for work in the Arbeitslager. Keenly aware of this, Father had gone into hiding—probably sequestered in the expansive nearby house of some cousins.

When will Father come back? I had asked my mother.

Don’t worry, she assured me once again. We’ll see him soon.

Her reassurances did little to ease my concerns. My imagination ran wild. A few days after the seder, Father still hadn’t returned. I supposed it was probably for the best; somehow, Mother had gotten word to him that he should stay where he was, safely hidden from the authorities. She knew that emerging into the open would mean risking his life.

So, on that morning when we heard the neighbor’s warning that the Germans were approaching, we were without Father.

The three of us made our way into the cellar as quickly as we could run. Mother was hurriedly reaching for the door, to close it and conceal us, when we heard a sudden clanging sound: the courtyard’s metal gate swinging open. We froze. It was too late—Mother couldn’t close the door now; the risk of being seen was just too great. We silently descended the staircase as quickly as we could. We stopped; the three of us crouched in the shadows. Mother tried to cup a hand over Édike’s mouth to keep her silent. Suddenly, I heard a terrifying sound: the pounding of heavy boots on the cobblestone. Then something even scarier: loud voices shouting in German and Slovak. I held my breath and silently clutched Mother and Édike, praying that we would stay safe. The footsteps got closer and closer. Now the men were practically at the edge of the cellar. Terrified of what might come next, I closed my eyes, prepared for the worst.

The door’s open, I heard a man say. God, no, I thought, don’t let them see us. The seconds seemed to stretch out to hours, days, years. When would this end? I thought of Father, my grandparents. I prayed for survival.

And then I heard this: There must not be anyone inside, one of the men said curtly, or they would have closed it.

As quickly as they had arrived, the soldiers scampered off, moving their manhunt to other parts of the neighborhood.

I breathed a sigh of relief and began to ascend the few steps.

Not yet, Alizka, Mother said. Not so fast. We can’t be too careful. I held my breath again and stewed in my fear for a few more minutes as we stayed put, lingering in the shadows. Finally, after what seemed like forever, Mother was certain the threat had passed, and together the three of us emerged into the light.

I looked around. The building didn’t seem like an ordinary building; even the air didn’t feel normal. I felt that I had experienced a small miracle. I had been filled with anxiety about the open cellar door, but perhaps the very fact that Mother hadn’t had the time to close the door was what saved us. A closed door might well have raised the curiosity of the intruders. Would they have harmed us—a woman with two young girls? We didn’t know. They would have at least interrogated us about where Father might be. Whatever might have happened, it would not have been good.

We had escaped harm this time, but our close encounter only served to remind me of just how precarious our existence was. Even after Father’s return, a few days later, life didn’t return to normal. Nothing was certain in these times, and nothing would ever be the same again.

Two

A GOOSE IN THE BASEMENT

I was born in a time and place that made ordinary childhood impossible. Other women look back on girlhoods of playing with dolls, sharing secrets with friends, taking piano lessons, or hosting imaginary tea parties. If I enjoyed any such pleasures, I have long since forgotten them. Mostly I remember hiding, running, taking clandestine journeys, and seeking shelter—doing anything to survive.

I was born in 1933 in Uzhorod, Czechoslovakia.

My mother, Rozsika Neuman, had been born there too. My father, Jeno Neuman, was from Kvakovce, Slovakia. (Though the families of my mother and father