Holocaust Survivor Eva Schloss on Life after Auschwitz and the Discovery of Anne Frank's diary — Transcript

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1. 0:05We had been looked after all the time very well
2. 0:08but in Amsterdam, we were deposited at the station
3. 0:12and that was it.
4. 0:13We thought there would be a welcoming committee or something. Nothing.
5. 0:18But later we heard why.
6. 0:20Because all the western countries were liberated through the invasion,
7. 0:27but Holland was occupied til the end of the war,
8. 0:31and the Germans took everything that the Dutch produced to feed their own people.
9. 0:38In Holland it was called the Hunger Winter,
10. 0:41and tens of thousands of Dutch people starved to death in their own apartments.
11. 0:47Can you imagine?
12. 0:48There were no dogs or cats any more - everything had been eaten.
13. 0:52People went to the farms out in the country
14. 0:55came back with one potato to feed a family of five.
15. 0:59So, really people starved.
16. 1:02There was really no food. Can you imagine?
17. 1:05And, as well, no electricity. Nothing.
18. 1:08And then people came - not just us, but people from Germany started to come -
19. 1:13and they didn't really know what to do with us
20. 1:16so they just left us on our own.
21. 1:18But - I told you - this apartment we had was not in our name - it was a Christian name -
22. 1:25and eventually we were able to get back there.
23. 1:28All the other Jewish people who came back, like Otto Frank,
24. 1:32had nowhere to go because their apartments, everything was taken out and shipped to Germany
25. 1:40and Christian people moved in with their own furniture, and that was it.
26. 1:45Now, you couldn't own it at the time.
27. 1:47You didn't buy it, you just rented it.
28. 1:51It was a really hectic time.
29. 1:53People went around trying to find out if somebody had known somebody who might have seen something of their family.
30. 2:02People put adverts in the paper.
31. 2:05One day, we got a letter from the red cross
32. 2:09- it was about in July -
33. 2:11very factual, to my mother,
34. 2:14to tell my mother that 'we have to tell you that your husband, name and birth date,
35. 2:21and son, name and birth date, perished in Mauthausen
36. 2:25- this terrible death camp -
37. 2:27several days before the American army came to liberate that camp.
38. 2:33Well, that was for us the last straw.
39. 2:36Otto Frank came as well.
40. 2:40He told us that he had heard that both his girls and his wife had died.
41. 2:46He was 57 years old.
42. 2:48He was much older really. He married quite late.
43. 2:51After he left - he looked terrible -
44. 2:55I sat on my mother's lap and we cried.
45. 2:57My mother said, "Well, at least we have each other.
46. 3:00This man, what has he got? He has nothing left.
47. 3:04How can he carry on?"
48. 3:06And a few days later he came again,
49. 3:09and he had a little brown parcel in his arms.
50. 3:12I remember it very clearly
51. 3:14He said, "I must show you something",
52. 3:17and he opened it very, very carefully.
53. 3:19I think you can imagine what it was.
54. 3:22It was Anne's diary.
55. 3:25I can't find it here.
56. 3:27I thought I put it out on the table.
57. 3:29It was Anne's diary.
58. 3:31He had tears in his eyes and he said,
59. 3:34"I must read you something."
60. 3:37and he read a few sentences
61. 3:40but he always burst into tears.
62. 3:42It was too emotional for him.
63. 3:53After he got it, I said to my mother,
64. 3:56"What about Heinz's paintings?"
65. 3:59Now, I have to tell you a little something else.
66. 4:01I told you Heinz was such a wonderful musician.
67. 4:04But while he was in hiding, of course, he couldn't make any music.
68. 4:10He had to be quiet, in a little room.
69. 4:12He was not even allowed to look out of the window, because he was quite dark.
70. 4:16He just sat there.
71. 4:18He was very artistic, so he thought he would try something else,
72. 4:23and he started to paint.
73. 4:25And he created some wonderful, wonderful oil paintings.
74. 4:30In the last conversation I had with him in the cattle truck
75. 4:35he told me, when they escaped from this woman who blackmailed them,
76. 4:39he hid the paintings under the floorboard with a note on it,
77. 4:44"This belongs to Heinz and Erich Geiringer,
78. 4:47and after the war we are going to come and pick it up again."
79. 4:52And I said to my mother,
80. 4:53"Well, Otto has the diary of Anne, let's go pick up those paintings of Heinz"
81. 4:59But we were reluctant to go to this house
82. 5:02because, who is this woman who blackmailed them?
83. 5:05All this had happened to us.
84. 5:07But nevertheless we did go
85. 5:09and luckily she had disappeared
86. 5:12and a young couple lived in that house.
87. 5:14We told them that there were paintings under the floorboard
88. 5:18and they looked at each other and said 'crazy people'
89. 5:22and they didn't want to let us in.
