Dan Snow's History Hit - Anne Frank's Step Sister: 'How I Survived the Holocaust' Part 2

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

2/2. Eva Schloss remembers her days as a girl in Amsterdam playing in the street with the other children including Anne Frank who, for a time, took a particular interest in her older brother Heinz. Eva also remembers the day the Dutch resistance worker exposed her family to the Nazis and they were carted off to Auschwitz. She remembers the train pulling up to the platform in Poland and the promise she made her brother to go back to find the paintings he'd done in hiding, if he didn't make it out alive.After being selected to live by Josef Mengele, Eva and her mother entered Auschwitz-Birkenau while her brother and father were sent to a men's camp. There they endured starvation, back-breaking work, blistering summers and freezing winter.In Part 2 of Eva's story, she describes stumbling across Otto Frank, Anne Frank's father while trying to find help after the liberation of the camp left her stranded with no idea what to do next. The story of Otto and her mother falling in love and finding happiness in the years after and how, after many years of nightmares and silence, Eva finally found her voice to tell her astonishing story of survival, which she still does to this day.You can listen to Part 1 first here.Her memoir is called After Auschwitz: A Story of Heartbreak and Survival by the Stepsister of Anne FrankThis episode was produced by Mariana Des Forges, the assistant producer was Hannah Ward and the audio editor was Dougal Patmore.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to Dan Snow's History Hit. Welcome to the podcast. Today we've got part two of our extraordinary chronicle of the life of Eva Schloss, Anne Frank's stepsister.

Eva was born in Austria Frank's stepsister. Eva was born in Austria in May 1929. Her early years were spent playing outdoors, skiing and having adventures with her daredevil father and beloved older brother Heinz. But when Germany annexed Austria in 1938, their neighbours and friends turned on them for being Jewish. She and her family fled to Belgium and then to the Netherlands. There, life was much better. They lived in a big apartment with a piano. The kids at school were fascinated by her stories of alpine mountains. On sunny afternoons, she played on the street

with other children. One of the little girls who played as well out in the streets after school was Anna Frank. And we were both 11 at the time, so we were friends. And when I told her I had an older brother, because she was very keen on boys with 11 already, she said, oh, when can I come to your apartment and meet him?

But he wasn't interested in a little girl like his sister, you know, too young for him. But soon after the German invasion, the Nazis arrived at their door and like the Franks, Eva's family went into hiding. For two years, they moved around the houses of Dutch locals involved with the resistance, concealing Jews from the Nazis. Eva passed her time by reading and her brother Heinz learned to paint. Eventually in May 1944, after being exposed by a double agent, the Nazis took Eva and her family for questioning. They were transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp

near Krakow in Poland. That was the last time that we were together as a family. And that is when my brother told me that the paintings and poetry he had done, when they escaped from this woman who blackmailed them for more money, they hid them under the floorboard in the loft.

With a note on it that belongs to Heinz and Eric Geiringer and after the war he's got to pick it up again. And he begged me that if I don't come back, please get it because you will really like the painting. I really want you to. And I said, no, no, of course you will.

We'll go together. And so he said, no, please, you have to promise me that you will go and get it. So I promised. And my father was crying. He was such a tough man, but he cried. And he was so upset. He said, from now on, I'm afraid I won't be able to protect you.

I got you out of Austria. I got you safe for two years. And now I'll be powerless to do anything and that was for him I think a terrible thing that he knew he can't protect his family. As I mentioned this is part two of her story if you haven't already heard it you can find the link to part one in the show notes of this episode. A warning that this story has some very distressing descriptions of human suffering. Upon arrival in Auschwitz in spring 1944, Eva and her family got out of the cattle

truck they'd travelled in and onto the platform where they'd come face to face with the infamous Nazi Dr. Joseph Mengele, known as the Angel of Death for his horrifying experiments on Auschwitz inmates. He proceeded down the line to make selections of who would be sent to the gas chambers and who would live, sent to the camp barracks. After this first selection, there were practically no children. Only if you were twins and both were there, you were saved. They made experiments on twins. Anyway, so we entered the camp.

