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Eva Kollisch Returns to SLC

by Frederic Richter

Tuesday December 30, 2008

The Pillow’s of the Pillow Room were widely used when Eva Kollisch returned to SLC for a reading from her memoir. Professor Rolland Dollinger, expressed his “great pleasure” to introduce Kollisch and welcomed her back to SLC, where she was a professor in the German department. Dollinger reminisced that he remembered being interviewed by her in the spring of 1989, when his hair was much darker and his lip bore a mustache. Dollinger joked that he became “the German Department” at SLC, and during their time together as teachers, she served as his faculty Don. During her time at SLC, she made a “big impact” in activism, and faculty members such as Danny Kaiser can proudly attest to “fond memories” of being arrested for protests. At the time of her retirement she taught German and comparative literature. Her memoir tells the story of her family’s fate in pre-war Austria, and has published numerous books, including The Ground Under My Feet and The Girl In Movement. Dollinger notes that often memoirs sound a false note, but not Eva’s; hers is precise and sharp like a surgeon’s. Kollisch opened her remarks by thanking various individuals in the audience, including the president, who “she thought was a student,” and commented that “I encourage everyone thinking of retiring not to do it too late.” She recalled her parents attempting to leave Nazi Germany; her mother’s combing the public library for names in the U.S. that could possibly serve as visa-sponsors. In 1938 she entered a special school for Jewish children near Bondheim that neither she nor her friends cared for, and recalled, “three different yellows: lemon yellow, egg yellow and piss yellow—the school was lemon yellow.” Her dislike of the school was so intense she would sometimes even “play hooky”. Two years later she was in America. Another section she read from was “Baden”, which described life there, including her sick mother, abused brother and abusive father. She characterized her father as a “tyrant” and even drew “absurd” comparisons to Hitler, explaining he was a little man with “big worries.” One of the things, which remained in her mind vividly, was her father groveling before skilled laborers who, because they were gentiles had the power to humiliate Jews. This was especially so with the maids whom she believed had unexpressed anti-Semitism. In July 1939 she departed on the kindertransport for England, where she stayed with a “mean stingy family,” made to sleep in an attic with the grandmother and was “kept out of the way.” When her father arrived he was more caring than she had ever seen him. Her father came in September, and left for Staten Island in 1940; her first act upon arrival was to get a library card. Kolisch’s father attended night school to learn English, a 59-year-old former architect he couldn’t get his license and thus was forced to peddle vacuum cleaners. At the end of the war he was an architect designing the subway system. She recalled his death in 1951 of intestinal cancer, weighing only 90 lbs at the end. Kollisch was 25 at the time of his death and recollected that she led a somewhat bohemian life, living in Greenwich Village. She said she felt as though “everyone was in therapy,” as this was apparently the passion of the day, which made her ponder if the father of her childhood was imagined? Yet as if to answer herself she noted that in psychology the child is always right. It was during the time when she was transcribing her parents’ letters (her fathers were barely indecipherable, written in gothic script) that she realized the love shared between her parents. Following her moving words, Kolisch was asked questions, including when the “awareness” of what happened in Germany came about and replied that news of the Holocaust came “dribbling out” and was horrifically disturbing. The Holocaust, “doesn’t want to be grasped,” as the immensity is “beyond me,” she commented. She extrapolated that she is unsure how to “grasp” it, and that if you did, she was unsure one could live. As a member of the Kindertransport, Kolisch was fortunate enough to escape the horrors of the camps. Yet she was doubly fortunate for she was one of the few whom saw both her parents again, as 9 out of 10 kindertransportees never saw their parents again. Kolisch’s talk was moving, heartfelt and enlightened the audience with personal perseverance.