Eva’s Story

By: Eva Schloss, Evelyn Julia Kent / Narrated By: Ann Richardson

Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins

Ultimately uplifting, tho’ it really should have a European narrator

Ann Richardson does a fine job with the narration, turning in a warm and heartfelt performance, but it was mighty, mighty, MIGHTY strange hearing an eyewitness account of the Holocaust in the voice of a young American girl. While it is a strong story, it could’ve been stronger with a different narrator. But that’s the only problem I have with the narration. So sue me; it kept jumping out at me as she, Eva, recounts her time in her hometown then Amsterdam, then Birkenau, then traveling after the liberation of the camps by the Russians.

This is one of those survivor accounts where the victim has no hatred or malice for the victimizers. Throughout, there is faith, friendship, the love of family, hope for the future, even a sort of peace made with what is happening to her at the time. Even though there is always, always such fear. Eva suffers typhus and frostbite, but she won’t seek medical help because that could get her sent straight to the showers. (By the way, there is one horrible scene where a large group of them are sent to the showers and nobody knows… will it be water? …or will it be gas?)

Eva is Anne Frank’s stepsister only by her mother’s remarriage much later on to Otto Frank. But they were sort of playmates at a time, though Eva feels Anne was far more mature than she at the time. Just don’t go into the audiobook thinking there will be lots of peripheral/lateral stuff about Anne Frank.

Still and all, on its own, it’s a good story, a hopeful one. Even though there’s plenty of fear and tragedy thrown in…