Berta Berkovich "Betka" Kohút

1921 - 2021

Berta "Betka" Berkovich Koh£t Survivor of Auschwitz Concentration Camp After a month-long fight, our mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, Berta "Betka" Berkovich Koh£t, passed away peacefully on February 14, 2021 at 1:24 a.m. at the Kaiser Hospital in San Rafael, California, of COVID-related heart and lung complications. Betka (Hebrew name Chaya Bracha "Life's Blessing") was born on November 8, 1921 in a small Ruthenian village, Chepa, in the far east corner of then Czechoslovakia (today, the Ukraine). Her father, Solomon Berkovich, was a tailor, and her grandfather Ignatz, who had visited the U.S. in the early 1900's (but returned to Chepa), was a part-owner of a flour mill and a pub, where Betka's grandmother, Rifka, worked. In 1926 the family moved to Bratislava, Slovakia's capital, where her father opened his own tailoring business. When she was 12, Betka overcame tuberculosis in a Sanatorium and learned the Czech language. She attended commercial high school, but opportunities for Jewish graduates faded with the rise of Slovak fascism and anti-Semitism. Betka learned tailoring from her father and it saved her life. Beginning in March 1942, when she was 21, Betka was transported with 999 other young women to the notorious Nazi Concentration Camp, Auschwitz. She survived 1000 days there with her sister Katka. Of her experience, she said, "I could have died 1,000 times every day." A book about Betka's experience, "The Dressmakers of Auschwitz," will be published this September 2021 in 15 languages. She was in the 4th transport of young Slovak girls who were first to enter Auschwitz. Her number was 4245. Betka's entire family, 57 members, perished in the Holocaust. A Cenotaph to commemorate them will be erected at Kol Shalom Cemetery in San Rafael's Mt. Tamalpais Cemetery. After the war, she married Leo Kohn Koh£t, a young idealist, who convinced her to remain in Czechoslovakia to build a "new, just, socialist country." She worked in the youth publishing house, Smena. Betka and Leo had two sons, Tom (1947) and Emil (1951), who both live in Marin County. Tom runs a student exchange program with his wife, Lilka, called "CHI." Emil is a pharmacist. His wife, Vivian, is a registered nurse. After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, Betka and Leo moved to California to be with their sons and families, including seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Leo Kohn Kohut, a famous Slovak writer, passed away in 2013, aged 97. Until she was admitted at Kaiser a month ago, Betka was in excellent health. She fully participated in life, cooked, baked, and took walks. At 92, she learned to use a laptop. She read and sent emails and Skyped with her friends around the world. At 99, Betka still subscribed to a German weekly crossword puzzles magazine and solved every page. Grandchildren came twice a week to have their dinners there. Betka participated fully and wholeheartedly in life, until the day a COVID-related heart-attack sent her to the hospital. She has always been a fighter and the entire family expected her to survive even after she developed pneumonia. Alas, at 99, this battle was too big to win. The entire family is grateful to have had her in their lives. Her contribution cannot be measured in words. Betka's legacy will continue to live through her family. Honor to her memory! Celebrate Betka Koh£t's life by sending a donation to JFCS Holocaust Center, https://donate.jfcs.org/give/176103/#!/donation/checkout or email donate@jfcs.org or call (415) 449-1283.