Edith Mayer Cord, a local Holocaust survivor who frequently spoke publicly about her wartime experiences, died on Sept. 21 after an eight-year battle with cancer. She was 93.
A Columbia resident since 1984, Cord was the author of the memoir “Becoming Edith: The Education of a Hidden Child” (Wordsmithy LLC).
“My life is a triumph, and if I can overcome, so can others,” Cord said.
A native of Vienna, Cord moved to Italy with her family in 1937 to escape the rise of Nazism in Austria. When Benito Mussolini’s Italy joined forces with Nazi Germany the following year, her family illegally entered France in April of 1939, settling in the southeastern city of Nice.
Cord’s father and brother were soon arrested as “enemy aliens” and sent to work camps. In the summer of 1942, they were deported to Auschwitz, where they eventually perished.
Cord and her mother moved to a small village in Vichy France. When mass deportations began, Cord went underground with the help of the Jewish Scouts of France and its clandestine arm, the Sixième.
She went into hiding with false papers and spent a single year hiding in 13 different locations until being smuggled into Switzerland, where she worked as a nanny for the remainder of World War II.
After the war, Cord rejoined her mother in France and graduated from the University of Toulouse. In 1952, she moved to the United States and resettled in New York, where she met her future husband, Steven Cord. She also took night classes, hoping to eventually earn a doctorate, a goal never realized.
The Cords married in 1954 and had two daughters, Emily and Louise, and a son, Daniel.
In 1962, the Cords moved to the Pennsylvania city of Indiana. For many years, Edith Cord worked as a professor of French and German at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
While living in Indiana, the Cords became active in the civil rights movement and created a scholarships committee for Black students. They also established a speakers’ bureau to explore the topics of race and social inclusion.
In addition, Edith Cord worked to desegregate the local community pool and set up an afterschool study center, as well as played an active role in the Hadassah group.
In 1979, she left academia and started working in the financial services industry as a certified financial planner and securities broker.
In 2006, Cord retired from financial services to focus on writing and public speaking. She published her first book, “L’Éducation d’un Enfant Caché,” in 2013, and then “Finding Edith: Surviving the Holocaust in Plain Sight” in May of 2019. In addition, she wrote poems, short stories and fables, as found on her website, edithcord.com/.
“Hatred only begets hatred. Contempt begets contempt,” Cord wrote. “The best definition of love is acceptance. If you want peace and love in the world, then send out thoughts of peace and love. Besides, hatred is an attachment: it ties you to the object of your hatred just as love ties you to the object of your love. Let it go — and you will be free.”
In a tribute on the website of Sol Levinson & Bros., Cord’s family wrote, “Edith took her legacy as a Holocaust survivor seriously. She was an active speaker at schools, universities, churches, civic groups, and government and military audiences in the Baltimore/Washington area where she shared her experiences and the lessons she learned: how to rise above difficult circumstances, transcend hatred, find meaning and show tolerance.
“In her final years she took enormous satisfaction from her public speaking, particularly from touching the lives of so many young people.”
The family also described her as a “wonderful grandmother, connecting with each and every one of her seven grandchildren, helping them to identify their special gifts and supporting their passions.”
Cord is survived by her daugthers, Emily and Louise; her daughter-in-law, Leigh Hellner; her two sons-in-law, Vuong Duthinh and Philippe Gruiot, her grandchildren, David, Caroline, Julien, Aaron, Ethan, Anna, and Shane; and by extended family and many cherished friends.
She was predeceased by her husband, Steven, and her son, Daniel.
Her family requests that donations in Cord’s memory be sent to HIAS, 1300 Spring St., Suite 500, Silver Spring, Maryland, 20910.
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