Lisa Fittko (1909–2005)
Autor(a) de Escape through the Pyrenees
About the Author
Image credit: Life in Legacy; phtographer unidentified
Obras de Lisa Fittko
Testimony 1 exemplar(es)
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Nome padrão
- Fittko, Lisa
- Nome de batismo
- Fittko, Elizabeth Eckstein
- Outros nomes
- FITTKO, Lisa
ECKSTEIN, Elizabeth
EKSTEIN, Elizabeth
Eckstein. Erzsébet - Data de nascimento
- 1909
- Data de falecimento
- 2005-03-12
- Sexo
- female
- Nacionalidade
- Hungary
USA - Local de nascimento
- Uzhgorod, Ukraine (Ungvár, Austro-Hungarian Empire)
- Local de falecimento
- Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Locais de residência
- Vienna, Austria
Berlin, Germany
Prague, Czechoslovakia
Basel, Switzerland
Paris, France
Amsterdam, Netherlands (mostrar todas 9)
Marseille, France
Havana, Cuba
Budapest, Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire - Ocupação
- secretary
Holocaust rescuer
memoirist - Relacionamentos
- Fry, Varian (colleague)
Arendt, Hannah (friend) - Organizações
- Emergency Rescue Committee
- Premiações
- Distinguished Medal of Merit, Germany (1986)
- Pequena biografia
- Lisa Fittko was born Elizabeth Eckstein to a prominent, artistic Jewish family in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. She grew up in Budapest and Vienna before World War I. Afterwards, her family moved to Berlin, where Lisa became active in anti-fascist politics. For seven years, she worked for underground Resistance movements in Berlin, Prague, Zurich, Amsterdam, Paris, and Marseille. Following Nazi Germany's invasion of France in 1940, she and her husband, Hans Fittko, joined Varian Fry and a small group of volunteers for the Emergency Rescue Committee in Marseille. The group is credited with saving about 2,000 people from the Nazis, many of them artists and intellectuals, including André Breton, Marc Chagall, and Max Ernst. Ms. Fittko also helped her friend, the philosopher Hannah Arendt, get out of a prison in France. The Fittkos guided Jews and other refugees over the Pyrenees Mountains to Spain and Portugal. After seven months, the couple escaped to Cuba, and from there emigrated to the USA, settling in Chicago. There Ms. Fittko worked as a secretary and helped support relatives who had survived the Holocaust. She finally gained recognition in the USA through a documentary film, "Lisa Fittko: But We Said We Will Not Surrender" (1998) and her two memoirs, Escape Through the Pyrenees (1985, English translation 1991), and Solidarity and Treason: Resistance and Exile, 1933-1940 (English translation, 1993).
Membros
Resenhas
Escape Through the Pyrenees (Jewish Lives) de Lisa Fittko
Interesting memoir of a young Jewish political activist in the years leading up to WWII and the occupation of France. Lisa and her husband took many incredible risks to help others out of France and to get themselves out as well.
Lisa Fittko (née Elisabeth Ekstein) : Testimony
born 1909 in Uzgohrod/ Österreich-Ungarn
died 12. 3. 2005 in Chicago/ USA
Widerstandskämpferin / Schriftstellerin (resistance fighter / writer)
An 8-hour interview with the 90-year old Lisa Fittko (née Elisabeth Ekstein) (22. Jan. 1999)
Part 1; in brackets: (Hrs:min)
Lisa Ekstein grew up in Budapest (she had no connection with her birthplace except through the accident of being born there). Her parents spoke German at home, she only learned Hungarian when put into primary school. Experience of anti-semitic remarks and name-calling by the children (0:25). On the 9th Nov. 1918 the mother took the children on a military convoy by boat to Vienna to join the father who had gone there earlier (0:28). The father publishes an anti-war literature/political magazine and put all his money into it but had to give up (1:20). (0:59): Sent to Holland on a Kindertransport – a 3-day train journey! - because no food in Vienna; she is a guest of and being looked after by an older woman. When coming back she had forgotten her German!
