An Evening with Eva Schloss

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine from Lee reached out to me asking if I wanted to go hear Eva Schloss talk at Magruder High School.  For those of you unfamiliar with the name, Eva was Anne Frank's step sister, her mom married Otto Frank after they both lost their spouses to the Holocaust.

Now, although Eva advertises herself as Anne Frank's step sister, I personally feel that that diminishes her story.  She is an incredible Holocaust survivor with an amazing story in her own right, and her time with Anne Frank (they knew each other before the war) is only a small fraction of that story.

Just like when I traveled to Auschwitz with Eva Mozes Kor to hear her story a few years ago, I intentionally didn't read anything about Eva Schloss before hearing her speak.  I wanted to go in with a blank slate and hear her story straight from the source.  It is important to note that Eva has in fact written a book titled Eva's Story, which I am looking to add to my library at some point in the future.

Before I jump into Eva's story, I wanted to talk quickly about something my friend said when we arrived at Magruder.  While looking for a place to park, I noticed a large number of police cars in the parking lot.  At first, I naively thought there was driving school going on there too.  Inside, however, I saw police officers standing around everywhere.  Lisa said to me, "I'm so glad the police are here."  At that moment, it dawned on me.  I've lived in my little Catholic bubble my entire life.  With the exception of a rare instance in middle school and another in college, I've never been put down for being Catholic, and I've definitely had to worry about violence being taken out against me for my religion.  Unfortunately, those of the Jewish faith are not so fortunate.  Events like this are perfect for anti-Semetic people with hatred in their hearts to carry out violence against a population they deem less than simply because of their faith.  I just wish they'd sit down and hear the stories of survivors like Eva in order to understand that Jews are people just like them.  Everyone on this planet has different beliefs, and we should celebrate those differences instead of weaponizing them.  Thankfully, nothing happened, but people of any faith should be able to gather without hiring extra security to keep them safe.

Photo of Eva Schloss courtesy of https://nmsuroundup.com/12845/campus-life/anne-franks-step-sister-holocaust-survivor-eva-schloss-visits-nmsu/

Eva grew up in Vienna, Austria.  She was a precocious and adventurous child with an older brother who was more reserved and musically inclined.  In 1938, however, Eva's life changed when Austria welcomed the Nazis with open arms.  The next day, her brother was jumped by his best friends and beaten up.  Additionally, Eva had a Catholic best friend, and she used to go to her house every day after school.  The day after the Nazi's arrived, her best friend's mom stopped her in the door and told her, "I never want to see you here again" before slamming the door in her face.  It surprised me at how quickly sentiments towards Jews changed, although anti-Semitism had been a part of European culture for quite some time unfortunately.

Eva's father owned a factory, and he was able to use his business connections to move himself to Holland to help work at another factory.  Unfortunately, his family could not follow after him and were instead forced to go to Belgium.  They were lucky to have gotten into Belgium in the first place, as by 1938/1939, no country wanted to take in Jewish refugees.  Eva lived with her brother and mother in Belgium for a year where they still struggled with anti-Semitic sentiments.  For her tenth birthday, Eva was able to invited five friends over to celebrate.  When the day of the party came, each girl arrived with a note from her parents saying she was not allowed to attend the party.

In February 1940, Eva and her family finally got visas so they could go visit her father in Holland for three months.  They had a beautiful little apartment and even had a piano.  Eva was able to play in the streets with other children in the neighborhood.  One day, a little girl with dark hair came up and introduced herself.  It was Anne Frank.  Anne immediately took her home to meet her parents.

Photograph of Anne Frank (second from left in green dress) and Eva (fourth from left), along with their friends.  Courtesy of http://www.jewishledger.com/2018/10/evas-story/

It's important to note here that Eva and Anne had very similar experiences leading up to the war, albeit not identical.  Both spoke German, although Anne's family was from Germany, not Austria.  Otto Frank was a very patriotic German and even served in World War I, but when the Nazi Party started gaining traction in 1933, he read the writing on the wall and took his family to Holland, just like Eva's father.

At this point during her presentation, Eva took some time to talk to us about Anne Frank as a person.  She's a name that nearly everyone in Western society knows in some capacity, and yet, we don't know her because she died at such a tragically young age.  Anne was a huge chatterbox, to the point that her nickname was Ms. Quack Quack.  She got in trouble all the time at school for talking during class.  By the time she was 11, Anne was already obsessed with boys, which is something that came out quite clearly in her diary.  As soon as she learned that Eva had an older brother, she announced, "Okay, we'll go to your house then."  Much to her disappointment, however, Eva's brother wanted nothing to do with Anne.

