Happiness after heartbreak

Photograph taken in 1951 in Melbourne of Herbert and Eva Stocker posing on a park bench. Herbert Fritz (Fred) Stocker was born in 1918 in Berlin, the son of Adolf Linsky, a German Jew. From 1937-1943, Herbert worked as a turner in a tool company, Fleck and Co. He met Jewish girl, Ruth Jacobi and proposed to her in May 1942, despite knowing that, being only half Jewish, he might avoid persecution by remaining single.

On 27 February 1943, Herbert was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Ruth, who was six months pregnant at the time, was left at home. Herbert later found out that she and their infant daughter Gilta were sent to Birkenau in September 1943, where they were murdered. Because of his trade skills, Herbert was allocated to a work party at IG Farben Buna works in Monowitz concentration camp, a sub-camp of Auschwitz. In February 1945, he was sent by death march to Mauthausen. He was allocated to a number of different work parties, which saw him move between several different camps in Austria.

On 1 May 1945, he and the prisoners of Gusen concentration camp were all marked with their identification numbers in large print on their chests, which denoted them ready for extermination. Luckily, the camp was liberated days later on 5 May 1945. Herbert left the camp before even the Red Cross arrived; it had become chaotic and dangerous as some bands of former prisoners attacked and even killed several unpopular kapos and barrack elders. He walked to the suburb of Linz, 17km from Gusen. He stayed for a time there during 1946-1947 in a Displaced Persons Camp in Bindermichl. There he met and married Eva, (born 17 July 1925, in Lodz, Poland). Herbert and Eva boarded the ship Ville d’Ameins on 13 May 1947, disembarking in Melbourne on 22 July. He had a rich life in Melbourne and later Sydney, where he died in 2011, aged 93.