The Tribune

A BAHAMIAN audience is promised an incomparable and emotionally moving evening next month when Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss, best friend and stepsister of Anne Frank, will talk about her experiences, the personal memories of a journey that took her beyond the anguish of Auschwitz to a life dedicated to humanitarianism.

The event, ‘An Evening with Eva Schloss, Beyond the Diary’, is set for Thursday February 9 at 6pm at the Melia Nassau Beach Resort. It is free and open to the public.

“Every few years, the Nassau Jewish community brings to the island someone whose story transcends individual religions or creeds and teaches all of us in the broader community the real meaning of strength, courage and goodness,” said Rabbi Sholom Bluming.

“Five years ago, we had Rena Finder, a Schindler’s List survivor, and two years ago, one of the Israeli fencing team athletes who survived the Munich Olympics massacre. It turned out that the man’s life was actually saved by the Bahamian Olympians who were housed nearby and he never knew who saved him until all those years later, but that is the kind of real-life drama that you cannot re-invent, you can only celebrate.

“Eva Schloss is an amazing woman,” he noted. “But she is 87 years old and although she is very sharp mentally, re-living the terror and the embers of hope that burned throughout the years of degradation and starvation requires almost superhuman energy.

“She cannot continue to be a globetrotter forever, recounting the horrors, the hiding, the pain, the starvation and finally victory. Her story of hope and resilience will inspire all of us for its courage and for the example it sets of good outweighing evil.”

Anne Frank was a German-born diarist and writer who gained fame posthumously following the publication of her diary, ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’, which documents her life in hiding from 1942 to 1944, during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. She died at 15.

Mrs Schloss, who was Anne Frank’s childhood best friend growing up in Amsterdam before the war, became her stepsister after the Holocaust when her mother married Anne Frank’s father after each lost their spouses. After Anne was murdered, Eva often felt she lived in her friend’s shadow but was determined to make her life count and to use her story to inspire others.

“Being able to hear a firsthand account of Anne Frank’s life is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity, She has left behind a diary that allowed the world to see the ravages of war through a child’s eyes and through the daily life of a family being torn apart bit by bit, limb by limb, dream by dream. Eva went on to live in the shadow but also in the light, creating for herself a full and rich life - author, wife, mother, grandmother, humanitarian,” the rabbi said.

Mrs Schloss will arrive in the Bahamas February 7 and will address students from several public and private schools during a presentation at the Harry C Moore Library at the University of The Bahamas prior to her main presentation at the Melia Nassau Beach.

For more information, contact rabbi@jewishbahamas.com or diane@dpa-media.com.