Eva Jerochim

* 1953

  • “It was about two days later in the morning when I was preparing to attend the theatre, there was a knock on the door and two men were standing there and said: 'Can we come in?' I of course let them in, and I was shaking on the inside but did not show it. I thought they could not get to know I was afraid. It was lucky that they told me at the beginning: 'We have two hours for you.' So, I was saying to myself that there would be an end, so I had to stick it out. They said: 'We have some questions for you.' They sat down and took some documents from the bag. I remembered – it must have been a higher power – that I read Jewish jokes by Poláček the previous night. The first joke was: 'Why do you Jews answer everything with a question? Why not?' It enlightened me and I thought that it would be my technique.”

  • “For one thing we had lunches there and we liked we were eating kosher foods even though we could not abide by it except for those lunches. The food there was good, high-quality, and cheap. We met with other people, both younger and older who I was interested in even more, who had fates like ours. There did not go a lot of young people. They would come when Hanukkah and Purim were celebrated, which are more important holidays which were celebrated even during Communism even though it was not according to the Torah, there was always a celebration. There was for example a party for Hanukkah, we had an entertaining programme, music, young people met, were dancing, and talking.”

  • “I had this experience when children would… As my grandmother worked in an after-school club, I went to school with her in the morning and sometimes went to play there. Once children shouted at me: 'Jew, Jew!' I can remember that I asked her later at home what it (Jew) was and why they shouted it at me. Is it an insult or is it something good? Why do they say it? At that time, she told me that… I do not know if she emphasized that we were Jews. Still, she said that Jews are an intelligent nation and that Hitler envied them and that is why he wanted to kill them – that is how she explained it to me as a child – and that those children were stupid and did not know what they were saying and that they did not mean it for sure.”

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Praha, 20.02.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 01:42:25
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
  • 2

    Praha, 23.05.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 01:57:48
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

I did not want to believe that one of my friends would report me

Eva Jerochim in Prague in 1979
Eva Jerochim in Prague in 1979
zdroj: witness´s archive

Eva Jerochim, née Jelínková, was born on 9 July 1953 in Česká Lípa. She had Jewish origin, and many of her relatives died in concentration camps during the Second World War. She lived in Mimon until the age of fourteen. She graduated from the School of Foreign Trade in Jablonec nad Nisou. She started to study at the Pedagogical Faculty in Ústí nad Labem in 1972. She dropped out of school after two semesters because she was forced to join the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. She started to study puppetry at The Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in 1974. She and her brother Tomáš started to visit the Jewish community of Prague, she found many friends there and participated in the celebration of Jewish holidays. She was interrogated by State Security in 1979 because of her activities in the Jewish community. She left for West Germany in 1980 and she married an Israeli there. She moved to Israel in 1983 and lived there until 2003. She raised her seven children in the Jewish faith. She lived in Prague in 2023.