After Auschwitz
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After Auschwitz 309DD_tx.indd 1 31/05/2013 09:33 309DD_tx.indd 2 31/05/2013 09:33 Eva Schloss with Karen Bartlett After Auschwitz A Story of Heartbreak and Survival by the Stepsister of Anne Frank 309DD_tx.indd 3 31/05/2013 09:33 First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Hodder & Stoughton An Hachette UK company 1 Copyright © Eva Schloss and Karen Bartlett 2013 The right of Eva Schloss and Karen Bartlett to be identified as the Authors of the Work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library Hardback ISBN 978 1 4447 6068 2 Trade paperback ISBN 978 1 4447 6069 9 Ebook ISBN 978 1 4447 6070 5 Typeset in Sabon MT by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk, Stirlingshire Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon cr0 4yy Hodder & Stoughton policy is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products and made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd 338 Euston Road London NW1 3BH www.hodder.co.uk 309DD_tx.indd 4 31/05/2013 09:33 This book is dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust and genocide who could not tell their own stories. Eva Schloss 309DD_tx.indd 5 31/05/2013 09:33 309DD_tx.indd 6 Lazar Brandal – Marie 1826–1898 Lotti Luise Karl Julie Vicky Ignaz Hermine Fanny – Adolf Schubert Albert – Ottilie Tauber 1850–1934 (from Prague) David Geiringer – Rudolf Helen Paula Ernst Ida Hermine Neugebauer Markovits 1879–1963 Paul Hannah Grete Willy Hans Lotte 1874–1951 Richard Reiser (1) – Minni – Dr Samek (2) 1901–1984 Blanka Ludwig Erich Fritzi Otto Frank (2) (1) Edith Sylvia Otto Greenwood 1889–1980 Hollander 1910–1977 1909–1997 1905–1986 Goldscheider Geiringer (1) (Mutti) Peter – Rita Stephen (Pappy) 1905–1998 1925–2006 1927–1948 1901–1945 Gaby Margot Anne Tom Gill Kent Lemon (1) Jimmy 1929–2012 1926–1945 1926–1945 1937– 1942– 1947–1972 Isabell Voituriez (2) 1945– Heinz Eva Zvi Schloss 1926–1945 1929– 1925– Caroline Paul Johnny Laurel Ives David Gaddy 1967– Handley (1) 1969– 1971– 1951– 1953– Caroline Andrew Margolis Jacky Dag Hovelsen Sylvia Gil Yaron Claudio (2) 1956– 1951– 1958– 1949– 1962– 1964– Alexander Lisa – Adrian Eric Sophie Ella 1992– 1985– Heiler 1988– 1993– 1996– Jessica Louisa Josie 1983– 2004– 2005– 2007 31/05/2013 09:33 Contents 1. Leave Something Behind 1 2. A Viennese Family 7 3. Childhood 15 4. The Nazis are Coming 28 5. An Undesirable Little Girl 41 6. Amsterdam 52 7. Anne Frank 61 8. Occupation 66 9. Hiding 80 10. Betrayal 91 11. Auschwitz-Birkenau 104 12. Camp Life 115 13. The Bleakest Winter 126 14. Liberation 137 15. The Road Back 152 16. Amsterdam Again 169 17. A New Life 178 18. The Trial 194 19. London 200 20. Zvi’s Story 208 21. The Wedding 217 22. An Unbroken Chain 225 23. Otto and Fritzi 237 24. New Beginnings 250 309DD_tx.indd 7 31/05/2013 09:33 25. One Day in Spring 258 26. The Play 270 27. Mutti 283 28. Reaching Out 295 29. Going Back 303 30. Epilogue 310 Acknowledgments 315 Index 317 309DD_tx.indd 8 31/05/2013 09:33 1 Leave Something Behind ‘ nd now I know Eva will want to say a few words.’ A The phrase echoed around the large hall, and filled me with dread. I was a quiet middle-aged woman, married to an invest- ment banker, with three grown-up daughters. The man who had spoken was Ken Livingstone, then still the fire- brand leader of London’s soon to be abolished Greater London Council, and the biggest thorn in Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s side. We had met earlier that day, and he was certainly not to know that those few words would send me into turmoil. Even I didn’t know that this was the start of my long journey towards coming to terms with the terrible events of my childhood. I was fifteen years old when I and thousands of others rattled across Europe in a train made up of dark, cramped cattle trucks and was dumped out at the gates of Auschwitz- Birkenau concentration camp. More than forty years had passed, but when Ken Livingstone asked me to speak a feeling of total terror gripped my stomach. I wanted to crawl under the table, and hide. It was an early spring day in 1986, and we were