We went into a huge, huge area. And the next command, undressed, completely naked. And the Nazis, young men, were walking around with their guns pointing at our embarrassment. And it was very, very hot, boiling hot there, you know, it was all metal roof. And people fainted. And they said, stand up, otherwise you can go the other side, you know. So we tried to hide people who couldn't really stand on their own between two people. And then we had to go in front of tables and we had to say who we were, our name, our age,

what profession, where we came from, which country and everything. They kept records of everything. Then we were tattooed. We were told, you're not like a human being forget you have a name all our hair was shaved that all took hours we didn't get any drink was very hot eventually we were let out walking into the other part of the camp still naked and there was a big heap with shoes and we were thrown two shoes of course never a pair could have been a boot and a sandal and one garment could have been a dressing gown or a winter coat or even a nightie and that was it no No underwear, nothing.

And then we were herded into our barracks, which were narrow wooden buildings with on both sides kind of three high-like cages, just wooden planks, nothing in it, no blanket, no cushion, no straw, nothing. So you could go low, middle or high. They told us, this is your home as long as you live. It isn't long anyway. You can imagine we were completely distraught.

Where is the rest of our family? The only thing which was there was lice and bed bugs. So within days we were already covered in lice and bed bugs. Those were the size of your thumb and they had little legs and they cling to your body and suck your blood. So within days we were covered in boils and in itches and lice. And, of course, you stretch. And washing, forget about washing. We never, ever washed. Can you understand? So there was many, many different camps, A, B, C.

Both sides were those barracks. And at the very end, about 10 barracks on each side, there was the toilets and the washing thing. There was basins with taps which were dripping and about 300 people were let out to go to these five taps with water. So of course you never got to water anywhere. So we never even bothered to go to this washing thing. The toilets, there's a big block of cement with holes in it. And you had to sit on that. And in the middle, a couple was walking.

If you didn't sit, because it was filthy, of course, you were beaten. And it didn't go anywhere. It was just holes. So one of the jobs was, which most of us got from time to time, you got a little mug, and you had to empty those things into buckets and take it somewhere to be buried. So can you imagine the germs and the stench and the filth without washing? Once a week we had a shower and we were deloused. That was of course a relief. At the daytime we had to walk

to work, usually an hour somewhere. Usually we did useless work because there were hundreds of thousands of people. Some people worked in factories, but most people did do really nothing. They had to carry big boulders to one place and then somebody else had to carry it somewhere else again. And silly, silly work. Were you with your mother all the time? No, but the first work I did, I always feel a bit guilty about that. There was a work commando, it was called, it was called Nicknamed Canada. And that was a huge part of the camp. Whatever people brought with them was taken away,

even your own clothes. And all this had to be sorted out. And that was a big place called Canada. And one morning when we were taken to different work, one SS came and I stood next to my mother and he picked me and he said to the couple who was standing next to me, Canada, I had no idea what this was. And he picked me, and he said to the couple who was standing next to me, Canada. I had no idea what this was. But I was panicky that I would be separated from my mother,

and I might be somewhere completely different. I had no idea. I could speak German, of course. So I said to this SS man, I said, Kann meine Mutter auch kommen? Can my mother come too? And the couple, her mouth dropped open. How dare she to speak to an SS, you know,

that you're not allowed to speak to them. But he was as well as startled that I spoke to him. And so he looked at my mother, and she was a very good-looking woman. So he said yeah Canada so we had no idea but then we were taken the next day to this thing and that was a huge area with barracks full of all kind of things suitcases with luggage or just coats and just whatever, you know, blankets added out, and we had to sort it out. One of my jobs was to open the hems of garments

because a lot of people had hidden jewelry or money in those garments, thinking perhaps they can bribe themselves, you know. And then you found food as well. In pockets you found bread or sausage or things like that. So that was actually a very, very good work. And we did that for three weeks because at that time, it was June 1944, when the Hungarian Jews were picked up. June 1944, when the Hungarian Jews were picked up.

And we saw them walking past, and there were thousands and thousands. Every day they came, and most of them went straight to be gassed. And I felt then later very guilty. I did the work, you know, for their things, but course, I couldn't help it. But I saw some young women all just going to the guest chamber because the camp was already over full. They just didn't want any more people. Did you ever smile once when you were there? Occasionally. There was once a bit of funny incident. There was a box with cheese in the camp. A Nazi or a couple got parcels from abroad, you know, they could get parcels from home. And somebody must have lost that. So a woman was opening this and it was a very smelly German cheese, but it's a delicacy, but it smells terribly bad.

