Eva Schloss

Above all, my hope rests with the young.

Eva was born Eva Geiringer, May 1929 in Vienna, Austria. Her parents were Elfriede 'Fritzi' Markovits and Erich Geiringer. Eva also had an older brother called Heinz. The family went to the local Synagogue on the High Holy days and had a happy life until the rise of Nazism.

Following the German invasion of Austria in March 1938 and the increasing persecution of Jewish people the family fled to Breda in Holland. Eva’s father secured a Dutch visa but Eva, her mother and her brother could only secure visitor visas.

Eva became a refugee in Belgium along with her mother and brother and her father would visit across the Dutch border on weekends. Eva, her mother, and her brother were finally granted Dutch visas in February 1940, and they re-joined her father in Amsterdam.

Whilst in Amsterdam Eva became friends with a girl by the name of Anne Frank. This friendship would be the thing that reconnected the two families after the war and change Eva’s life thereafter.

In 1940 Germany invaded Holland and the persecution of the Jews started immediately. On July 6^th, 1942, Eva’s brother, Heinz received a letter to report to a work camp and Eva’s father decided that the family must go into hiding.  Eva went into hiding with her mother while her brother and father hid elsewhere.

The family spent several years in hiding before being betrayed in 1944. They were arrested by the Gestapo and Eva, her mother, father, and brother were first sent to Westerbork Transit Camp in the Netherlands, before being sent on to Auschwitz. Eva arrived in Auschwitz when she was just fifteen years old.

The camp segregated the sexes which meant the family were separated during the initial selection process. Eva did not know that the moment on the train platform at Auschwitz would be the last time she ever saw her brother, Heinz. Eva and her mother were held in Auschwitz-Birkenau, and after contracting and surviving a typhus infection, Eva was selected to work in the Kanada section where she had to sort possessions taken from people murdered in the gas chambers. She also managed to persuade an SS guard to allow her to bring her mother.

During one of Dr. Mengele’s selection processes, Eva was horrified to find that her mother had been selected for death. Eva’s mother’s life was saved by her friend Minnie, who because of her husband’s skills as a doctor, was under the protection of the SS inside Auschwitz. Eva had also managed to make contact with her father during this time, but on their last meeting was unable to tell him the news that her mother’s life had been spared.

After being separated Eva was reunited with her mother. They were liberated when Russian forces entered the Auschwitz complex in January 1945. Eva and her mother later learned that her father and brother had been sent on a death march a few days before liberation and that they did not survive.

After living in Amsterdam with her mother Eva moved to London and was married in 1952 to Zvi Schloss. After the war Eva’s mother reconnected with Otto Frank, Anne Frank’s father and survivor of Auschwitz - Birkenau. Their relationship grew from their shared loss and heartbreak during the war, and shortly after Eva’s marriage to Zvi, Otto and Fritzi were married in 1953. Eva’s new family connections left her inextricably linked with Anne’s own story.

Eva is a friend and supporter of the National Holocaust Centre and Museum and continues to give her testimony to audiences around the world to this day. Her eyewitness accounts of the people murdered inside Auschwitz – Birkenau provide crucial evidence about the Holocaust and her testimony continues to provide a vital education for many about the horrors endured by Jews during the Nazi occupation in Europe.

The Collection 

The museum houses objects donated by Eva. It is our privilege to care for these artefacts and ensure they are available for future generations. The museum's collection provides vital, tangible, evidence of the Holocaust. We are committed to ensuring we have everything we need to continue to tell our speaker's stories into the future. Please find a selection of objects below from the Eva Schloss Collection, you can also search our collections for further objects and information.