March 9, 2021

Contact Rick Kyte at 608-796-3704 or rlkyte@viterbo.edu or Jill Miller at 608-796-3615 or jmmiller@viterbo.edu

VITERBO D.B. REINHART INSTITUTE FOR ETHICS IN LEADERSHIP LECTURE SERIES TO FEATURE HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR EVA SCHLOSS MARCH 24

LA CROSSE, Wis. – Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss, Anne Frank’s childhood friend, will share her incredible story of survival as part of the Viterbo University D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership spring lecture series from noon–1:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 24 on Facebook Live at www.facebook.com/viterboethics.

Following the German annexation of Austria in 1938, then eight-year-old Eva fled her native country with her family to Belgium and then later Holland, where one of her neighbors was a German Jewish girl of the same age named Anne Frank, the author of her famous diary. The two girls became friends and playmates. Ultimately, both girls and their families were deported to the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp.

Eva survived and was liberated from Auschwitz by Soviet troops in 1945. She eventually emigrated to England after the war, where she married Zvi Schloss and raised three daughters. Frank would eventually be transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where she died. Eva and Anne would become posthumous stepsisters in 1953 when Eva’s mother Elfriede married Anne’s father Otto.

Eva Schloss has devoted herself to Holocaust education and global peace since 1985. She has recounted her wartime experiences in more than one thousand speaking engagements. She has written two books and has had a play written about her life. 

This event is being held in conjunction with Viterbo’s annual Teaching the Holocaust Workshop for educators. Go to the Viterbo Ethics Institute Facebook page to view the presentation. A Facebook account is not required. For a full schedule of D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership events, visit www.viterbo.edu/ethics.

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