Pupils Meet ‘The Miracle Baby’ Ahead Of Their Holocaust Awareness Trip

Eva also told her incredible story to a packed audience, made up of pupils, teachers, parents, Old Breconians, in Y Neuadd Goffa: The Memorial Hall.

In October 1944, Anka became pregnant with Eva – but before she was able to tell her husband, he was sent to Auschwitz. On 29 April 1945, Anka, also at Auschwitz, was transferred to the Mauthausen death camp.

“The sight of the name Mauthausen at the station was a deep shock to her, as she had heard of the camp’s awful reputation early on in the war. She says the shock was so great that she thinks it provoked the onset of her labour and she started to give birth to me on that coal truck (that was transporting them)” Eva says.

Today Eva lives in Cambridge and spends her time visiting schools, telling pupils the story of how she came into the world. For her it is important to commemorate all the victims of the Holocaust.

“To remember all those thousands and thousands and thousands of people who died, who were killed in the Holocaust, and especially all those thousands of people who’ve never ever had one single person remember them because all their families were killed,” she says.

Eva has a huge amount of admiration for her mother: “I can hardly believe that she actually did go through it. But, you know, she always says that nobody knows what they can withstand until they have to … and fortunately most of us are not put to the test.”