Edith Coliver - Testimony 1 - Justin Middleton

Edith Coliver was a German native who survived the holocaust. She was from Karlsruhe, Germany. She was born in 1922 and remembers being very active in her Jewish faith. She said that her family had been from that part of Germany for roughly 300 years or more. She was the oldest of three, she had two younger brothers. When the Germans stopped allowing Jewish children to attend public school, Edith was sent to England by her parents to attend school there. Her father had friends in England to make this possible. In 1938 her parents called her home because her dad knew that war was going to break out in Europe. She originally did not want to go, however, she did obey her parents in the end. When she returned to Germany her family immediately filed for her to get a visa. Fortunately she was under 17 and the American consulate allowed her to come to the United States on his visa. If she had been of legal age, the waiting list for a visa was 10 years. Edith’s family came to New York and stayed for four weeks and then traveled through the Panama Canal to San Francisco. That is where they finished raising their children. The next major event in Edith’s life was she wanted to be a part of the Nuremberg Trials. She was hired as a translator and was immediately sent to Europe. There she encountered many of the top German officials in Hitler’s regime. She also visited the displaced person’s camps. She explained vividly that there was shame in being a German Jew that she had gotten out of the country and all of these other people had suffered so greatly. The reason Edith survived was because her family was able to get out of Europe to the United States before the killing started. Her consequence of surviving was to come back and participate in the trials held for the Germans. It was not easy for her, however, she felt it was necessary.

“After liberation 40,000 Jews died because their system could not accept food into it.”
“[Jewish] people had to be apologetic about surviving [in the displacement camps].”