Erich Meissner Part II: El Salvador

 


After the war, Erich and his parents reunited with Werner in Prague. Once the brothers found a comfortable place for their parents, they began working in factories in order to make money for the family. Erich never had plans to stay for very long.

Below you will see an excerpt from his oral history recently taken in Israel. All questions in parentheses (...) are mine.


We lived together. In the story of my brother, he will tell you. For me, it was completely clear that I will go out from Europe on the first occasion.

(Why?)

No more Europe. I started to look around where to go. So we wrote to Salvador, where we have relatives, the Freunds. I want to volunteer to Israel, tried everything. There was one possibility to go to Sweden also, but nothing came through. The first thing which came through was Salvador, and that was the best thing. So we went in 1948. April 1948 we left Czechoslovakia.

(Did you take your parents?)

Not with my parents. Only my brother and me. The first thing when we arrive to Salvador, OK, the Freunds wanted to know who we were. They didn’t know us. We could be also very negative people. They didn’t know who they brought. (chuckles) But they have seen that we are not too bad. And I started to pressure that we wanted to take out our parents. So they started, and in 1949 we took out our parents, and we were again all together in Salvador.

04:01
(So you get to Salvador. Do you move in with the Freunds? Where do you live? Do they put you in a house?)

We lived with the Freunds, at the house of the Freunds, but I went very soon to Talcualhuya, to the farm and started to work there. So that means I was not with the Freunds any more, but Werner was the whole time with the Freunds. He started to work with the Freunds at their shop.

(What did you think of Salvador?)

For us it was fantastic.

(Paradise?)

Well, it was—first of all, it saved our life. Because if we would have—

—remained in Czechoslovakia, that would not be good. Definitely not. Besides that, it gave us a new future, a new purpose, a new perspective. We started a new life.

(And the two of you were single guys.)

We were single, both of us.

(Did you think, “Oh, I should meet a Salvadoran woman, I should get married”?)

That didn’t come into account. I was too Jewish. That doesn’t mean anything, because I have had a girlfriend who was not Jewish. She was not Salvadorean. She was European. She went to the States after that. We started to look around about marriage. And Werner came to Israel and met Perla. A year later I came to Israel and met Ruth. (laughs)

(They set that up, right? They thought you should meet?)

It was not put together, but I met Ruth at Perla’s sister’s home.

(What did you think when you met her?)

I saw her and I said that it is it. We got married after about fourteen days or something like this. It was a coincidence, because it was between Pesach and Shavuot, so you could get married only on Lag B’Omer. That was in the meantime, so we got married on the eighth of May in 1958 in Haifa. I came to Haifa as a tourist to look around. This was 1958.

(So you were in Salvador—)

I was from 1948 to ’58, and I came as a tourist, the first trip, the first longer vacation. In Salvador, you worked a few years, and after that you took some longer vacations. So I was working from ’48 to ’54 and took my first vacation for three months. I made first trip to Israel, but I didn’t know Ruth then, at that time. After that time I went to Europe, made a trip in Europe, and came back to Salvador. The next vacation I took 1958. Then I came to Israel and met Ruth.

(And you went to Eilat for your first honeymoon?)

That was our first honeymoon, we went to Eilat, yes. (chuckles)

(And then the second honeymoon you went around Europe. Was that the first time you’d been back to Europe?)

No, the first time back in Europe—I left Europe in ’48, and the first time I came back to Europe was ’54.

(So you had a desire to go to Europe for this honeymoon?)

I wanted to make a nice trip to Europe. So we went to Austria. That was our biggest mistake. Because everything came back. I didn’t know that, but the nature was so beautiful.

(It came back for Ruth. Did it come back for you?)

It came back for me also. Today I consider Europe as the cemetery of Judaism. That means Eastern Europe, not England or France. Even France, but Czechoslovakia, that’s for me the cemetery of the Jewish people.

Transcription by Sandy Adler, Adler Enterprises LLC
Photo: From Meissner Family Collection. Brothers Werner and Erich drinking their last glass of wine before departing for El Salvador.