Eventually, the Nazis invaded Holland.  To its credit, Holland did try to hold out for as long as possible and fight back against the Nazis, but Germany threatened to pretty much level every civilian city until they capitulated.  Unfortunately, Holland was forced to surrender after putting up a valiant fight.  At first, Eva saw the Nuremberg Laws as a nuisance as her rights were slowly taken away.  Her mother insisted that she never take off her coat with her Star of David sewn on the front unless her dress underneath also had a Star of David sewn onto it.  People started disappearing in the middle of the night, never to be seen again.  Perhaps the worst thing Nazis did at this time was go to the Jewish schools (all Jewish children were forced to go to a separate school at this point), round up entire classes of children and march them off, never to be seen again.  The parents had no idea until their children didn't come home from school that night.  They would go to the police and even go to the Gestapo, but no one would help them.  It later came out that the children were marched to Mauthausen, a nearby death camp that had a large quarry.  The children were thrown to their deaths in that quarry.

In June 1942, after his family was in Holland for two years, Eva's father decided that they needed to go into hiding.  They went into hiding for the same reason the Frank family did.  Eva's older brother, Heinz, just like Anne's older sister, Margot, got a letter from the Nazis saying they'd be deported to go work in a factory in Germany.  Many Jewish teens between the ages of 16 and 25 got these letters.  It kicked the need to go into hiding into high gear.  Since it would be almost impossible to find a family that would be willing to hide four people, they split into two groups: Eva and her mother went one place, and her father and her brother went elsewhere.  Her father said they had a better chance of survival, which made Eva realize that what was going on around them was a matter of life or death.

Over the course of two years, Eva and her mother moved to seven different hiding places.  Since they were staying in people's houses, and the Nazis could show up at any moment to search for hidden Jews, they needed a hiding place within their hiding place.  This was never a problem for Anne Frank since she hid in a commercial building.  Eva and her mother had false papers, which allowed them every once in a while to go visit her father and brother.  It definitely helped that she had blonde hair and blue eyes and therefore didn't "look Jewish".

After two years of hiding, Eva's father and brother were being blackmailed for more money by the people hiding them, so they had to find someone else to hide them.  They were being hidden by the Dutch Resistance the entire time, and the organization found them a nurse who was willing to take them in.  A few days after Eva and her mother visited them, however, her father and brother were arrested; the nurse had been a double agent.  The Nazis also followed Eva and her mother back to their hiding spot and arrested them a few days later.  It was her fifteenth birthday.  First, the entire family was taken to Gestapo Headquarters before being sent to a holding camp in northern Holland.  Eva swore she was only there for two days, as she has no memory of being there really.  Recently, however, she learned she was actually there for ten days.

After ten days in the holding camp, they were loaded onto boxcars and sent on a 3-4 day journey.  Just like others who went on a similar journey, they had little food or water, endured overcrowded conditions and blistering heat.  This was the last time they were together as a family.  It was during this time that Eva's brother told her that while they were in hiding he started painting and writing poetry since he couldn't play music any longer.  He hid all his paintings and poetry in a safe place with a note saying who he was and that he intended to go back for them at some point in the future.  Eva's father also told his family that he could no longer protect them.  He'd done everything he could to help them, but there was nothing more that he could do for them.

After several days, they arrived at Auschwitz.  It's important to note that Eva and her family knew about the camps, albeit not in extreme detail.  This came from the fact that while in hiding, the Resistance fighters hiding them had illegal radios.  The BBC would send out radio transmissions to all the occupied countries in their native language telling them what was really happening in the war.  This gave them information others, not even some Nazis, were privy to.  For that reason, they knew about Auschwitz and that it was not a place they wanted to be.  At this point, Eva and her mother were separated from her brother and father.  She also came face to face with Dr. Mengele.  At this point, the stars were aligned to keep Eva alive.  A woman gave her mother a large hat, and her mother gave it to her.  Eva didn't want to wear it, but her mother insisted.  She is convinced that for this reason, Dr. Mengele couldn't see how young she really was, or else he would have sent her to the gas chambers immediately.  This began Eva's horrible time at Auschwitz.

Photograph I took while visiting Auschwitz in 2015.

While at Auschwitz, prisoners were given showers and de-loused once a week.  Dr. Mengele was always present during this time to ascertain if prisoners were healthy enough to keep around.  During one of these times, he saw that Eva's mother was far thinner than other prisoners and selected her to be sent off, presumably to the gas chambers.  Eva was now alone in Auschwitz.  Just a few weeks later, Eva was pulled from her work detail by a Kapo who said someone wanted her outside.  Fearing the worst, she went outside, only to be reunited with her father.  It broke her heart, but she told him that her mother was dead.  This obviously destroyed him.  They were fortunate enough to see each other a handful of times after that, but she never saw her brother again.

