Born on the Run: Edie Pump

The birth of a child for many can be a special moment. Being surrounded by loved ones in a hospital and gazing into the eyes of a newborn baby for the first time are moments that aren’t easily forgotten. When Edie Pump was brought into this world on May 18, 1942, her parents were on the run from the Nazis, laying low in the neutral Uzbekistan, a primitive area with a warm climate. Two midwives assisted in Pump’s birth, one midwife to help deliver Pump and one midwife to fight off scorpions. The situation was less than desirable for a special moment like the birth of a daughter, but they were safe from the Nazis, and they were alive.

Pump’s parents lived in the ghettos of Poland when word first started spreading about the Nazi agenda to exterminate the Jewish people. Many of the Jewish people living in the ghettos believed that because of their segregation, the war would blow over without affecting them.

Pump’s father, a wheat dealer who made a living buying wheat from farmers and selling it to bakers, had anticipated that Nazi Germany and Russia would soon be invading Poland, and attempted to convince his family to leave their home behind. Poland had been their home for a long time, so his family decided to stay, letting Pump’s father leave if he wanted to and told him to let them know if it was safer. Pump’s mother and father were cousins, and at the time, unmarried. Pump’s father went over to Pump’s mother’s nearby town and ask for her hand in marriage and ask her to leave with him.

“A lot of that happened. In Poland they didn’t trust a lot of people, so there were relatives that intermarried,” Pump said.

Pump’s mother said “yes” to both questions and attempted to convince her family to leave with them. They decided they weren’t going to leave, and so Pump’s mother and father left on their own in 1939. They escaped into the forest where other couples had also been hiding. They came across a Rabbi and got married in the forest. They remained in there in hiding for a couple of months, but decided that they missed their families too much. Pump’s parents started to head back to Pump’s mother’s hometown when they ran into someone on the way who told them to not go back and that everyone was gone.

Pump’s parents decided to run to the Ukraine. There, they were captured by the Russians and put on a cattle train that would bring them to a Siberian work camp.

“My mother said they were packed in like sardines. One lady who was pregnant on the train died,” Pump said.

At the work camp, the temperatures were cold and the workers were malnourished. Many people died from the poor conditions. The workers were compensated with only a wormy loaf of bread for a hard day’s work. Pump’s parents feared that they would be worked to death, so Pump’s father concocted an escape plan.

“One day my dad said, ‘We’re not going to make it. It’s better to try to escape than to die here.’ I think my dad was a pretty smart guy,” Pump said.

Pump’s father planned to fall down and pretend to be paralyzed, where he would be taken to the infirmary. After nightfall, he would escape and meet Pump’s mother and escape. The plan worked out perfectly, and they were able to escape from the work camp.

Pump’s parents then boarded a train to Uzbekstan, where they lived for three years, and where Pump would be born. Uzbekstan was a melting pot, and political stand points wouldn’t affect the family there. The Muslims who lived there were good to the Jewish people, which made it a popular hiding spot for many Jews. However, Uzbekstan proved to be quite primitive, and during their stay, Pump and her mother both contracted Malaria and the whole family contracted Yellow Fever and Typhoid from the contaminated water.

In 1946, one year after the surrendering of Nazi Germany, American soldiers rounded up displaced people from the war and brought them to the Displaced Persons camps in Germany, which were created to provide welfare for people whose homes and families were taken from them during the war. Pump and her family were brought to a DP camp in Austria. They stayed there for a year and were then relocated to a DP camp in Germany.

At the DP camp in Germany, Pump’s parents ran into a cousin whose family hadn’t survived. The cousin moved in with the family into the large apartment buildings that the DP camps had for residents. Each individual apartment had one little room for a bedroom and a toilet in the hall for everyone to use. There were no bathtubs, so Pump’s mother had a large metal tub that she would pour boiling water into to use as a bath tub or to wash clothes in.

“The rooms were very small, and I guess they didn’t mind where they had been living, to my parents it was probably luxury,” Pump said.

In 1947, the family wanted to travel to Israel via the ship Exodus. In order to travel to Israel, they were required to go through a medical screening. It turned out that Pump had tuberculosis, and their trip to Israel had to be cancelled. Pump was transferred to a sanitarium where she was taken care of and met other girls her age. Her parents would take turns coming to visit Pump every three weeks.

Pump was released from the sanitarium in 1950. The doctors recommended that the family didn’t travel to Israel due to it being too harsh for someone who had tuberculosis. Pump’s close friend that she met during her stay in the sanitarium ended up traveling to Israel and passing away.

Pump’s family had cousins who had escaped to the United States who would sponsor them if they came. They ended up traveling there via the ship The General Taylor and docked in New York.

“I was absolutely amazed because I had never seen so many lights,” Pump said.

They stayed in New York for about nine months and then moved to Milwaukee and became citizens in 1956. Pump currently resides in Milwaukee.

Pump’s parents didn’t talk much about the hardships they endured during the Holocaust. It wasn’t until Steven Spielberg came out with the movie Schindler’s List that her mother first gave an interview about the events she had experienced.

“I think there was shame and guilt because they survived and their family didn’t. In their head, they left their family to save themselves, and I think that’s part of it. It’s kind of sad because they lived for nothing, they died for nothing,” Pump said.

Pump had seen other instances of this as well. A family friend had survived the concentration camps, but his child and wife did not. He remarried and had another child once he was in the United States, but he never told his new wife and his new children about his deceased family.

“It’s sad; there are a lot of stories out there,” Pump said.

Pump currently works with the Holocaust Education Resource Center to tell her family’s story, along with other Holocaust survivors. She believes these stories should be talked about and preserved, not taken to the grave unheard.