Éva lányom

The diary of Éva Heyman, born in 1931 in Nagyvárad, northern Transylvania (now Oradea, Romania), presented by her mother, Ágnes Zsolt. Her diary covers the period from 13 February (her 13th birthday) to 30 May 1944. At the time of the German occupation in March 1944, Éva was a student at the Jewish school. Her great-grandfather and a great-uncle had been Chief Rabbis of the Neolog Jewish community in the town in the 19th-20th centuries. Éva's parents had divorced, and her mother married the Hungarian Jewish writer Béla Zsolt, who lived in Budapest; Éva remained in Nagyvárad and was raised by her maternal grandparents, the Rácz family. In her diary, she gives a graphic description of the harsh events of the time, both in her home environment and in the city at large. When the ghetto was established in Nagyvárad, Éva's parents, who had been visiting in Nagyvárad, were also interned. They managed to escape from the ghetto to Budapest, where they were rescued on the Kasztner train. Éva, her grandparents, her biological father (Béla Heyman), his mother, as well as other family members were all deported to Auschwitz. Éva arrived in Auschwitz on 6 June, and was gassed on 17 October. Her mother presents here a very brief but heartrending description of Éva's experiences in Auschwitz. At the end, it was Mengele himself who sought her out and put her on the truck to be taken to the gas chamber. Her diary survived because she gave it to the family's cook who came to visit them in the ghetto on 30 May. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)