Spots of Light
‘Women in the Holocaust’ exhibit comes to Tillamook Air Museum
Eva Aigner with her younger sister, Ibolya, in Budapest 1942
This Sunday, April 28, the Tillamook Air Museum will host a very special presentation to open the new exhibit, “Spots of Light: Women in the Holocaust.”
This significant exhibition, created by Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, illuminates the remarkable resilience and courage exhibited by women during the Holocaust.
As an integral component of the exhibit’s premiere, and in collaboration with Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education in Portland, the museum will welcome guest speaker Eva Erica Aigner, a Holocaust survivor, who will share her compelling firsthand account of survival and perseverance amid one of the darkest chapters of human history. Her narrative serves as a poignant testament to the enduring strength of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable adversity.
Eva’s daughter, Sue Johnson, will offer poignant reflections on her father Leslie Aigner’s experiences as a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp, providing a multi-generational perspective on the lasting impact of the Holocaust.
Eva, one of two daughters, was born in 1937 in Košice, Czechoslovakia. Her mother stayed at home with the girls and her father ran his own hat-making business until his business license was revoked in 1939 because he was Jewish. Soon the family moved to Budapest, Hungary, joining other family members in the hopes of escaping Nazi extremism. By the end of 1943, Eva had to leave the first grade due to worsening antisemitism. Eva’s father was later taken to a slave labor camp where he was killed.
In Budapest, Eva, her mother, and her younger sister lived with several family members in Jewish housing that was marked with a yellow star. Eventually all residents were either selected for immediate deportation to concentration camps or forced into the Budapest ghetto. Eva’s mother was among those chosen for deportation. In the aftermath, the Nazis selected many children, including Eva and her sister, to be lined up at the Danube riverfront and shot. But Eva’s mother was able to escape the deportation train, find her way back to Budapest, bribe a guard, and save her daughters from execution. Realizing there were no safe places outside of the Ghetto for a Jewish mother and her children, Eva’s mother snuck her and her children into the Budapest ghetto where they remained until Russian troops liberated the ghetto in January of 1945.
Eva eventually finished school and in 1956 met and married Leslie. Five months later, the Hungarian Revolution broke out, and on Christmas Eve, Eva and Leslie, along with Leslie’s father and step-mother escaped over the Hungary-Austria border. They boarded an American troop carrier with numerous other refugees and came to settle in Portland. Eva worked in cosmetology for many years and later operated her own salon.
After local Holocaust deniers became vocal in the late 1980s, Leslie and Eva began sharing their story with audiences far and wide. They have worked with the Holocaust Memorial Coalition since its inception in 1994, and Eva was the vice chair of the project to build the Oregon Holocaust Memorial.
The presentations begin at 1 pm and will be followed by an interactive question-and-answer session, providing guests with an opportunity for meaningful reflection.
The Tillamook Air Museum is located at 6030 Hangar Road. For more information, go to tillamookair.com/hangar-b or call 503-842-1130.