Berlin : 1922 the family moved to Berlin because the father was offered employment there (1:19). At first a difficult time for her: not the warm atmosphere of Vienna: people appear brush, she lost her friends. At ca. 15 Lisa was able to go to a private school where she was the only girl (1:25) Wonderful for her! She helped the boys with French and English they did her math homework (she never learned to add!). Nobody in the class believed in the Nazi-party.
Berlin in the 20s: She fell in love with the live in Berlin (1:31) Vienna was the place of her childhood, Berlin became her home, the place of her formative years where she became the person she is. Everybody was talking politics including the young generation: you couldn’t grow up without becoming politically aware. The general feeling: the war was so horrible there will not be another war! Cripples at every street corner! Her generation grew up within the devastation left by the war. Berlin was then the intellectual and cultural capital of Europe, but incredible number of unemployed. No hope for the young generation led in part to the rise of National-Socialism.
1. January 1929 in Paris; a wonderful year to study languages (at the Alliance française) financed by her father.
(2:15)
30. Jan. 33: march to the Reichstag, attacked and pushed out of the square (out of danger by non-Nazis(?); the terror became tremendous: what could be done? Only: print leaflets - telling the people what was really happening; learn to defend yourself by every means possible; learn how to live underground but outwardly conform e.g. you couldn’t not lift your arm for the Nazi salute. Her parents left ca. April 33 to Czechoslovakia. As an anti-fascist she was known to them (the Nazis), so she went underground, i.e. did not go home, did not register with the police as everybody was required to do. Some of her anti-fascist friends were tortured some killed. Her brother was not allowed to finish his Ph.D. he went to Paris (2:33). As a wanted person Germany became too dangerous, she decided to join her parents. Crossing the border to Czechoslovakia at Bodenbach Station on a false passport – badly done – she had a narrow escape (2:48:30). She went to Leitmeritz where her father was staying with her uncle.(3:03)
France:
Went to Paris: Married (when?) Hans Fittko : resistance-fighter, non-jewish. In France Hans was put into an Internment Camp for German males (Vernuche/Nevers).
The contrasting national attitudes:
Germany: “If it is the law you better follow it!”
France: “If it is the law you better not follow it!”
10. May 1940 (the day of the start of the Battle of France): L.F. is interned with 14 000 other women at the Camp de Gurs.
Part 2
Internment in the Camp de Gurs: When the Germans invaded France it was possible to escape from all camps. – it was chaos: Officers had run away, remaining guards didn’t know what to do. But the majority of women at that time at Gurs stayed! (“What shall we do?”) --> the political people got out. L.F. with her friend Paulette just walked up to the guard: “Excuse me, I will be right back!” and he let her go.
(1:20) A letter from her brother reached her in a small village! (Information handed on by word-of-mouth)
(1:32) She meets Hans again in Montauban in a villa full of famous people. [Did she mean the Villa Air-Bel Marseille ?]
Marseille and Banyuls sur Mer:
Lisa is chosen by the group of friends they had met in Marseille to investigate a crossing over the Pyrenees to Spain. She makes contact with the Socialist mayor of Banyuls sur Mer, Vincent Azéma (her niece gives details here: http://catherine.stodolsky.userweb.mwn.de/lisa/ff.html ). Azéma informs her of a path over the Pyrenees, an old smugglers route and gives her a detailed describtion of it.
(1:50) Walter Benjamin knocks on her door; she leads him and two others over the mountains, the first time she explores this smugglers path.
(1:50 – 2:10) about Benjamin’s suitcase
(2:10) Meeting with the representatives of the Emergency Rescue Committee (ERC), the US Americans Varian Fry and Born and their (Fittkos') friend Albert Hirschman:
Discussion how to organize the people that arrived at the border and then didn’t know how to proceed: The Spaniards arrested those without exit visas from France & put them into camps.
Result: Fry would pay expenses & give them visas if Lisa & Hans would take them over the mountains.
--> not an easy decision for them because they needed to get out too! And also in assisting others in illegal border crossings they put their own life in danger. They agreed because of their political conviction, their anti-Fascist resistance work.
