Description
In June 1939, fifteen-year-old Eva and her eleven-year-old sister, Vera, were evacuated from German-occupied Czechoslovakia to Great Britain. Being Jewish by birth, their security at home was by no means assured, and their parents made the heart-rending decision to send their beloved daughters away. On parting, their mother, anticipating the coming of the war, said that if they could not write, they could send their love to each other by the moon and the stars. Eva was taken in by a headmistress of a boarding school, and Vera was billeted with a family in a distant city. Eva kept a diary through these painful years, recording her loneliness, her fears for her parents, relations and young boyfriend, Pepik, and gratitude for and bewilderment at her new country. When letters to and from home ceased, the need to pour her soul into her diaries became imperative. She stopped her diaries at the end of the war, when she learned that her parents and relations had died in concentration camps.
This is not just a record of events, it also depicts a teenage mind grappling with spiritual questions; the rights and wrongs of patriotism; the need to belong to a country and family; the dilemma of whether to pursue study or seek employment; the problems of being a parent to a sister; coming to terms with the realities of war; and the complicated search for love.
Fifty years later, Eva, now settled in New Zealand, faced those years again and translated her Czech diaries into English. Like The Diary of Anne Frank, they provide a poignant account of a young woman’s innermost feelings during the horrifying war years. Thoughtful, courageous and painful, they are revealing and very moving.
Softcover. 132 pages.
In very good to excellent preloved condition, with the exception of minor sticker residue to the back of the book.
