Eva Hecht
Holocaust survivor Eva Hecht died Feb. 8, 2022. She was 94. A service was held Feb.9 at Mt. Nebo Cemetery, officiated by Rabbi Dani Rapp.
Mrs. Hecht was born Eva Karfunkel on Nov. 16, 1927, in Nyiregyhaza, Hungary. She and her sister Magda were deported to Auschwitz in May, 1944. They eventually were sent to Dachau, before being liberated by the US Army in 1945.
In 1949, Mrs. Hecht married Emil Hecht in Bayerisch Gmain, Germany. They emigrated to the US and settled in Denver in 1952. Mr. Hecht, himself a Holocaust survivor from Czechoslovakia, passed away in December, 2010, at the age of 86.
Mr. and Mrs. Hecht were pillars of Denver’s Jewish community, endowing the Emil and Eva Hecht Chair at DU’s Center for Judaic Studies.
As Mr. Hecht became a successful businessman, Mrs. Hecht shared in their endeavors, building and managing apartments. In addition, she became a stock market day trader.
Mrs. Hecht created a lasting imprint on Denver’s landscape in additional ways; she was instrumental in the creation of the Mizel Museum.
“Eva Hecht was a force of nature,” said Mrs. Hecht’s daughter-in-law, Mindy Hecht. “She and my father-in-law both survived the Holocaust, found each other and built a life that should serve as an example of how to beat all the odds and live with generosity, dignity and grace.”
A portion of Mindy Hecht’s eulogy paid a poignant tribute:
“Yesterday (Feb. 8) Eva woke with a long list of things to do. She was going to work, because all 27 year-olds (as you know that was all she would admit to) should teach themselves to trade stocks in their eighties and then spend better than a decade working full time in a time zone two hours ahead using a technology that had not been invented when she was born. But it meant that when the New York Stock Exchange closed at four o’clock and it was only two o’clock here in Denver and there was still plenty of time for other things. But, alas, only some of the trading on her account was going to happen, because as we all know, man plans and G-d laughs. Today we all woke up in a world that is lesser than it was yesterday. There is less strength and less fight and less moral certitude.”
Mrs. Hecht is survived by her children; Jeffrey (Mindy) Hecht, Judy (Gilbert) Dumontet; and five grandchildren.
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