Alice Eberstarkova Masters instilled in her children the value of hard work: “Don’t just sit on your butt; go out and get the career going.” That’s the attitude she embodied in her 99 years despite a difficult start — Masters is among the 669 children who escaped the Holocaust through British stockbroker Nicholas Winton’s Kindertransport trains.
Born on May 10, 1925, in the remote Czech village of Trstená, Masters was raised in an Orthodox Jewish household with her two sisters. She enjoyed a happy childhood, picking wild strawberries in the woods, and described the village in “pretty idyllic terms.”
The family’s house had no electricity or running water, so Alice Masters appreciated how hard her mother had to work, between sewing clothes for the three girls and cooking.
“Alice was an exceptionally bright and beautiful child,” her daughter, Kim Masters, wrote in an obituary.
As such, her parents sent her to a school outside Trstená, requiring long train rides every day. She attended this school until the Nazis’ advancement across Europe halted education for Jewish children.
Alice Masters’ uncle, Heino, worked in Berlin, and had the inside scoop about the worsening situation for Jews. He wrote to Alice’s mother urging her to get the children out of Czechoslovakia if she and her husband couldn’t escape.
At that time, Heino’s company had transferred him to London, where he learned about the Kindertransports that Winton and his friends were running.
Alice Masters’ parents made the “heart-wrenching decision to send their girls to a foreign country where none of them spoke the language,” Kim Masters wrote.
On July 1, 1939, Alice Masters and her family traveled to Prague, where the three girls were sent away with dresses and embroidered nightgowns handmade by their mom and blankets from their dad. Alice was 14.
Once they arrived in London, Alice Masters and her sisters stayed at the Wyberlye Ladies Convalescent Home, which took in 50 refugee girls from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia leading up to World War II. Alice Masters’ guardian trained her in shorthand, and then English.
She found a job with the Czech government-in-exile, which led to a job with the International Monetary Fund and brought her to the United States in 1948. Alice Masters worked for the IMF for nearly four decades, while her sisters stayed in London.
“At a time when women weren’t really in the workplace, my mom set an example,” Tim Masters, her son, said. “Both of my parents had jobs; they were out working. I don’t remember her being at home.”
In the U.S., Alice Masters reconnected with Peter, an Austrian boy who had narrowly escaped the Nazis with his mother and sister, whom she had met after the end of WWII. The two were married in Washington, D.C., in 1950 and remained together for more than 50 years.
Alice and Peter Masters had three children: Anne, Kim and Tim, in the Shepherd Park neighborhood of D.C., before moving to Bethesda. A bastion of independence, Alice wanted control over her finances, which Peter gladly left to her.
“They were just great partners,” Kim Masters said of her parents.
Peter Masters had been a member of X Troop, a group of secret Jewish refugee fighters, and often recounted his role in the invasion on D-Day. But Kim Masters said that Alice’s story was “100% off-limits.”
“As kids, for the most part, my dad told war stories all the time, so we got that aspect of our parents’ background, but my mom never really talked about the Kindertransport or the Holocaust,” Tim Masters said. “My mom was a quieter hero — when you think of all that she endured and was able to build the life she did, it’s quite remarkable.”
“In the early days, I think it was too much to cope with. She didn’t even know what had happened to [her parents],” Kim Masters said of her mom, adding that her mom appeared to carry a lot of sorrow.
Alice Masters discovered that her parents, grandparents, and some friends had been sent to the Majdanek concentration camp in the summer of 1942. Her mother’s aunt was sent to Auschwitz, according to Kim Masters. Alice never explicitly talked about her family’s history with her children except to say that her parents had been sent “to a concentration camp.”
Then something shifted. The release of Steven Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List (1993) and the 1994 launch of the USC Shoah Foundation raised awareness of the Holocaust and prompted Alice Masters to tell her story. She reconnected with Winton, the man who had saved her life.
“With time, she started to see the importance of talking about it,” Kim Masters said.
Alice Masters became involved with the Kindertransport Association and various organizations in Maryland and Virginia. She spoke at local middle and high schools that wanted to implement Holocaust education, often staying afterwards to speak to students: “The line to talk to her was a mile long,” Tim Masters said.
She brought the nightgown and dresses her mom had sewn for her and the handwritten letters from her parents, which stopped arriving in March 1942, to show her audiences.
“She spent almost the second half of her life talking about the first half of her life, which she pretty much never talked about for … probably 60 years of her life,” Tim Masters said.
“As my mother became more open about it, it became part of our identity,” he said, adding that his daughter started a speaker’s bureau when she was in high school for Holocaust survivors to speak at area high schools.
“Locally, she had a great impact on all these young people who presumably are going out and talking about [her story],” Tim Masters said. “I think her impact was far-reaching and deeply felt.”
Her last public appearance was a screening of One Life, based on the true story of Nicholas Winton, at D.C.’s Avalon Theatre in March. She spent her golden years at Kensington Park Senior Living, where she was beloved by the staff.
“Anyone who got to know my mother loved my mother,” Tim Masters said. “People adored her.”
Alice Masters died on Nov. 19, but her story and legacy live on through her oral history recording with the Shoah Foundation.
“She was a living, breathing example that we can go through the worst experience imaginable and build a beautiful life in the end that makes a difference and impacts people in a positive way,” Tim Masters said. “And then to pass away peacefully at 99, that’s something.”
Alice is survived by her three children; seven grandchildren: David, Sam and Hannah Quinn, Delia Simson, and Charlotte, William and Joe Masters; and one great-grandchild, Jonah Gibson.
