Publisher's Synopsis
I was born in 1929 to a wonderful Jewish family in Vienna, Austria. I had a brother, Heinz, who was three years older than me. As World War II heated up throughout Europe, we were not safe, so we immigrated to Belgium and eventually to Amsterdam [capital city of The Netherlands] in 1940. This was two years after Hitler annexed Austria. [In early 1938, Nazi Germany seized Austria by force to add the nation to the German Reich, or empire.] It was during this time that we first met the Frank family. They had moved to Amsterdam for the same reason. When the Germans invaded The Netherlands in 1942, our family went into hiding. In May 1944, we were betrayed, captured by the Nazis, and sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Most prisoners sent to that camp were killed, as the Nazis wanted to murder all the Jews, as well as other minority groups. My mother and I were lucky to survive, and we were liberated in January 1945, by Russian soldiers. They shared their soup and bread with us. I was very moved by their kindness, and my emotions got the better of me. They didn't realize their kind human act would touch me so. As fighting was still going on in the west, we were evacuated eastward deep into Russia. Eventually, in June 1945, we were returned to Amsterdam, where we heard the devastating news that my father and brother had not survived. Otto Frank had also returned from Auschwitz and came to see us. He told us the terrible news that his whole family had died. A few days later, he came again with a little parcel under his arm-he opened it very carefully, I remember it very clearly-it was Anne's diary. I felt it was a lifeline for him because he was in a desperate state. Through the diary, he felt that Anne was still with him. He made it his task to publish it and promote her story. He came very often to visit us. He helped mother with me: I was a very sad, difficult teenager, full of hatred and suspicion, and couldn't make friends; he was a childless father, a man who had lost both his children, so we became extremely close. Otto persuaded my mother that I should return to school, so I resumed my education. I studied art history at Amsterdam University. From there, I went for a year to London to train as a my mom and Otto became even closer. In London, I met Zvi Schloss, a young man from Israel, and we got married in 1952. My mother and Otto were married the next year. They were together for 27 years, and I've never seen a happier marriage. They devoted their lives to working with Anne's diary. When it was eventually translated into seventy languages, they answered thousands of letters from all over the world. When my mother died, I found copies of 30,000 letters. This really was the focus of their lives. Today, Zvi and I live in London and have three daughters and five grandchildren. From 1972 until 1997, I ran an antiques shop in Edgware [a district of London]. Since 1985, I have become increasingly active in Holocaust education and felt privileged to receive an Honorary Doctorate in Civil Law from the University of Northumbria in Newcastle, England. I also became a Trustee of the Anne Frank Educational Trust, United Kingdom. In 1988, my autobiography, Eva's Story, was published, providing an opportunity for people to read about my life. In 1995, I cooperated with playwright James Still in the creation of the educational play And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank, about four teenagers during the Holocaust. The play has been widely performed, and I have had the honor of sharing my experiences in cities across the U.S., England, Europe, and Australia. In 2005, I wrote The Promise, a children's book about my life, with Barbara Powers, an educator from Chicago, Illinois. In 2013, I released my third book, entitled After Auschwitz. My books are available at amazon.com.
