My name is Eva Geiringer Schloss. I was born 11 May 1929, in Vienna, Austria. I had a brother Heinz and we got on extremely well.
In 1939, the war started. In February 1940, we went to Amsterdam. My father hired a furnished flat and one of the families who moved in there were the Frank family. Anne was exactly my age.
Then Germans invaded Holland in May 1940 and my father made all the arrangements for us to go into hiding.
My brother was very much afraid of dying. We went to my father and said, “We are very frightened of dying.” And my father said, “Well you will never die because whatever you do in your life, every movement, everything you say, it will stay. And everything you say will go into your children, and so you are just part of a chain.” He hoped the chain would not be broken. So we had hope. As long as there is life, there is hope.
My father was so clever, I thought it was amazing how he thought about everything. My father said, “Forget who you really are, you have to learn now, you are this and this, date of birth, and your name, and your mother this and this name. You are just this.”
My 15th birthday, there was a loud knock on the door. We were betrayed. There were the SS with Dutch and German police. We went to the Gestapo headquarters and we were petrified. We knew this is our end, really.
May ‘44 we went to Westerbork. After a few days, they told us we were going to Auschwitz. The first orders were men and women to separate. That was the last time I saw Heinz. He helped me down the train and then we cuddled and hugged. And my father embraced me too. And he said, “God will protect you.”
We had to leave everything we carried there. It was May, it was warm, a friend had sent a long coat and a hat. And this was one thing which saved my life, because I looked older.
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Eva’s brother Heinz who perished in a concentration camp just days before the liberation was just 19 years old. While Heinz was in hiding he completed several paintings which were hidden by their father. After the war the paintings were recovered and have since been exhibited.