BOZEMAN — Eva Schloss, a Holocaust survivor and stepsister of Anne Frank, will host a Q&A at Montana State University on Sunday, November 3.
MSU President Waded Cruzado will moderate the session. Executive Director of Chabad Lubavitch of Montana, Rabbi Chaim Bruk will also participate in the Q&A.
“We are deeply honored to welcome Ms. Eva Schloss to Montana State University,” Cruzado said. “As a survivor of the Holocaust – and as someone who knew Anne Frank, who provided a powerful voice for those who did not survive – she has an important and courageous story to share. It is one that must be heard.”
Schloss was born Eva Geiringer in 1929 in Vienna, Austria, to a Jewish family. According to Schloss’ autobiography, shortly after the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938, her family emigrated to Belgium and finally to the Netherlands.
She lived in the same apartment block in Amsterdam as Anne Frank, and the girls, only a month apart in age, were sometimes playmates from ages 11 to 13. In 1942, both girls went into hiding to avoid the Nazi effort to capture the Jews of Amsterdam.
In 1944, Schloss's family was captured by the Nazis and transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camps. Her father and brother did not survive, but she and her mother were freed in 1945.
“It’s historic for Montana to host any Holocaust survivor as, sadly, there aren’t many left, especially when that survivor is a relative of Anne Frank and can take us deep into Anne’s incredibly story,” Bruk said.
Tickets are $5 for students and $18 for the public. Tickets go on sale Friday and are available at the Bobcat Ticket Office and online at TicketsWest.