Slowly, the SS officers and kapos began to abandon the camp.  Gates were left open, prisoners weren't working every day, they had no idea what was going on.  Approximately two or three months after being separated, Eva found out her mother was alive but at another camp (Auschwitz is a series of camps).  She didn't believe it at first, until she was able to venture out and see for herself.  Sure enough, her mother was alive, albeit extremely weak.  Just a few days later, the Russians liberated the camp.  At this point in her presentation, Eva made a few jokes about how we might not get along too much with Russia right now, but, at the time, she thought they were fantastic.  She also insisted that we be grateful to them, as they lost 30 million people (civilians and soldiers) during World War II (the next highest was Great Britain with 450,000).  After liberation, Eva went over the men's camp searching for her father and brother.  At this point, she ran into a man she knew she recognized, but she couldn't quite place the face.  It was Otto Frank.  He told her that her father and brother had been marched away by the Nazis.  He also asked about his own wife and daughters, but she didn't know where they were.

Photo of Otto Frank courtesy of https://www.annefrank.org/en/anne-frank/main-characters/otto-frank/

Following the end of the war, Eva and her mother marched for four months with the Russians to Odessa.  They stayed there for a while before finally making their way back to Holland.  They returned there in June of 1945.  The Nazis occupied Holland until the very end of the war, so there wasn't a lot of food left for anyone.  A Christian family had taken over Eva's family's apartment, but they were able to get it back after the war.  Otto Frank had nothing, so he stayed with Miep Gies and her family in their small apartment.  He frequently came over to visit with Eva and her mother, however, along with anyone else who had survived hoping for information about his wife and daughters.  Eventually, Eva and her mother got a letter from the Red Cross saying both her father and brother had perished a few days before the United States liberated Mauthausen.  Eva believes her brother died first, and her father, believing her mother dead and it impossible for Eva to survive herself, simply gave up.  At this point, Eva explained that the only way to survive something as horrific as the Holocaust was to have the sheer willpower; once you give up, you're dead in a matter of days.

One day, Otto showed up with Anne's diary, which he found in the Secret Annex where they hid.  He read them passages from it, but it took him three weeks to read because it was so emotionally trying.  At first, he didn't want to publish the diary, but he was eventually persuaded.  Unfortunately, the diary was initially a flop.  It wasn't until it was published in the United States that it gained fame in 1952. 

In an attempt to help Eva, Otto got her a photography apprenticeship in London for a year in 1951.  She stayed in a boarding house where there was a young man approximately her age.  They would often go on walks together, and one day he proposed.  She politely said, "No thank you."  Otto visited shortly thereafter, and she told him about the man's proposal.  She felt that she still had to go back and take care of her mother after her apprenticeship finished.  At this point, Otto told her that he and her mother had fallen in love and wanted to get married.  Eva went back to the young man and said, "Okay, you can marry me."  They got married and still live in England.

Photograph of Eva and her husband, Zvi, on their wedding day.  Courtesy of http://www.jewishledger.com/2018/10/evas-story/

At this point, Eva took some time to give her thoughts on her step-sister's diary.  Although they never lived together as step-siblings, they did know each other before the Holocaust, so she was able to provide some insight into Anne's writings.  Eva started out by saying that Anne's book isn't a good one if you want to learn about the Holocaust, because her story ends when her experiences with the Holocaust begin.  This is something that I agree with.  Anne's story is wonderful if you want to know what life was like for Jews before the Holocaust and what it was like for someone hiding from the Nazis.

Photo courtesy of https://www.goalcast.com/2018/02/27/25-anne-frank-quotes/

Eva also took time to talk about one of the most famous quotes from Anne Frank's diary: "It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality.  It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical.  Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart."  This quote has been a rallying cry for survivors, to show that despite the horrific experiences they had to endure, not everyone is like that.  And yet, Eva throws a wrinkle into that.  It's important to remember that this quote was written when Anne was still in the Secret Annex; she hadn't experienced being ripped away from her parents and the nightmare that was Auschwitz.  Eva believes had Anne survived, she wouldn't have been so optimistic about the rest of the world.

An important anecdote I want to add is about Eva's brother's paintings.  She went back to where he said he hid them and found them.  She ended up donating them to the Dutch Resistance Museum, where you can see them today.  They're absolutely gorgeous, you can also find photos of them online.

One of Heinz Geiringer's paintings.  Photo courtesy of https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jan/21/eva-geiringer-schloss-auschwitz-holocaust-survivor-heinz-paintings

Overall, I had a wonderful time.  I've seen about six different survivors speak over the years, and each one has a different story.  Like I said before, I think it's important to understand that while Eva is Anne Frank's step-sister, she has her own unique story that can stand on its own two feet and should be appreciated.  I can't wait to get my hands on her book and read about her in more detail.  Once I do, you can be sure to hear about it right here.