"When it came, the front was getting closer, so we spent time in the basement. The house wasn't a basement, but one of the biggest basements didn't have windows out, just a skylight. So that's where all three of us families retreated. We'd go and cook, but otherwise we'd sleep down there. When the artillery started, we suddenly heard a terrible boom and the house shook and bricks and dust started falling through the skylight. And I just said to myself, in my mind, I didn't say anything to my mother, Well, if it gets one more hit, it's going to fall on our heads. And my mother threw a pillow over my head and said, Eva, pray. From then on, I had my doubts about her and about God. In this tragic situation, I thought it was funny, because on the one hand, I said to myself: If the house falls on my head, the pillow won't save me. Secondly, I said to myself: If I am without religion, why should I pray!"
"There were different shops for Germans—the best ones—then for the Czech population, the main ones, just regular shops where my mother could go, and I could too if I wanted. My sister could go anywhere, but she never went shopping. That was our mother’s job. And then there were Jewish shops, which were only open twice a week for limited hours. It was very restricted. Later, they weren’t allowed to use trams or trains—no public transportation at all. For example, my father had to walk. By then, we were living in Královo Pole, and it was four kilometers to the train station. As long as he worked there, he walked back and forth every day. But as a hiking enthusiast, he didn’t mind—at least he got some fresh air and exercise."
"My mother, when there was a census, I think it was in 1938, she declared her Czech nationality. She was already married by then. She said to herself: German and Jewish, that's not good. And she did the right thing! Because those who were of German nationality and had a Jewish partner, they had to divorce. Whereas they couldn't force my mother. Of course, they persuaded, the lawyers came and said that if they didn't divorce, all the property would be forfeited. We didn't have any property together. But a lot of those blended families divorced because they believed it would save the property. They didn't save the property or themselves."
Eva Spitzová was born on 8 February 1931 in Brno. Her father Bruno Spitz was Jewish and her mother Augusta Esterlová came from a German family. When her parents married in 1929, they were already divorced and her mother had a daughter Gerta from her first marriage. Dad Bruno was part owner of a textile wholesaler and mom earned her living repairing carpets. During the census, she declared her Czech nationality, which probably saved her husband’s life later on. As a Jew from a mixed marriage, he was not drafted into the transports and only in 1944 had to go to the labour camp in Lipa and later to Terezín, from where he happily returned home at the end of the war. Eva was eight years old when the war began. As a mixed race girl, she was not allowed to study at her dream high school, but otherwise she and her mother survived the Protectorate period without much hardship. After the war, she was admitted to a grammar school and after graduation continued her studies in Spanish and English at university. In the second half of the 1950s she worked for several years at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, of which she spent one and a half years at the Czechoslovak Embassy in Mexico as a translator and interpreter. From 1961 until her retirement, she taught Spanish linguistics at the Department of Romance Studies of the Faculty of Philosophy of today’s Masaryk University. In 2023 Eva Spitzová lived in Brno.
A signboard of the Brno company Štipák a spol., where my father Bruno Spitz (first from the left in the top row) was a co-owner. Next to him Mr. Štipák, Mr. Konečný and Mr. Eckstein
A signboard of the Brno company Štipák a spol., where my father Bruno Spitz (first from the left in the top row) was a co-owner. Next to him Mr. Štipák, Mr. Konečný and Mr. Eckstein