In the end they (Hans & Lisa) stayed 7 months and took those people Fry + later Fritz Heiner send them, mainly social-democrats. (2:15), later also British pilots who had been downed over France (2:17), not more than 2-3 people at a time so as not to attract attention (2:18).
(2:20) they put them up in houses where the police wouldn’t come and ask for papers; they fed them, because you couldn’t buy food without stamps; they took them over the mountains but sometimes had to wait for the weather to clear up; sometimes people were too sick to travel and had to be put up for days. --> made possible because of the socialist mayor, but who was some months later replaced by a collabo.
(2:23) Hans found an apartment in the customs house; he thought it safest. The officers were friendly and they had lunch together. Hans & Lisa became part of the village – they participated in the village activities (fire-chain). All the villagers knew they were taking people over the border but nobody spoke about it.
(2:28) German Kommissars came through the village but didn’t stay; they were on the Spanish side though.
(2:30) Asked about fear: - “you get used to it.”
(2:35) about Fry – how he came to be involved: - (relates here not her own experience) his brief from the Rescue Committee : to save famous artists, writers etc. and left-wing resistance fighters, mostly working-class. --> the committee collected donations: they would not have got much unless emphasis is placed on famous people!
(2:38) asked about Fry’s motivation: - to help (but little experience, e.g. of tactics of the German army to surround a place so as to cut off Fluchtwege.
(2:41:30) she quotes Walter Benjamin “It is easy to celebrate the well-known & famous – the unknown ones are those who form History”. Fry was treated badly by the Am. Authorities in France & State Department! L.F.: Fry did not differentiate between famous & unknown if they needed help.
(2:52) details how they needed to dress etc. to cross the border; the incident with the ‘man with fur coat’ (L.F.: “he couldn’t let go of the one thing left from his former comfortable life!”) Hans hadn’t seen he was carrying it; they were stopped by customs officers. Hans talked them out of the situation but was enraged!!
They could not continue this work when foreigners were banned from the border region.
(3:15 – 3:27) the story of her parents: she rescued them once when already arrested, they survived in France.
(3:30) Lisbon then Cuba : a corrupt place! After Pearl Harbor, when the US entered the war, Cuba did likewise: in all but name an “American Colony”. All non-Jewish refugees, i.e. mainly resistance fighters were arrested and handed over to Cuban Nazis!!! (Hans got out of it through a Polish hotel owner whom he got to know and made friends with and who swore that Hans were Jewish).
They didn’t plan to stay in Cuba and moved in 1949 to the U.S.A. (not planned either, mainly for Hans’ health reasons – they wanted to go back to Germany). Hans died in 1960.
(3:52) when asked how she sees the future: - “not too well”, but hasn’t given up; she talks to young people and finds them very interested. A formidable woman! (VII-13)
Relevant web-sites:
http://www.exilarchiv.de/DE/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id...
https://web.archive.org/web/20080427190535/http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~catherine...
http://db.yadvashem.org/righteous/family.html?language=en&itemId=4014840
http://melbourneblogger.blogspot.de/2010/04/varian-fry-hero-and-rescuer-of.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAAlCMbQ_ds… (mais)
born 1909 in Uzgohrod/ Österreich-Ungarn
died 12. 3. 2005 in Chicago/ USA
Widerstandskämpferin / Schriftstellerin (resistance fighter / writer)
An 8-hour interview with the 90-year old Lisa Fittko (née Elisabeth Ekstein) (22. Jan. 1999)
Part 1; in brackets: (Hrs:min)
Lisa Ekstein grew up in Budapest (she had no connection with her birthplace except through the accident of being born there). Her parents spoke German at home, she only learned Hungarian when put into primary school. Experience of anti-semitic remarks and name-calling by the children (0:25). On the 9th Nov. 1918 the mother took the children on a military convoy by boat to Vienna to join the father who had gone there earlier (0:28). The father publishes an anti-war literature/political magazine and put all his money into it but had to give up (1:20). (0:59): Sent to Holland on a Kindertransport – a 3-day train journey! - because no food in Vienna; she is a guest of and being looked after by an older woman. When coming back she had forgotten her German!
