Alyssa Vandiver - Survivor Testimony

Alyssa Vandiver

ENG Comp 102-118

Mr. Neuburger

18 March 2013

Survivor Testimony

Edith Coliver

            Edith Coliver was born July 26, 1922 in Karlsruhe, Germany. At the time Karlsruhe was the capital of Barden, which is no longer a state. The town she lived in was a small town, and she lived in a close Jewish community. Edith lived a peaceful middle class life. Her father, Fritz Simon, was very conservative, and her mother, Hedwig Simon, was an orthodox Jew. Coliver was very close with her grandmother, Michelle. Coliver was the oldest of three children. She had two younger brothers, Harold who was born in 1929 and Ernest Robert who was born in 1928. She lived in a large house growing up with two other families. Edith Colivers family had been in Germany for over three hundred years. She grew up Kosher and her family had a cook whom she loved. Her family lived on the bottom floor. She recalled her gym teacher living above her and remembers when articles would come out about the Jews the teacher first thought it was ridiculous, then as time went on he started to think what the media said was true until he eventually wouldn’t speak to Coliver and her family. In public school everything about the Arian Race was drilled in to their heads. After 1937 Colliver wasn’t allowed to attend public school anymore. At age elven she was well aware of what was going on with the war. She didn’t have to ask her parents about what was going on. In 1937 a lot of changes started, she was not able to go to school again so her parents sent her to England for schooling. After only of year of being there and enjoying herself, Edith Coliver’s father told her she had to go home because they were leaving to go to the United States. In June of 1938 Coliver got her visa and in August she and her family left for the United States. After getting to the States Coliver moved to San Francisco and attended school at Berkley. After the war Edith had a hard time relating to people her age, she felt strange around them like she had nothing to talk about except the death of the ones they once knew.