Eva Clarke

BEM
Born
Eva Olga Nathanová

(1945-04-29) 29 April 1945
Mauthausen, Austria
CitizenshipCzechoslovakia
United Kingdom
OccupationCollege administrator
Known forHolocaust survivor
Children2
Parent

Eva Olga Clarke BEM (née Nathanová; born 29 April 1945) is a British-Czech Holocaust survivor and former college administrator known for her birth at Mauthausen concentration camp. She is a speaker for the Holocaust Educational Trust. Clarke combats modern day instances of racism and prejudice through sharing her family's experiences in the Holocaust.

Early life

Clarke and her mother at Mauthausen on 11 May 1945

On 29 April 1945, after three years in the Theresienstadt ghetto, six months of slave labour in an armaments factory in Freiburg, Germany, and a 17-day train journey in an open coal car, Anka Nathanová arrived at the gates of Mauthausen concentration camp.[1] She gave birth to her daughter, Eva Olga Clarke,[2] on a cart there. Nathanová weighed less than 80 pounds (36 kg) and had managed to hide her pregnancy long enough to keep her and her unborn child safe from the Nazi gas chambers.[1] Previously, when arriving at the Auschwitz concentration camp, the Nazi SS doctor Josef Mengele asked Nathanová if she was pregnant, to which she lied and replied no.[3] The Americans arrived six days later, and an Army Signal Corps cameraman filmed the human wreckage as evidence of Nazi atrocities. He also filmed Nathanová with her new baby.[1] Clarke's father, Bernd Nathan, a German-Jewish architect, was shot and killed on 18 January 1945, shortly before the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp.[4][5] Her brother Dan (George) was born in 1944 in the Theresienstadt ghetto and died of pneumonia at the age of two months.[6][7]

The family moved to Prague to live with Nathanová's cousin.[5] In February 1948,[8] Clarke's mother married her old acquaintance, Karel Bergman, a Czech Jew who had escaped to the United Kingdom in 1939 and returned as a translator in the Royal Air Force.[9][10][11] Bergman adopted Clarke and the family left Prague in September 1948.[8] Bergman found work in Pontypridd.[12] The family relocated to Cardiff and later Cyncoed. Clarke attended Rhydypenau Primary School and Our Lady’s Convent School.[5]

Career

Clarke was a college administrator at Cambridge Regional College for 20 years.[3][11] In 2000, she began speaking publicly of her family's experiences during the Holocaust. Clarke volunteers as a speaker for the Holocaust Educational Trust. She also supports the Anne Frank Trust and the Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre.[11] In 2010, she attended the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Mauthausen. Clarke returned in May 2013 as one of 20 survivors invited by the Austrian government to attend the opening of a new exhibition.[5] She is one of the three subjects of the book Born Survivors: Three Young Mothers and Their Extraordinary Story of Courage, Defiance and Hope (2015) by British writer Wendy Holden.[6] In 2020, Clarke's birth certificate was on display at the Imperial War Museum.[3] Through her testimonials, she hopes people learn from the Holocaust and combat modern day instances of racism and prejudice.[11]

Personal life

Clarke lived in Cardiff until she was 18.[9] In the 1960s, she met and married Malcom Clarke, a lawyer from Abergavenny, and they had two sons.[5][3][7] Clarke's father-in-law, Kenneth Clarke, was a navigator in RAF Bomber Command who participated in the bombing of Dresden while her mother, Anka Nathanová, was sheltering with other prisoners.[13] As of 2017, Clarke resides in Cambridge.[9]

Awards and honors

Clarke was one of four Holocaust survivors awarded the British Empire Medal in 2019 for their efforts to share testimonials of their experiences for future generations.[14][2]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Amidon, Audrey (6 May 2019). "A Mother, a Baby, a Name: Identifying One of the Youngest Survivors of the Holocaust". The Unwritten Record. Retrieved 1 March 2021.Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  2. 1 2 "British Empire Medals 2019 – The Lieutenancy of Cambridgeshire". Retrieved 2 March 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Bridge, Mark (27 January 2020). "Birth certificate reveals baby's remarkable escape from Auschwitz". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
  4. ↑ "Holocaust survivor shares her mother's story". www.af.mil. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Gaskell, Simon (28 April 2013). "A holocaust survivor born in a concentration camp remembers her Welsh upbringing". WalesOnline. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
  6. 1 2 Brown, Ebony (12 May 2016). "The Holocaust's Youngest Survivors". Baltimore Jewish Times. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
  7. 1 2 "Eva Clarke, born at Mauthausen when the Third Reich collapsed". romea.cz. 11 May 2015. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
  8. 1 2 Grunwald-Spier, Agnes (15 January 2018). Women's Experiences in the Holocaust: In Their Own Words. Amberley Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-1-4456-7148-2.
  9. 1 2 3 "Holocaust survivor tells of birth in concentration camp". BBC News. 12 February 2017. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
  10. ↑ Rhodes, Giulia (11 May 2015). "The Holocaust's youngest survivors: Three people born in a". The Independent. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Pilgrim, Tom (27 January 2018). "Meet the incredible Cambridge woman born in a Nazi concentration camp". CambridgeshireLive. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
  12. ↑ Dermody, Nick (5 May 2013). "Holocaust survivor Eva Clarke returns to Mauthausen birthplace". BBC News. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
  13. ↑ Wightwick, Abbie (31 January 2015). "The remarkable story of the Welsh WW2 bomber and the future daughter-in-law who was in his line of fire". WalesOnline. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
  14. ↑ Frazer, Jenni (28 December 2018). "Seven Holocaust survivors on New Year's Honours List". jewishnews.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
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