My parents wanted everything for us that they were denied
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Ivonne Weiner was born in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, on 12 April 1954. Her parents, Hana and Max Weiners, had arrived in September 1948 with their son Michal who was a few months old. Their greatest wish was to give their children everything they could not have themselves, especially education. They never talked about their experiences during World War II. It was too painful. Ivonne Weinerová first attended an American school for twelve years where classes were taught in both English and Spanish. She continued her studies with a focus on administration. In order to improve her French and German, her parents sent her to Switzerland. After her studies, she began working for an airline in Ecuador, but was drawn to her brother in the U.S. where her parents eventually moved and died. It was only towards the end of her life that Ivonne Weinerová’s mother told of her imprisonment in Terezín, Auschwitz and the Christianstadt labour camp, from where she escaped during the death march under very dramatic circumstances. Ivonne Weinerová took care of her mother until her final day and had her name symbolically engraved on a tombstone in the Jewish cemetery in Plzeň.
