Eva Schloss / Eva Geiringer (F / Netherlands, 1929), Holocaust survivor
Eva Schloss / Eva Geiringer (F / Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, 1929), Holocaust survivor.
- Stepsister of Anne Frank
- KEYWORDS : <Austria> <Refugees> <Belgium> <Netherlands> <Hidden Children> <Auschwitz> <Liberation of Auschwitz>
- MEMOIRS : Eva's Story (1988) -- The Promise (2006) -- After Auschwitz (2013)
Biography
Eva Geiringer was born May 11, 1929 in Vienna to a Jewish family. Shortly after the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938, her family emigrated to Belgium and finally to the Netherlands. She lived in the same apartment block in Amsterdam as Anne Frank, and the girls, only a month apart in age, were sometimes playmates from ages 11 to 13. In 1942, both girls went into hiding to avoid the Nazi effort to capture the Jews of Amsterdam. In May 1944, Schloss's family was captured by the Nazis after being betrayed by a double agent in the Dutch underground, and transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camps. Her father and brother did not survive the ordeal, but she and her mother were barely alive when they were freed in 1945 by Soviet troops.
They returned to Amsterdam. In November 1953, Schloss's mother Elfriede (1905–1998) married Otto Frank. Eva continued her schooling and then studied art history at the University of Amsterdam. She then traveled to England to study photography for a year. While there, she met and married Zvi Schloss, a Jewish refugee from Germany whose father was imprisoned at Dachau concentration camp, and who had been living in Palestine. The couple subsequently settled in England.
Book : Eva's Story (1988)
- Eva's Story: A Survivor's Tale (New York : St. Martin's Press, 1988).
"Many know the tragic story of Anne Frank, the teen whose life ended at Auschwitz during the Holocaust. But most people don’t know about Eva Schloss, Anne’s playmate and stepsister. Though Eva, like Anne, was taken to Auschwitz at the age of 15, her story did not end there. / This incredible memoir recounts — without bitterness or hatred —the horrors of war, the love between mother and daughter, and the strength and determination that helped a family overcome danger and tragedy."--Publisher description.
Book : The Promise (2006)
This is the remarkable true story of a young Jewish girl and her brother growing up during World War II, caught in a world turned upside down by the Nazis. Written specially for children, Eva describes her happy early childhood in Vienna with her kind and loving parents and her older brother Heinz, whom she adored. But when the Nazis marched into Austria everything changed. Eva's family fled to Belgium, then to Amsterdam where, with the help of the Dutch Resistance, they spent the next two years in hiding—Eva and her mother in one house, and her father and brother in another. Finally, though, they were all betrayed and deported to Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. Despite the horrors of the camp, Eva's positive attitude and stubborn personality (which had often got her into trouble) saw her through one of the most tragic events in history, and she and her mother eventually returned to Amsterdam. Sadly her father and brother perished just weeks before the liberation. Eva and her mother went back to the house where Heinz and his father had hidden, for Eva had remembered that Heinz had told her he had hidden his paintings beneath the floorboards there. Sure enough, there were over 30 beautiful paintings. Heinz hadn't wasted any of his talents during his captivity. For Eva, here was a tangible, everlasting memory of her brother, and a reminder of her father's promise that all the good things you accomplish will make a difference to someone, and your achievements will be carried on. Heinz's paintings have been on display in exhibitions in the USA and are now a part of a permanent exhibition in Amsterdam's war museum. Told simply and clearly for younger readers, The Promise is an unforgettable story, written by Eva Schloss, the step-daughter of Otto Frank and Barbara Powers, Eva's very close friend.
Book : After Auschwitz (2013)
Eva was arrested by the Nazis on her fifteenth birthday and sent to Auschwitz. Her survival depended on endless strokes of luck, her own determination and the love and protection of her mother Fritzi, who was deported with her.
When Auschwitz was liberated, Eva and Fritzi began the long journey home. They searched desperately for Eva's father and brother, from whom they had been separated. The news came some months later. Tragically, both men had been killed.
Before the war, in Amsterdam, Eva had become friendly with a young girl called Anne Frank. Though their fates were very different, Eva's life was set to be entwined with her friend's for ever more, after her mother Fritzi married Anne's father Otto Frank in 1953.
This is a searingly honest account of how an ordinary person survived the Holocaust. Eva's memories and descriptions are heartbreakingly clear, her account brings the horror as close as it can possibly be.
But this is also an exploration of what happened next, of Eva's struggle to live with herself after the war and to continue the work of her step-father Otto, ensuring that the legacy of Anne Frank is never forgotten.