Berlin : 1922 the family moved to Berlin because the father was offered employment there (1:19). At first a difficult time for her: not the warm atmosphere of Vienna: people appear brush, she lost her friends. At ca. 15 Lisa was able to go to a private school where she was the only girl (1:25) Wonderful for her! She helped the boys with French and English they did her math homework (she never learned to add!). Nobody in the class believed in the Nazi-party.
Berlin in the 20s: She fell in love with the live in Berlin (1:31) Vienna was the place of her childhood, Berlin became her home, the place of her formative years where she became the person she is. Everybody was talking politics including the young generation: you couldn’t grow up without becoming politically aware. The general feeling: the war was so horrible there will not be another war! Cripples at every street corner! Her generation grew up within the devastation left by the war. Berlin was then the intellectual and cultural capital of Europe, but incredible number of unemployed. No hope for the young generation led in part to the rise of National-Socialism.
1. January 1929 in Paris; a wonderful year to study languages (at the Alliance française) financed by her father.
(2:15)
30. Jan. 33: march to the Reichstag, attacked and pushed out of the square (out of danger by non-Nazis(?); the terror became tremendous: what could be done? Only: print leaflets - telling the people what was really happening; learn to defend yourself by every means possible; learn how to live underground but outwardly conform e.g. you couldn’t not lift your arm for the Nazi salute. Her parents left ca. April 33 to Czechoslovakia. As an anti-fascist she was known to them (the Nazis), so she went underground, i.e. did not go home, did not register with the police as everybody was required to do. Some of her anti-fascist friends were tortured some killed. Her brother was not allowed to finish his Ph.D. he went to Paris (2:33). As a wanted person Germany became too dangerous, she decided to join her parents. Crossing the border to Czechoslovakia at Bodenbach Station on a false passport – badly done – she had a narrow escape (2:48:30). She went to Leitmeritz where her father was staying with her uncle.(3:03)
France:
Went to Paris: Married (when?) Hans Fittko : resistance-fighter, non-jewish. In France Hans was put into an Internment Camp for German males (Vernuche/Nevers).
The contrasting national attitudes:
Germany: “If it is the law you better follow it!”
France: “If it is the law you better not follow it!”
10. May 1940 (the day of the start of the Battle of France): L.F. is interned with 14 000 other women at the Camp de Gurs.
Part 2
Internment in the Camp de Gurs: When the Germans invaded France it was possible to escape from all camps. – it was chaos: Officers had run away, remaining guards didn’t know what to do. But the majority of women at that time at Gurs stayed! (“What shall we do?”) --> the political people got out. L.F. with her friend Paulette just walked up to the guard: “Excuse me, I will be right back!” and he let her go.
(1:20) A letter from her brother reached her in a small village! (Information handed on by word-of-mouth)
(1:32) She meets Hans again in Montauban in a villa full of famous people. [Did she mean the Villa Air-Bel Marseille ?]
Marseille and Banyuls sur Mer:
Lisa is chosen by the group of friends they had met in Marseille to investigate a crossing over the Pyrenees to Spain. She makes contact with the Socialist mayor of Banyuls sur Mer, Vincent Azéma (her niece gives details here: http://catherine.stodolsky.userweb.mwn.de/lisa/ff.html ). Azéma informs her of a path over the Pyrenees, an old smugglers route and gives her a detailed describtion of it.
(1:50) Walter Benjamin knocks on her door; she leads him and two others over the mountains, the first time she explores this smugglers path.
(1:50 – 2:10) about Benjamin’s suitcase
(2:10) Meeting with the representatives of the Emergency Rescue Committee (ERC), the US Americans Varian Fry and Born and their (Fittkos') friend Albert Hirschman:
Discussion how to organize the people that arrived at the border and then didn’t know how to proceed: The Spaniards arrested those without exit visas from France & put them into camps.
Result: Fry would pay expenses & give them visas if Lisa & Hans would take them over the mountains.