90. 5:25But we both started to cry
91. 5:27and then they said "ok, go and look".
92. 5:29And indeed we found those amazing paintings.
93. 5:32I've got some pictures - I'll put them out later.
94. 5:37And, it is wonderful to have this.
95. 5:41A few years ago I donated them to the Resistance Museum in Amsterdam
96. 5:46so that many people can see them.
97. 5:49Besides that he wrote as well many poems
98. 5:53and we found 200 poems.
99. 5:56And as he was so sensitive, you know,
100. 5:58he was quite afraid of dying
101. 6:00and some of them are very, very sad.
102. 6:03And later I will read one of them to you.
103. 6:10So, going back to Amsterdam, Otto came very often to us.
104. 6:15He stayed with Miep Gies, who was one of the helpers,
105. 6:17she'd just had a baby, and it was a small apartment
106. 6:20and he didn't want to be there, in the way.
107. 6:23So, he came around very often.
108. 6:25And my mother cooked him a meal
109. 6:27and he went to everybody who had known his girls
110. 6:31and showed them the diary.
111. 6:33And he showed it to a history professor
112. 6:35and he said, "Well, Otto, it's really your duty to publish it."
113. 6:39But Otto was very reluctant.
114. 6:41Two reasons.
115. 6:42Because Anna says a lot of nasty things about her mother - she had a bad relationship with her mother -
116. 6:49and, as well, about many other people.
117. 6:51And, you know, they all perished.
118. 6:54So that was unpleasant for Otto for the world to know this.
119. 6:58And, as well, he says sometimes he wants to publish it, sometimes he doesn't want to publish it.
120. 7:05But eventually he decided to publish it.
121. 7:08But it was difficult to find a publisher
122. 7:11because, after the war, I wanted to talk
123. 7:14I wanted to tell people what had happened to us,
124. 7:17how we had suffered these terrible things,
125. 7:19but people didn't want to know.
126. 7:22That is really very important.
127. 7:24People all said "Never again Auschwitz. We have learned our lesson.
128. 7:28Let's just move on."
129. 7:30So we had to suppress it
130. 7:32and then later, in the 60's and 70's, when people started to question it
131. 7:37we were not ready any more.
132. 7:39That is why nothing was known really for so many, many years.
133. 7:45So it was difficult for Otto to find a publisher
134. 7:51because people said "oh, nobody will be interested".
135. 7:55Eventually he found a Catholic publisher
136. 7:57and so he had to edit it
137. 7:59because, at that time, Anne wrote about getting her period and how she developed from a girl into a woman,
138. 8:08and in the 40's you didn't talk about that.
139. 8:11That was a subject that was very private.
140. 8:14So he had to take that out.
141. 8:16And so he also took out quite a lot of the unpleasant things she said about her mother and all the other people.
142. 8:24And then he had it translated into German and English and French.
143. 8:29But it wasn't really a great success.
144. 8:32Only when it was published in America in 1952 did it become a best-seller.
145. 8:40But again in America he had great difficulty finding a publisher
146. 8:44until eventually Doubleday publisher said "Ok, I'll take a chance. It can't harm".
147. 8:50But I don't think he got even any money for it.
148. 8:54Can you imagine how all the other publishers who turned it down, how sorry they are?
149. 8:59Because they sold millions and millions of it in the American edition.
150. 9:05So, Otto came to us very often
151. 9:09and I was full of hatred
152. 9:12and he was an amazing person.
153. 9:15He had lost everybody and he said
154. 9:18"I don't hate anybody, not even the Germans."
155. 9:20And I questioned him: "How can you not hate them?"
156. 9:24He said, "Well, they're not all bad"
157. 9:26and he always said "I'm German myself".
158. 9:28We found this very amazing
159. 9:31and later my children, he said to them, "I come from a good German family"
160. 9:37and we said "How can you associate with the Germans?".
161. 9:40But, you know, his family was in Germany from 1700
162. 9:43and he was very proud of the literature, the music.
163. 9:49He was a real German.
164. 9:51He fought in the First World War - he was officer on the German side -
165. 9:55and, as I say, he was already an older man,
166. 10:00and you can't just lose your whole personality.
167. 10:03But I was shocked that he didn't hate anybody
168. 10:06and he said to me
169. 10:08"If you go through your life hating people, the people who you hate don't know - they won't suffer - you will suffer."
170. 10:14and that was true.
171. 10:16I was really very, very miserable.
172. 10:19I had to finish school.
173. 10:20I didn't relate to my classmates - I thought I was much older than them.
174. 10:25I felt like an adult.
175. 10:26And, when I finished, I didn't know what to do.
176. 10:30I didn't want to study.
177. 10:31I did a little art course at the university, but I was restless
178. 10:35and Otto and my mother decided I should become a photographer
179. 10:40and I didn't really care.
180. 10:41Whatever they would have said, I would have said yes.