Frankfurt. London. Letchworth. Mrs. Eva Fachler’s life straddles hundreds of miles and the destruction — and renewal — of worlds as both German refugee and rescue operative,
Mrs. Fachler reflects on her rich past: “I look back at things I said and did and I don’t know how I did them. But Hashem guided me. He put words into my mouth and told me what to do…”
M rs. Eva Fachler’s love of life runs through our conversation like an effervescent strand as we toss the loosely woven cloth of conversation from place to place from Frankfurt to South Africa Letchworth to Jerusalem and from kosher butchers to birthday parties. It is clear that she’s met all the changes in her life with reserves of inner joy.
in Frankfurt am Main Eva Becker’s pride in her place of birth is obvious. I soon find out though that the Becker parents were not true-blue yekkes; they hailed from Lithuania. The litvish shtiebel in the East End of Frankfurt suited them better than the formality of Rav Breuer’s shul. “At Breuer’s you could hear a pin drop even on Simchas Torah ” Eva remembers.
Little Eveshon as she was called was persuaded to walk to the shtiebel with her grandfather but she loved singing and the choir at Breuer’s was a big attraction for her. “On the way home we used to compare all the chazzanim: Shachnowitz Steinberg and others. I was different from my parents — my mother used to say to me ‘Where do you come from?’ ”
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