And she took this and was going to run away with it. And my mother said, so stop, you give some to me and my daughter, you know. And I had to laugh that my mother was so meek always, you know. She never opened her mouth. My father was the boss. And suddenly she had become, you know, so she was fighting for life of her daughter and herself. But it was quite funny and this woman, I found it, I found it, you know. So it was quite a funny

incident but otherwise we never smiled. But for instance, we were really starving. We got in the morning a cup of liquid and in the evening a chunk of bread. That was all we got. But of course, in Canada, we found a lot of food, so we were well fed. But some other miracle happened was we had a lunch break. So I sat on the floor somewhere and there was a barbed fence and suddenly I saw a few men walking past and there's S and I see one of them was my father which was amazing because they were some were quite different but he was there it was definitely and he had to carry something. And so I called to him, and he was, of course, as well shocked. And so he said, yes, I work in a timber factory,

and I have to do something with timber out there. I will be here a few days. And he said to me, can you get me some cigarettes? So I said, but you don't smoke. So he said, but it is a good bargaining thing. And of course, I could find anything. People brought cigarettes, he brought everything with them. And so the next day, I had some cigarettes and I threw it over the fence. And he was very pleased with me, of course. I told my mother, of course, he worked in Caledon

or somewhere else, that I've seen my father. And the evening we went back, of course, to the camp. I saw him still three times and then he didn't come there anymore. But he told me as well that Heinz was okay. So that was, of course, a great relief because I didn't know if they had been selected or what had happened to them. So that was in the beginning.

But then the transport stopped from Hungarian, and of course we were not working anymore there, and we had to do heavy work. And then you asked me if it was with my mother. And then you asked me if he was with my mother. Perhaps it was already September, October, I'm not sure. But it was getting a bit colder. And weekly shower, which was, of course, always a relief to get rid of the lice. And we got a deloused garment.

So a few days we were not itching so much. So we come out of the shower naked, of course, and there stood Mengele and a selection was taking place. So I pass, naked, I had to turn in front of Mengele, and he passed me, and my mother was behind me. First of all, she was quite tall, and secondly, she had very often given me a bit of her bread ration and she had become quite thin and he looked her over again

and then he sent her to the wrong side so that was of course as you can imagine one of the most tragic and terrible events that could happen to me. Well, I had to really tell another bit of the story, otherwise it doesn't make sense. One day in the beginning, I started to be ill because I drank some water, which I shouldn't have drank because they said the water is not clean.

And I got an attack of typhus. And I was really quite ill. And my mother said, I have to go with Eva to the hospital and see if we can get any help. And people said, don't go to the hospital. She'll never come out alive. But she said, well, she'll die anyway like this. I might have a chance.

So we went to this hospital. It was not a hospital. It was a barrack where this Mengele made experiments on women and twins. But we went there. And before we entered, the door opens and a woman comes out. And my mother and she looks at it also stock still she stood both of them and then they run to each other and it was a cousin from my mother who was actually Czech she lived in Prague but she was as well my mother's best friend because Vienna and Prague was not so far and she worked there as a nurse for Mengele and she told my mother that her husband he's a skin specialist and so he

worked for the Nazis and he got her a job he said she's a nurse but she was not a nurse and so she worked with Mengele which was of course no pleasure but at least it was, but she was not a nurse. And so she worked with Mengele, which was, of course, no pleasure, but at least it was safe. And she was the only woman who had hair. They didn't shave her hair. And she gave me some medicine, and I got better. Then we were in touch with her all the time. Sometimes she gave us a bit of extra food and so on.

And the night when my mother was selected, I ran to her, which was very, very dangerous, and I told her that Bung Di had been selected and perhaps she could save her. She should go to Mengele in the morning. But then we were taken somewhere else and I didn't know anything anymore. And I was for two months, don't know exactly, but it became winter and I was on my own and I was on the point of giving up. I had frozen toes,

it was so high snow, we had still shoes, we got stuck in the snow, so barefoot, shoes we got stuck in the snow so we're barefoot and big wounds on mat I could hardly walk anymore and we had to work inside in a barrack we got of course no heating and that just on the ground the frozen ground we had our feet so it was unbelievable cold and we had to make plaits Unbelievable cold, and we had to make plaits. In the middle of the table, there's some material, and we had to tear it to bits, and we had to make plaits. 200 meters of plaits we had to do. If you didn't do that, or if they tested it, if it didn't break,

you were taken away and killed. You worked frozen hands, starving, hungry and frozen and you could hardly hold the material and you had no scissors, you had to tear it with your teeth. It was terrible and I had no hope anymore. I said I can't carry on like this. And my mother is dead, I don't know if my father is alive. I don't know about Heinz. I don't know.

