Eva was the daughter of Freidrich and Anna Isaac. Her father, a writer, wrote under the surname Victor, and Eva and her brother, Hansgeorg, were known by that last name. Eva and her family lived in Berlin, a large, very sophisticated city. The Jews of Berlin were highly assimilated and well-integrated into the social and cultural fabric of the city. Eva was five years old when the Nazis came to power. They immediately began passing antisemitic measures. Many Jewish-owned businesses were barred from most professions and normal civic life. Jews were not allowed to attend public schools and were later forced to wear the yellow star. Their German citizenship was revoked, and they were forbidden to associate with non-Jews. Segregation laws were strictly enforced, and Jews were subjected to constant harassment and abuse.
After Eva's parents divorced, they placed their children in a Jewish boarding school. They were sent there in March 1938, when Eva was nine years old. Eva and her older brother, Hansgeorg, were extremely close.
After the wide-scale destruction and antisemitic acts of violence known as Kristallnacht, that took place on the night of November 9-10, 1938, Eva's father tried to get his children out of the country.
In January 1939, he wrote to a woman in England who was placing Jewish children in homes and boarding schools throughout England. Because Mr. Isaac was unable to supply monthly maintenance fees, due to his forced unemployment, the children's application was denied. After October 1941, the Jews of Germany were no longer allowed to emigrate. The children were hopelessly trapped.
Sometime between December 1941 and the spring of 1942, the Germans deported 16,000 Jews to a sealed-off ghetto in Riga, the capital of Latvia. The previous inhabitants, 30,000 local Jews, had been murdered by the Nazis to make room for the German Jews.
After September 1942, the Germans began deporting German Jews directly to death camps. Fourteen year-old Ava was sent to Auschwitz. Children under the age of fifteen were usually murdered upon their arrival. Eva was never heard from again.
