Eight decades after the Holocaust, many individuals are minimizing its impact or completely denying its occurrence, cautioned Merrill Eisenhower Atwater, the great-grandson of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
His remarks came as nations around the world on Thursday commemorated the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day.
On May 8, 1945, Nazi Germany officially surrendered to the Allied forces, signaling the end of the war in Europe—a conflict that took the lives of about 40 million people, including the genocide of 6 million Jews.
Recently, Eisenhower Atwater participated in the March of the Living on Holocaust Remembrance Day, joining survivors and thousands of participants worldwide. The march follows the route from Auschwitz to Birkenau, the Nazi concentration camps in occupied Poland, as a solemn remembrance of the victims and a tribute to the survivors and their liberators.
“When you’re sitting with 80 Holocaust survivors and both you and they are crying because of how special the moment is—and they tell you, ‘Without your great-grandfather, this never would have happened’—I say, without your bravery, this never would have happened,” Eisenhower Atwater told Fox News Digital on Wednesday,
“My parents were in Theresienstadt for three years, which was unusually long. They were young, strong, and able to work. To some extent, it was a transit camp to a death camp,” Clarke told Fox News Digital.
“At the end of September 1944, their luck ran out. My father was sent to Auschwitz, and incredibly, my mother volunteered to follow him the next day. She didn’t know where he was going and, ever the optimist, believed it couldn’t get worse and they’d survive,” she said.
Anka never saw her husband again. An eyewitness later told her that he was shot and killed in the death march near Auschwitz on Jan. 18, 1945. Auschwitz was liberated by the Russian army on Jan. 27.
In 1943, Anka became pregnant. “It was dangerous, but she met my father secretly. Becoming pregnant in a concentration camp was considered a crime punishable by death,” Clarke said.
Eva Clarke as a baby held by her mother in Mauthausen concentration camp after liberation. (Courtesy: Eva Clarke)
Her brother was born in February 1944 but died of pneumonia two months later. “Had my mother arrived at Auschwitz with a baby in her arms, both would have been sent to the gas chamber. Nobody knew she was pregnant again—with me.”
In April 1945, Anka was sent to Mauthausen. “It’s a beautiful village on the Danube in Austria, but the camp sits on a steep hill behind it. When my mother saw the name at the train station, she was shocked—she had heard how horrific it was. That shock likely triggered her labor, and she began giving birth to me,” Clarke said.
She credits her survival to timing. “On April 28, the Nazis ran out of gas. I was born on April 29. Hitler committed suicide on April 30. On May 5, the American 11th Armored Division liberated the camp.”
When the Americans arrived, they brought food and medicine—though many, weakened, died upon receiving them. Three weeks later, once Anka regained strength, U.S. forces repatriated her to Prague. There, Anka met her second husband, and the two left to avoid living under communism, eventually settling in the U.K.
Eva Clarke, a Holocaust survivor born in the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1945, meets Merrill Eisenhower, great-grandson of President Dwight Eisenhower, in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 26, 2025. (Photo by Yossi May/International March of the Living)
“I feel Merrill is my new best friend,” Clarke said of Eisenhower Atwater. “It was overwhelming to meet someone whose great-grandfather played such an important role in ending the war. I was delighted to reconnect with him again in Auschwitz a few weeks ago. Everyone wanted to thank him for what his great-grandfather did.”
Clarke will return to Mauthausen this Sunday to mark the 80th anniversary of its liberation by U.S. forces. “I’ll be there with two other babies who were born under similar circumstances. We are so grateful, I can’t even express it,” she told Fox News Digital.
Reflecting on the moral clarity his great-grandfather exemplified, Eisenhower Atwater underscored that we are all human beings first.
“We all know right from wrong. It is wrong to kill people, wrong to put babies in ovens, wrong to put people in gas chambers. That’s clear,” he said.
He acknowledged that Holocaust denial often stems from disbelief. “It’s easy to say something didn’t happen because it’s hard to comprehend the death of that many people. I get that. But it did happen. Nazi Germans killed 10,000 people a day—it’s well-documented. They documented it themselves, and the Allied forces saw it first-hand.
“Nobody really wants to talk about the death of six million people over a five-to-six-year period,” he added. “But it’s the truth.”