The kapo come and said, you're wanted outside. I said, oh, well. And I go outside very, very scared and just stood there as man with my father. I will never able to explain how he was able to find me,

how he knew. I can only call it's a miracle and of course we embrace and this S man was very nice he stood next to my father and just watched us talking and crying and then my father asked where is Mutti? And I started crying, and he said, well, well, tell me. And I said, she has been gassed. She has been selected and killed. Well, this strong man, you know, I could see he was, it was terrible to see him. He started to cry, and I cried, and I was so sad, so sad. But then he got his strength back, and he said,

hold on, the war will finish soon. We'll be together, and Heinz is okay, he told me. So he tried to encourage me not to give up. And he said, let's see if I can come again. And three times he was able to come again, and then I never saw him anymore. So I can only say that it is a miracle again because it never ever happened that a man came to see his family.

There were some men working around sometimes but otherwise we never even saw a man. And then of course it became December, I thing. You know, we didn't know. We only knew it was very cold and winter and short days. The Germans started to evacuate the camp. Every day they emptied barracks with people and they just disappeared. So there was big disorganization. Sometimes we went to work, sometimes nobody bothered. So some people were moved around to different camps. Sometimes those gates were open because so many SS had gone as well.

It was not guarded so much anymore. Sometimes we got food, sometimes we didn't get anything at all. So it was chaos, actually. sometimes we didn't get anything at all. So it was chaos, actually. So one day, no work, and I walk around, see if I can find anything, because sometimes I dropped a bit of crumbs. A group of Dutch people from our transport come from another part,

and they see me, they said, Oh, Eva, Eva, good that we see you. We have seen your mother. I said, that can't be, she has been selected. They said, yes, yes, she's in one of the barracks. So I started to believe it. First I thought they just want to cheer me up. So they said, try, perhaps you can one day get to this part of the camp. So I was, of course, very anxious to see.

Every day I looked, was the gate open, could I go? And so eventually one day I was able to get out there and find this other barrack. And indeed, there was my mother in a bunk, but very, very weak she was. At that time I had a heavy coat on. My mother said, oh, you look quite well, and she opened the coat and she burst into tears

because there was bones, skeleton, there was a skeleton, there was not much flesh on me at all. And his cousin, she's there as well. Minnie said, you don't go back to your camp, I will hide you here. You can stay with your mom in that same bunk. So that is what we did. And in the meantime, of course, the Russians were approaching. The Germans took every day still lots and lots of people out of the camp. One day at night they said everybody out of the barracks we are going to march we are going to empty the camp then we are going to burn the whole camp down. And the Russians were flying over already,

trying to investigate, you know, what was going on. And so there was an air raid. So, oh, back in your barrack, we march later. And the whole night it went in and out, in and out. And my mother was so weak, and me too, she said, look, I can't walk, I can't walk. I'm sorry, I can't go. I'll have to stay here. You go. And I said, no, I wouldn't go without you. So we stayed and we were so tired, we fell asleep and we woke up in the morning and the camp was quite deserted. Most people had gone and the

Nazis had gone. More from Eva after this. This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.

This whole camp, whole this area was about, I don't know, three, four hundred people left. But all the others had gone. But later, after the war, when everything was known, those were called the Death Marches. And most people, of course, perished. Because how can you walk into Germany for days in the winter without food and the Russians found everywhere shot bodies sometimes they were sitting down because they could and the Nazis shot them sometimes they just died on the roadside in the snow. Yeah, and so we just waited and waited

and so one day we were again looking around if we could find anything to eat because they hadn't emptied all the barracks. We found bits and pieces and at the gate there stood a huge bear but I looked closer

and it was a soldier, a Russian soldier but all in furs and snow icicles and so don't know where he came from and there were some Polish people as well with us and they spoke with him and he said well he's a scout to find out if the army can follow or if they have to fight or whatever, you know. But he said, I can't do anything for you. I'll go back to my army. But the army is going to come and they will look after you. So that is what happened. He disappeared again.

