Eva Neufeldova Diary

There are two "bookends" to the actual diary, an introduction and an epilogue, that were written by the author--Eva's son, Vladimir. In the introduction, the reader is presented with the story of the diary, Eva and her family, place and time of the diary. The document spans two years from July 1940 when Eva was almost eighteen to August 1942 when she was almost twenty years old. The epilogue goes beyond the end of the diary to describe Eva's story up to the end of World War II in 1945.The Neufelds, including Eva at age ten, left one of the most democratic countries in Europe in 1932 for the Soviet Union where they spent six years with Eva's father, Ludevit, a civil engineer, working as the head engineer at a large metalworking factory in the city of Dneprodzerzhinsk. Four months after their return in 1938, they ended up in the Slovak State, a vasal state of Nazi Germany, a country with a despicable, rabidly antisemitic fascist regime. The government soon instituted many antisemitic laws from taking over Jewish businesses, forbidding Jews to get education, and many others. It is conceivable that forbidden to go back to school in September 1940 was Eva's impetus for starting the diary in August.In March 1942, the Slovak government began deporting Jews to death camps in Poland. By the time the deportations were halted in October 1942, about 58,000 Jews out of a total Jewish population of about 87,000 were deported. Most of the Jews deported in these seven months were murdered.The diary--translated by the author--is reproduced in its entirety with annotations and historical photos. The diary provides a contemporaneous record of the impact of these most difficult times on a young teenage girl and her family.The diary was found almost eighty years later by the author's sister in Frankenthal, Germany, where she has been living for many years. She emptied their parents' apartment in Slovakia after they passed in 2003, boxed many documents, and brought them to her house in Frankenthal. When cleaning up in early 2019, she discovered the diary in one of the boxes. Eva never mentioned to anyone the existence of it.It is something of a miracle that it survived World War II and many moves during the tumultuous years of Eva's life.

-- Vladimir Roth