Ervin Eichner

* 1926  †︎ 2021

  • „So I applied to the Baťa school of work for a chemical engineering course. Well, they actually accepted me and so I was in Zlín for the interviews. I had already settled there, and when they studied my documents and found out that I did not have pure Aryan origin, they fired me within the hour. Literally within the hour I had to leave the room and they informed the Vsetín employment office, where I had to report myself immediately. So my dreams of further studies were ended for this reason.“

  • „The problem was that they weren't even allowed to socialise with me. My father wore the Jewish badge and he was not allowed to be around anyone, so when the armourers started going to lunch, my father and I were always locked in the basement for two hours. We weren't allowed out. My father was cutting splinters there, well, it was simply just like in a crime scene. After two hours I was able to go outside again.“

  • „And I remember March 15, 1939 very well . It was a rainy day, nasty weather, raining, snowing, and I was just getting ready for school. And now I heard some noise, we lived in Vsetín, Ohrada in a bad apartment. And I heard some noise, so I went to the window and now I see - a whole convoy of German cars. Soldiers with flints on their shoulders and sidecars driving between them. The entire convoy simply drove towards Slovakia. My father was still lying in bed, sleeping, and I went to him, I woke him up and said to him: 'Dad, the Germans are coming.' My father didn't even raise an eyebrow, he just said: 'So that's the end of me.' And he was right, unfortunately.“

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    Prlov, 11.12.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 01:09:25
    media recorded in project Stories of the region - Central Moravia
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From a poor Jewish boy to a famous hotelier

Ervin Eichner in 2019
Ervin Eichner in 2019
photo: Post Bellum, 11. 12. 2019

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.