Hide & Seek with Evil:
Eva & Anne
Written by Sergiu Troaca and Illustrated by Tu Hoang
A BOOK by ME - True Stories Written by Kids for Kids
We have a small Jewish population where I live. But thanks to a big thinking Jewish Federation Director, we’ve had many wonderful speakers come and share for our community at large, and our schools. Uniquely, we have Christians, Jews and a Muslim woman on our Yom Hashoah committee. One of our most popular speakers over the years was Eva Schloss, whose mother married Otto Frank after the war. Our Federation Director Allan Ross has brought her in to speak three different times over the years. One of those times, a Romanian boy who was in the U.S. as an exchange student heard her speak and wrote her story for young readers through A BOOK by ME. The following year, an exchange student from Asia used her great artistic talent to illustrate that book for us.
As a child, Eva knew Anne before the Frank family went into hiding. Actually, Eva’s own family hid from the Nazis as well. Both Jewish families were caught and sent to concentration camps. Growing up I was a huge Anne Frank fan so meeting someone who knew Anne was surreal to me. As Eva got up in years, she continued to travel from England to the U.S. and speak. As she got older, she accepted the fact there wasn’t going to be any more trips abroad. Allan Ross became concerned that he hadn’t gotten a response from his email to her and he started searching the internet to see if she was alright. That’s when he found a recent video of her dancing with newly crowned King Charles. We had a good laugh that she was doing “alright”. Like all the World War II generation, Eva will one day be gone. So thankful we have her voice on a QR code to put in the front cover of her book so kids can listen to her along with watching her beautiful dance with a king.
Deb Bowen
Executive Director Understanding Works
“I admire Eva so much for speaking about her suffering. It was very interesting to hear about her story and her mother’s life after the war when she married Otto Frank. If you want to do something awesome, become a young author or illustrator through A BOOK by ME. I’m glad I did and you will be too!”
Best Wishes,
Sergiu Troaca, Romania
L. Deb with the Author, R. Deb with the Illustrator
Eva Geiringer Schloss – Jewish Holocaust Survivor
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, the 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.
Eva as a young student
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 because 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. Through our pain, 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 to London to train as a professional photographer for a year. During that time, 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.
Otto Frank with Eva, her children and her mother in the flower garden.
(Photo taken many years after the war.)
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.
Eva Schloss
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, titled After Auschwitz. My books are available at Amazon.
Hide & Seek with Evil: Eva and Anne
Read how both Eva Schloss and Anne Frank’s families play and lose a game of hide and seek with the Nazis.
Purchase books from the Holocaust series >
A BOOK by ME, a book series developed by Deb Bowen, empowers students to preserve history by telling the story of unsung heroes in our communities. For the young participants, it’s a guided cross-curricular project that gathers stories of people who do amazing things but have received little or no recognition. Students learn how to publish a picture book that is a primary source document with photographs and a biography.
Since 2003, Deb Bowen has been arranging meetings between students and individuals from the WWII generation. This intergenerational storytelling results in unique storybooks written and illustrated by kids for kids in the A BOOK by ME series. More about Deb Bowen >
