Edith Coliver was born in Karlsruhe “Charles Rest”, Germany on July 26 1922. She was born into a middle class German family with two siblings. She was a very active young lady, who was interested in crafts, theater, and sports. She belonged to the “League of German Jews” and was the high jumping champion. When she was 10 years old Hitler came to power, and she remembers Nazi’s storming into houses separating families, and pounding on the doors asking “Is this where the widow of so and so lives?” cuing the women to understand their husbands had been carted off. Edith was extremely lucky because she was never sent to a concentration camp; in June 1938 her family went to the America’s. She recalls her father stating, “There’s a war coming, and I don’t want to be separated from you by an ocean, I want you to come along.” She remembers staying up all night on the voyage, just so she could be the first to see the Statue of Liberty. She said it was the most amazing sight in the world, and remembers people chanting “Down with Hitler, Chamberlin must go.” Her family then went to California and she attended George Washington High School where she felt like an outsider, because no one understood what she was emotionally going through. She then attended Berkley, and gained a position working for the Senator and the War Department. She attended the Nuremburg Trial as a translator, and remembers witnessing all the Nazi chiefs being prosecuted. She returned to her home town in Germany and found it in ruins. She learned many of her classmates, including her best friend, had been killed in concentration camps. When asked why she thought some German’s did what they did she stated, “I trust more people who said I was powerless,” because the people were scared of Hitler and what he would do to them. She then returned to the US and has been married to the same man for 31 years.
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