Coronavirus: survivor sees bright side after the horror

Holocaust survivor Yvonne ­Engelman has been keeping busy, despite being forced into isolation.

‘I have lived through some very traumatic times’ ... Holocaust survivor Yvonne Engelman at her home in Maroubra, eastern Sydney, on Friday. Picture: Britta Campion

Holocaust survivor Yvonne ­Engelman has been keeping busy, despite being forced into isolation.

The 93-year-old has taken up bridge online, has a puzzle on the go and has been checking in with her grandchildren on FaceTime.

It has been keeping her dark memories at bay. As a 14-year-old girl, she was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where about one million of the six million Jews who were killed by the Nazis perished. She miraculously survived when a gas chamber failed, but she was separated from her parents and never saw them again.

She considers herself a victor of the war; she has three children, nine grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren — “I leave a legacy!” she says proudly — and feels spoilt to live in Sydney’s beachside suburb of Maroubra.

But the pandemic has separated her from her family once again. This year, she celebrated the Jewish festival of Passover at home. She was able to see her family’s faces on the computer, but their absence left a “void”.

However, she has remained positive and “refused to panic”. She had always been a great optimist, she said. “As a survivor, I have lived through some very traumatic times. Now I look at it this way: I live in a house, I have a backyard and a front yard; I’m not a young girl, but I still walk every day and I am able to do things.”

However, other Holocaust survivors on their own have found the lockdown more challenging.

Sydney Jewish Museum volunteer manager Rony Bognar said television images of empty supermarket shelves and panic shopping had brought unpleasant memories flooding back for some survivors. They were also struggling with all the time they now had on their hands, she said.

“They’re not playing bowls, or bridge or going out for coffee,” she said. “They have a lot of time to think.”

The museum has been ringing some of them four times a day to make sure they are OK.

Ms Engelman had volunteered at the museum every Tuesday for 28 years until it closed in March. She says she misses the school­children and the ­opportunity to keep alive the memory of those who were murdered, and she can’t wait to return to the role.

For now, though, she is looking on the bright side. “You have two choices — accept it and make the most of it, or be miserable.

“I make the most of it.”