3 minute read
“Eva’s Promise”
A Brazina Documentary Film Series presentation
By Marc Rosenweig, MCA Member
It happened during a three-day train trip in 1944, as they were being deported from the Netherlands to Auschwitz Birkenau concentration camp. She promised to retrieve his hidden artwork and poetry if he didn’t survive. His work was hidden under the floorboards of an Amsterdam apartment.
In the documentary “Eva’s Promise,” she tells her story of survival and returning to reclaim her brother’s work. It will be screened April 1, 1:30 p.m., as part of the Brazina Documentary Film Series at the Nina Iser Jewish Cultural Center in Naples.
Eva Schloss was born in Vienna in 1929. Her family fled the Nazis in 1938 and settled in Amsterdam in 1940. In 1942, they had to go into hiding, moving between several locations, until they were captured in 1944. She and her mother survived the concentration camp; her brother, Heinz, and their father, Erich, did not.
In 1945, Eva returned to Amsterdam and retrieved the hidden art and 200 of Heinz’ poems. They now reside in the Amsterdam Museum of the Resistance. Her mother also survived and eventually married Otto Frank, Anne Frank’s widowed father.
Eva turned 95 in May. At one point, she sold her London antique store and dedicated her life to Holocaust education. She’s written three books on the subject. She appeared in Ken Burns’ film on the Holocaust. Eva gained additional notoriety when she danced the Hora with King Charles III during a Hanukkah celebration.
Film producers Susan Kerner and Steve McCarthy primarily use Eva’s words to tell the story.
We interviewed her for 12 hours during the pandemic,” said McCarthy, during a panel after a screening at The Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. A 25-minute film suddenly became 60 minutes.
For the record, McCarthy teaches in the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University, where I taught for more than a decade.
Kerner first met Eva in 1996 when Kerner was directing the play “Remembering the World of Anne Frank” in New Jersey.
“I’m so honored to have her in my life,” said Kerner during the panel. “It’s life-changing for me.”
An extra special touch in the film is when Eva’s grandson, Eric Schloss, reads selections from Heinz’ poems. “I’ve completely grown up with this story,” said Eric Schloss. “It’s part of me.”
McCarthy was stunned as Eric read Heinz’ poems for the film. “Wow, this is Heinz talking. He read it with such compassion and conviction.”
Eva only started talking about her experiences after Otto Frank died in 1980. McCarthy said she had night terrors about Auschwitz, which subsided after she started talking about it.
“Eva’s Promise” has been screened at film series around the country and at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. It played to three sold out audiences at the Montclair Film Festival in New Jersey. It’s been adopted into the curriculum at Tufts University and the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota.
As part of the screening at the Nina Iser Jewish Cultural Center, I will be interviewing Steve McCarthy via Zoom. When Eva was interviewed for this documentary at age 92, she told McCarthy to “get it done in a hurry.” They did, and it’s an important story to experience. As McCarthy said, “You might say it’s a mitzvah.”
