This article courtesy of the Cleveland Jewish news. The original is available here: Erica and Geraldo Rivera recall their friend Eva Schloss.
When my husband was asked to interview Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss at the Chabad Jewish Center of Suffern, N.Y., I urged him to say yes. At the time, our daughter, Sol, was 8 years old. I believed that meeting a survivor would be a singular, solemn moment for her – an important way for her to understand that what happened to our people during World War II truly happened.
Eva Schloss was Anne Frank’s stepsister. How remarkable that Eva would remember every detail of her time in Vienna, fleeing to Amsterdam, playing with Anne after school, her time in hiding, two years in Auschwitz with her mother, and then after the war, her father and beloved brother not surviving, her mother marrying Otto Frank, the finding of Anne’s diary and what caused Eva to finally speak out about her own story.
Eva showed Sol the tattoo number on her arm, a moment now captured and forever serving as proof that the horrors were real and that they occurred less than a century ago.
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What I could never have anticipated was that Eva would become not only a teacher to our child, but a dear friend to our entire family.
We met frequently. We wandered the Neue Galerie together and stood before Klimt’s “Woman in Gold.” Over Viennese strudel, Eva smiled and declared it not quite authentic. At the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, she retold her story once more, always patient and generous with her time.
Eva came to Cleveland for Sol’s bat mitzvah. My mother and her sisters were thrilled to meet this extraordinary woman. Seeing three generations of Jewish women embracing a survivor felt quietly defiant.
We were fortunate to visit Eva in her adopted hometown of London, where she lived close to her children. There, too, she remained tireless in her mission of education and remembrance. She formed a friendship with King Charles III, who later eulogized her with deep feeling, saying it had been a privilege to know her. Queen Camilla served on the board of the Anne Frank Trust UK, which Eva led with unwavering dedication.
I urge readers to learn Eva’s story in her own words in “Eva’s Story: A Holocaust Survivor’s Tale by the Stepsister of Anne Frank.” At a time when Holocaust denial and distortion are again finding oxygen, Eva’s voice remains urgent. Her legacy also lives on through interactive testimony, including her hologram at the The Nancy and David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center in Cincinnati.
As antisemitism rises globally and here at home, Eva’s resilience is her triumph. She lived to be 96.
Remembrance is how we honor those who came before us, how we educate our children and how we stand firmly as Jews today – here in Cleveland and wherever our voices are needed.
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