Of course, some people died in the meantime. And one of my jobs, I think this is the worst I've done, was to carry bodies out. The people who had still spoken in the day before had died in the night and there was a Polish woman and me, we were still the strongest, so she said you have to help me take the body out. And we couldn't bury them. It was snow. So we just piled them out. Later, after the war, I had nightmares about this. I was only 15 years old. And indeed, the Russians came with horses and a field kitchen.

And they stayed the night. And they cooked cabbage soup, very greasy, but bacon and fat in it, and they gave us big metal bowls, and we ate and ate and ate, but there had never been so painful night on a bucket because the food went straight through me. And in the morning, many people had died from overeating because the body just couldn't digest all this food so we realized we have to be very careful and then the Russians left again to pursue the Nazis

because that is 27th of January you know that is liberation of Auschwitz. But it wasn't really, you know. You were still not free. Well, you were free, but you couldn't do anything. I was still hopeless, actually. So we stayed a few days, and then a French girl said to me, let's go to the men's camp. Perhaps we get help there. Perhaps we can do something. So we did. But that was very dangerous. We went at night because there was still shooting. We heard the bullets was flying over our heads. And they were in the middle of fighting on this area still. And we didn't actually know exactly where it is.

So it took us six hours walking there. But eventually we found it is again a miracle how we got there and the russian had made their headquarters there because it was all more solid you know the brick buildings and all that it was daytime by then and i asked can i look around so didn't take any notice so we went and looked it was huge and many barracks and I went in all those barracks and here and there were men sitting sometimes they were standing didn't know what to do I started to ask a few people if she had known her father and son and some didn't understand me and I didn't really know what am I going to do now, you know.

And then I saw a man standing somewhere that he looked a little bit familiar. So I thought, well, I must know him. I don't know. So I went to him and I said, I think I know you. And he said, yeah, yeah, I know you too. You are Eva Geiriger. I'm Otto Frank. I said, oh, I didn't recognize you really. You look so thin. He said, yeah, well, have you seen my daughters and my wife? I said,

no, never saw them. Have you seen my father and brother? Yes, yes, they were here, but they've gone with the Nazis. So it was perhaps beginning of February and January, February. So I thought, well, it's more comfortable here. The Russians are there. There must be food around. So I went to fetch my mother, which was very difficult because she was very, very weak, could hardly walk. But we got there eventually.

We moved into one of the barracks, and it was okay because we could get food. The Russians gave us food and shared everything with us. And so we stayed there perhaps, I don't know, three weeks or something. And then the Russians decided they're still fighting in this neighborhood. They might still come back the Nazis so they would evacuate us eastward so they organized first a bus

and then a train again cattle tracks the same transport as we were going to Auschwitz but there was a stove in the middle the doors were kept open they gave us food three times a day and drink. There were no toilets, of course, there. So it stopped and we had to go next to the railway line when it stopped to relieve ourselves. But the Russians were very, very good. I have no complaints.

And you were with Otto Frank at this point? He was as well on this transport. Prisoners of war came as well who were liberated somewhere. It became quite a long transport. We had perhaps 10 wagons and Otto was not in our wagon, but he kept very much to himself. Also people, when it stopped, went down and talked with each other. And we never actually saw him. So we knew he was there, but he was still hoping to find his family. Well, we were all hoping. Eventually, we ended up in May in Odessa, which is, if you look it up, it's a long journey.

But it took us from February till May to get there. Then we waited for the end of the war. And of course, we were worried that how are we ever going to come back to the West? We had nothing. We were penniless, couldn't really speak with the Russians. And it was a very, very tricky situation. Eventually New Zealand troop transport ship came and we were loaded into it. I mean the Russians were good but it was very limited what they offered, you know.

But it was the first time that we were human beings eating on white tablecloths with proper cutlery, having sheets on our beds. And then eventually the French said in Marseille, you can come to us and we will let the people down. So we ended up in Marseille. Were you able to have any happiness in that time to be grateful for survival or were you traumatized and worried about your family members? We were very pleased that we had survived and we were very hopeful that they had survived. We were all hopeful we would find our family back again. When we were in Amsterdam, we put newspaper adverts, we went to the stations because each day people came through Germany, through Holland. It was a big movement from people who had been liberated in different places and so

