Riva Kremer

Born: Riva Karp
August 12, 1906

Died: May 5, 2007

Sometimes, Riva Kremer’s memories of the Holocaust were so painful that she chose not to think about the past. Other times, she reached farther back in her memory and was comforted by recollections of a pleasant life in Grodno, Poland where her husband Chaim ran a dry cleaning business and Riva cared for their two children, Linda (b. Lyuba) and Josef.

Although the family was confined to a ghetto after the Nazis overran Grodno in the summer of 1941, they managed to stay together until February 1943. On a cold and wintry day, they were loaded onto a crowded cattle car bound for an unknown destination. When the doors opened, they found themselves at Treblinka, one of the most notorious Nazi killing centers, where the machinery of death operated with chilling efficiency. Riva considered her survival a miracle. As the family was herded from the train, Chaim and Josef were immediately sent to the gas chamber. But Linda was pulled aside. Crying, “I want my mommy, I want my mommy,” she clung to Riva, who was inexplicably permitted to go with her. Both escaped the fate of the vast majority of Jews who were sent to Treblinka; instead of being murdered, Riva and Linda were sent as slave laborers to the camp of Majdanek.

In Majdanek, Riva and Linda were assigned the macabre task of sorting the belongings of the dead. While there, they found Vivian Chakin, a girl they had known in Grodno. The three immediately grew close, Riva caring for Vivian as if she were her own daughter and nursing her back to health when she fell ill. Determination and luck kept Riva, Linda and Vivian together for the next several years. Together, they endured horrific conditions at Trawniki (where they were forced, once again, to organize the clothing of the Nazis’ victims), Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz. At Auschwitz, death surrounded them night and day. When dusk fell, the lights from the crematoria lit the sky. Riva, Linda and Vivian were in Theresienstadt, a ghetto and transit camp in Czechoslovakia, when Allied troops liberated them on May 8, 1945.

Attempting to reach Palestine, the three made it as far as a camp for displaced persons in Austria. Vivian came to the United States in 1946 and Riva and Linda arrived in 1951 under the sponsorship of distant relatives. They lived in New York where Riva found a job in the garment industry. Linda married Morris Penn, a survivor whom she had met in Austria. The couple settled in Texas, establishing dry goods businesses in Newgulf, League City and La Marque. In 1965, Linda and Morris settled in Houston and Riva joined them there. Explaining why she chose not to remarry, Riva said, “I didn’t want to. I had a very good husband.”

Riva celebrated her 100th birthday in Houston in 2006. She died the following year.

Parents:
Joseph Karp, d.
Liebbi Karp, d. before Holocaust

Siblings:
Leah, survived
Moishe, d. in Holocaust
Nachum, d. in Holocaust
Motka, d. in Holocaust

Husband:
Chaim Kremer, d.Treblinka, 1943

Children:
Linda (b. Lyuba), survived
Josef, d. Treblinka, 1943