Erika Schwartz, a survivor of the Holocaust, spoke in Ballantyne Auditorium at the Holocaust Lecture on Tuesday, April 2, 2024. At 79 years old, she was just a year old when World War II ended.
Schwartz and her mother, Jolan Hornstein, were the only members of her family to survive the war.
Born in Hungary during the peak of World War II, Schwartz said she was born into a continent ravaged by war and genocide. “I was marked for death from the moment of my birth,” she said at the beginning of her speech.
“I was born Erika Hornstein on April 23, 1944, just two weeks before all the women and children in my family were transported to Auschwitz to be murdered. That defines me as a Holocaust survivor and that is the world I inhabited at the beginning of my life.”
Schwartz recapped her mother’s memories of the war and her stories of surviving in a country where her religion was a cause for execution.
“Shortly after my birth, most of [my family] were murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz,” she said. “Those were the events that tied me to the world of being a survivor and that was how I defined myself for the first 44 years of my life.”
Schwartz added, “As the child of a survivor, my life revolved around trying to be the caregiver to a mother who had been totally destroyed by the war. She had lost her entire family.”
Schwartz described the method and date of death for every family member she lost during the Holocaust. This included her father, Hermann Hornstein, who escaped from a forced labor camp to ensure his wife and newborn child could make it to Budapest by securing paperwork. He then voluntarily returning to the labor camp to protect his family. “Nearly every survivor from Hungary was from Budapest,” said Schwartz.
She then told stories of her immigration to the United States, a move that was defined by an attempted kidnapping and being separated from her mother at the age of six.
Schwartz also spoke of living with an abusive father-in-law and other challenges she faced growing up.
The second half of Schwartz’s speech focused on challenges she faced as an adult and learning to see the positive aspects of the world before the negative. “I knew I had to combat the terrible, negative thoughts I had about the people in my life. I hated everyone; they were constantly in my head, so I worked on finding the good,” she said.
The full speech by Erika Schwartz can be viewed on the Kirkwood Liberal Arts YouTube channel.
Gibson is an aspiring journalist with a variety of roles under his belt including his role as News Editor for the Communique. Once he earns his associate degree from Kirkwood, he plans on transferring to a four-year university to major in Mass Communications and Journalism. Once earning his bachelor’s degree, he intends to follow his dream of becoming a sportswriter.
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