on. But eventually we got a letter from the Red Cross to my mother that your husband, with name and birth date, really very accurate, died with a date in April, several days before the Americans came to liberate that camp, Mauthausen. So that was our last straw. We had really hoped they would come back as well. And I didn't accept it, you know. I couldn't believe it that my father, who was such a strong, sporty man, hadn't survived. I just didn't. I couldn't accept it. And that made it so very difficult. And Otto Frank, of course, heard as well that his whole family had perished. and in January 1946, I wrote a letter, because my mother kept it to myself, really,

that life has no meaning for me at all without my family. I'd like to commit suicide. I didn't do it, obviously, but that's how I felt. I had really no will and no pleasure to carry on life. I was completely depressed. I survived in the camp because I always wanted to have a family and I thought like we were a happy family, that it was my aim in life. But when I realized we will never be a happy family again, I just got completely depressed and had nightmares. I had all those scenes in front of me. And it was for years and years I suffered with that.

I had to go back to school. But Otto and my mother later on then decided I should become a photographer and I didn't really care. Otto knew somebody in London who had a photographic studio and he got me a job there and I went to a year to England and I lived in a boarding house run by a Czech refugee. And there was about six people lived there. And at that time in the 50s, was early 50s, England was still under rationing, terribly bombed. Everywhere were bomb sites. You can't imagine how poor England was at the time.

Food was very, very rationed. You got two eggs a week, one piece of meat a week. And so I was not really very happy. I said I'm going to Holland as soon as finished, so I didn't want to live in Holland either. And then this young man, we got on well. We had no money. We went for walks.

And then after six months, he said, I fall in love with you. Will you marry me? And when I'm finished my study, we can start a new life and go to Israel. But I didn't want to go to Israel. I'd lived already in four countries. I didn't want to learn another language, you know. And I wasn't going to leave my mother on her own because I was very close, of course, to my mother, as you can understand. And then Otto came one day to look how I was doing. I told him this young man had asked me to marry him, but of course I'm not because I go back to Amsterdam to my mother

and he got a bit embarrassed and he said where your mother and me have fallen in love as well and once you get settled we like to get married I didn't love this young man I liked him but love was not in my capacity you know I had no high emotion like that only hate so I went back to him and said, look, we can get married. So he was very, very pleased. And I didn't want to go to Israel, so we stayed in England. How did you feel when your mother married Otto, Frank? Were you happy for her? Well, yes, I was happy because I realized then I can lead my own life. We were very, very close and Otto was a very, very nice person and I knew,

but it was really love. And later I questioned my mother, you had a wonderful marriage with my father. How can you love somebody else so much, you know? And Otto was, of course, only occupied with Anne. That was his main purpose in his life. But my mother really loved him and he really loved my mother. I must say his marriage to his own wife was an arranged marriage and he didn't really love her. I must say I've never seen two people working so loving together and discussing everything and I've never ever seen them quarreling and they were Otto including he was of course a wonderful grandfather to my three daughters because we had nobody else so that was nice for my children you know they had sort of grandparents which was

lovely and they had a room in our house, and they spent three months with us, and all the holidays we went together. So we had a family again. But I was very shy. If there were two people, I didn't open my mouth. Till the 80s, 86, so more than 40 years, I had never spoken about my experience, not to my family. The children did never know anything about it.

They knew, of course, through Otto, and they could put things together. And in 1986, Ken Livingston, he organized an Anne Frank exhibition to come to England for the very first time. And of course, my mother and me were invited. Otto had already died. He was 17 years older than my mother. But it didn't matter at all. Ken Livingston said to me, sit with us at the head table, because there were a few speakers.

And so I said, OK okay I'll sit up there and then at the end after everybody spoke how important it is to talk about the holocaust and what it was like and all this then he said and now Eva we want to talk to you well I wanted to hide under the table I was not a speaker I was shy and so he said get up, get up, go on, tell. So I stood and saw this crowd, you know, I was in shock again. But eventually the gates opened and I just couldn't stop. It was a great relief. It was the first time spoken. So it was the first night that I slept without terror. Then this exhibition traveled all over England and they always asked me to go

and speak, which of course I couldn't. I asked my husband to write a speech for me, which I read very badly, but eventually I found my voice. And so you and Otto and your mother turned Anne Frank into one of the great icons of the 20th century, really? In the 40s, 50s, people didn't want to know about it. You know, they said it was all terrible, but let's move on. And only when it was published in America, there was a Jewish journalist who wrote in the New York Times a big article about it.