--> not an easy decision for them because they needed to get out too! And also in assisting others in illegal border crossings they put their own life in danger. They agreed because of their political conviction, their anti-Fascist resistance work.
In the end they (Hans & Lisa) stayed 7 months and took those people Fry + later Fritz Heiner send them, mainly social-democrats. (2:15), later also British pilots who had been downed over France (2:17), not more than 2-3 people at a time so as not to attract attention (2:18).
(2:20) they put them up in houses where the police wouldn’t come and ask for papers; they fed them, because you couldn’t buy food without stamps; they took them over the mountains but sometimes had to wait for the weather to clear up; sometimes people were too sick to travel and had to be put up for days. --> made possible because of the socialist mayor, but who was some months later replaced by a collabo.
(2:23) Hans found an apartment in the customs house; he thought it safest. The officers were friendly and they had lunch together. Hans & Lisa became part of the village – they participated in the village activities (fire-chain). All the villagers knew they were taking people over the border but nobody spoke about it.
(2:28) German Kommissars came through the village but didn’t stay; they were on the Spanish side though.
(2:30) Asked about fear: - “you get used to it.”
(2:35) about Fry – how he came to be involved: - (relates here not her own experience) his brief from the Rescue Committee : to save famous artists, writers etc. and left-wing resistance fighters, mostly working-class. --> the committee collected donations: they would not have got much unless emphasis is placed on famous people!
(2:38) asked about Fry’s motivation: - to help (but little experience, e.g. of tactics of the German army to surround a place so as to cut off Fluchtwege.
(2:41:30) she quotes Walter Benjamin “It is easy to celebrate the well-known & famous – the unknown ones are those who form History”. Fry was treated badly by the Am. Authorities in France & State Department! L.F.: Fry did not differentiate between famous & unknown if they needed help.
(2:52) details how they needed to dress etc. to cross the border; the incident with the ‘man with fur coat’ (L.F.: “he couldn’t let go of the one thing left from his former comfortable life!”) Hans hadn’t seen he was carrying it; they were stopped by customs officers. Hans talked them out of the situation but was enraged!!
They could not continue this work when foreigners were banned from the border region.
(3:15 – 3:27) the story of her parents: she rescued them once when already arrested, they survived in France.
(3:30) Lisbon then Cuba : a corrupt place! After Pearl Harbor, when the US entered the war, Cuba did likewise: in all but name an “American Colony”. All non-Jewish refugees, i.e. mainly resistance fighters were arrested and handed over to Cuban Nazis!!! (Hans got out of it through a Polish hotel owner whom he got to know and made friends with and who swore that Hans were Jewish).
They didn’t plan to stay in Cuba and moved in 1949 to the U.S.A. (not planned either, mainly for Hans’ health reasons – they wanted to go back to Germany). Hans died in 1960.
(3:52) when asked how she sees the future: - “not too well”, but hasn’t given up; she talks to young people and finds them very interested. A formidable woman! (VII-13)
Relevant web-sites:
http://www.exilarchiv.de/DE/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id...
https://web.archive.org/web/20080427190535/http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~catherine...
http://db.yadvashem.org/righteous/family.html?language=en&itemId=4014840
http://melbourneblogger.blogspot.de/2010/04/varian-fry-hero-and-rescuer-of.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAAlCMbQ_ds… (mais)
A memoir of the German anti-fascist resistance. Following Hitler's rise to power, Lisa Fittko joined the underground, ultimately being forced to flee to Czechoslovakia, where she met Hans Fittko and with him organized an escape route for the opponents of the Nazi regime, and continued the publication and distribution of political literature.
Lisa Fittko never deserted her principles. Throughout her life, she fought for justice. In later years, she came to the U.S., where she continued the struggle. Until her death on March 12, 2005 at the age of 94, she lived in Chicago, where she was active in the peace movement.… (mais)
Lisa Fittko never deserted her principles. Throughout her life, she fought for justice. In later years, she came to the U.S., where she continued the struggle. Until her death on March 12, 2005 at the age of 94, she lived in Chicago, where she was active in the peace movement.… (mais)
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- Membros
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