at the opening of the Anne Frank Travelling Exhibit at the Mall Galleries, next to the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1 309DD_tx.indd 1 31/05/2013 09:33 After Auschwitz London. More than three million people around the world have now seen that exhibit, but back then we were just beginning to tell the story of the Holocaust to a new generation through Anne’s diary, and the photos of Anne and her family. Those photos connected me to Anne in a way that neither of us could have imagined when we were young girls who used to play together in Amsterdam. We were very different characters, but Anne was one of my friends. After the war, Anne’s father, Otto Frank, returned to Holland and began a close relationship with my mother that was borne of their mutual loss and heartbreak. They married in 1953 and Otto became my stepfather. He gave me the Leica camera that he had used to take the pictures of Anne and her sister Margot, so that I could find my own way in the world and become a photographer. I used that camera for many years and I still have it today. Anne’s story is that of a young girl who has touched the whole world through the simple humanity of her diary. My story is different. I was also a victim of Nazi persecution and was sent to a concentration camp – but, unlike Anne, I survived. By the spring of 1986 I had been living in London for nearly forty years and in that time the city had changed beyond recognition from a poor, bombed-out shell into a teeming and energetic multicultural metropolis. I wish I could say that I had undergone a similar transformation. I had remade my life, and started my own family with a wonderful husband and children who meant everything to me. I was even running my own business. But a large part of me was missing. I was not myself, and the outgoing 2 309DD_tx.indd 2 31/05/2013 09:33 Leave Something Behind girl who once rode her bike, flipped handstands and never stopped chattering was locked away somewhere I couldn’t reach. At night I dreamed a big black hole would swallow me up. When my grandchildren asked about the tattoo on my arm that I had been branded with at Auschwitz, I told them it was just my telephone number. I did not talk about the past. I could hardly refuse an invitation to speak at the opening of the Anne Frank Exhibition, though – especially when it was Otto and my mother’s life’s work. At Ken Livingstone’s urging I stood up and haltingly began to talk. Probably to the dismay of those in the audi- ence who were hoping for a short introduction, I found that once I started I couldn’t stop. The words tumbled out, and I talked on and on, recounting all the traumatic and painful experiences I had lived through. I was light-headed and terrified; I have no recollection of what I said. My daughter Jacky, who was listening, says, ‘It was very nerve-wracking. We hardly knew anything about Mum’s experiences and suddenly she was on stage, finding it diffi- cult to talk and breaking down in tears.’ My words may not have been coherent to anyone else, but it was a very big moment to me. I had reclaimed a small part of myself. Despite such an unpromising start, after that event more and more people asked me to talk about what had happened during the war. At first I asked my husband to draft speeches for me, which I read out – badly. But gradually I found my own voice, and learned to tell my own story. Many things have changed in the world since the end of 3 309DD_tx.indd 3 31/05/2013 09:33 After Auschwitz World War Two, but unfortunately prejudice and discrimin- ation have not. From the Civil Rights movement in the United States to Apartheid South Africa, the war in the former Yugoslavia to those caught in ongoing conflicts in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, I saw people across the world struggling to be treated with equal human dignity and understanding. And as a Jewish person I saw that even the truth about the Holocaust had not woken the world up to the full horror of anti-Semitism. Today there are still many people who look for scapegoats based on the colour of someone’s skin, their background, their sexuality – or their religion.