And then it became a bestseller. But Otto had difficulty finding a publisher in America, but he didn't want any money for it. And eventually, double day, a publisher said, okay, we'll publish it. And it was really the first story which had come out properly. But I always say, it was not really a Holocaust story. It was just hiding. The Holocaust is the camps and the figures, six billion. And yeah, that's quite different.

This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. Why was Otto so driven? Did that heal him that the world would hear about his daughter? He wanted to make her immortal as well. That was definitely his aim.

Like Otto, you have sought recognition for your brother. Very often my mother said to me, she said, Anna, yeah, everybody knows who she was. But Heinz, nobody knows who he was. But you found his paintings in the hiding place. Yeah, we went back there and we found them there. I mean, that's really a very moving story by itself. I had them at home always. First my mother had them, then I had them.

And I thought, well, that's no good we have examples. People should see that. And I looked for a museum. And eventually in Amsterdam, the Resistance Museum. looked for a museum and eventually in Amsterdam the Resistance Museum. It's a very nice museum telling the life of the resistance workers and so on. And they made a special thing about the exhibition. When Heinz was 12 that he asked what will happen when I die and my father said well nothing gets lost. You will be remembered for what you have done, even if it was little.

And so in his case, it was a lot what he has done in his short life. So this is the promise that I have kept, the promise to Heinz that he won't be forgotten. In the world today, people are talking a lot about the march of the extremes again, the far right, anti-Semitism, worrying treatment of migrants, politics, moving to the extremes. What do you feel as you look out on the world today? Well, I think we haven't learned anything.

After the war, people said, we have learned our lesson, never again will anything like this happen. But history has repeated itself. There have been terrible wars. There have been terrible things to certain countries. They have been ruined completely through greed of other nations. No, we haven't learned anything. And what I think is the young people are trying. When they're young, they want to change. They see things are not going well. But life is so difficult nowadays to get a job, to get a good living,

to buy property, to where you can live, to earn enough money, that they become greedy again and all the goods intentionally go. I do speak about it all the time because I get an audience and people leave and say, yes, we have to change. So perhaps a little bit sticks. Perhaps eventually people will realize that it's no good being so evil. I always dispute, I say, Anne, she quotes this as well. She still believes in the goodness of mankind.

I said, would she have said this had she survived Auschwitz and seen what those people were doing to each other? Of course, in hiding, she was protected. So she had not experienced that. And she could easily say that. After 80 years, can you forgive the people that did this to you and your family? I would say no, not the people who did all this, who were the guards and the leaders and all those.

No, because they were really criminals, evil. But the German population, yes, I could accept that. In Richmond here, there is a German school, high school. I spoke there as well one day and children were 12, 14, those age. And we had lunch with with them and I sat next to a boy and I asked him that conversation do you mix with the English population have you got English friends he said well not really because our parents mix with the other parents of all German speaking and so we usually mix with this people the only time we get in touch with English children is when we play football. And then he started to cry, but really badly crying. And I said, what's the matter?

Did I say something wrong to you? He said, no. I said, oh, but they still call me a Nazi. But I'm not a Nazi. He said, I had nothing to do with it. And then I said, well, it's true. This generation and even the previous generation is innocent. We can't condemn them.

And the Germans have really accepted their guilt. They have helped Israel. It wouldn't be what it is without the German help. And they pay to the victims, they pay a lot of money, pensions and all that, they look after them. They have accepted that that was a terrible thing they've done. And first of all, this prejudice against people who have different color or a different religion

is completely unacceptable. And that should be forbidden. People should go to prison or put a big fine if they make nasty remarks about people or ignore them or don't give them the same kind of jobs or the same opportunity. This is the first thing. Because we are all equal. My husband always used to say

there's just one race, the human race. And it doesn't matter from which country you come and what language you speak or what religion. I think I have hope that sometimes we will see the light. Eva Schloss, Holocaust survivor,

speaker and writer. Her memoir is called After Auschwitz, a story of heartbreak and survival by the stepsister of Anne Frank. After I recorded this episode, I drove home and I rang my wife to tell her I was going to be late and explain why. I burst into tears for the first time in a long time. Thank you for listening. If you're moved by this episode, please leave us a review. The producer was Marianne Desforges. The assistant producer was Hannah Ward. This episode was mastered by Dougal Patmore. Bye-bye. This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone.

Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.