The Visit of Eva Schloss
We were hugely privileged to welcome Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss to our school yesterday (Tuesday, 9th February). Eva, who was the ‘posthumous’ step-sister of Anne Frank, talked for two hours on her experiences as a child in enemy-occupied Holland, her two years in hiding and her nine months in Auschwitz.
Eva’s Life Story
Eva was born into an assimilated middle class Jewish family in Vienna, Austria in 1929. She
lived with her beloved older brother Heinz (a talented artist and musician) and her parents, Fritzi
and Erich, who owned a shoe factory. In 1938 Eva’s family immigrated to Belgium, and subsequently
to Holland, where they lived in the same neighbourhood as Anne Frank. Like Anne Frank, the family
went into hiding for two years but after their hiding place was discovered they were sent to the
infamous Polish death camp. After being liberated from the Camp by the Russians, Eva and her mother
returned to Holland and tried to put the horrors of the Holocaust behind them. At the suggestion of
Otto Frank, who was once again living nearby, Eva moved to London to train as a photographer, where
she met her husband Zvi. Shortly after this her mother and Otto got married and moved to
Switzerland.
For many years Eva was unable to talk about her time during the war, but in 1986 she was invited
by the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, to a dinner to commemorate the opening in London of
an exhibition on the Holocaust. She was asked to say a few words and suddenly the floodgates opened
and she found herself talking about events which had stayed locked away in her mind for 40 years.
Since then Eva has regularly visited schools, universities and other institutions. She tells the
students that they are the last generation to hear these stories first-hand from a survivor, and
asks that they keep these stories alive by telling them to their children and grandchildren, so
that the atrocities of the Holocaust are never forgotten.