AHC interview with Gertrude Stevens.

Gertrude Stevens née Hoffmann was born 1928 in Vienna, Austria, where she lived in Hietzing, Vienna’s 13th District. Gertrude and her brother grew up in a protective family environment, where religion did not play a major role, as her parents were celebrating both Chanukah and Christmas. She was still a child during Kristallnacht, but she remembered the local synagogue burning. Her father was arrested and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp. In March 1939, the family escaped via Czechoslovakia and France to the USA. Shortly after their arrival, the family – fearing further persecution - converted to a Protestant denomination. They first settled in Chicago where Gertrud became a teacher, teaching grades 1-7 in Chicago’s metropolitan area for 40 years until her retirement in 1988. In 1948 she married Gustav Schwarz, and they had two sons. Eventually, Gertrude Stevens settled in Atlantis, Florida.Austrian Heritage Collectio