Jan. 26, 2015

Contact Rick Kyte at 608-796-3704 or rlkyte@viterbo.edu

HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR EVA SCHLOSS TO PRESENT “HIDING, BETRAYAL, SURVIVAL: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ANNE FRANK AND EVA SCHLOSS” AT VITERBO MARCH 26; TICKETS GO ON SALE FEB. 2

LA CROSSE, Wis. – Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss, Anne Frank’s childhood friend, will present “Hiding, Betrayal, Survival: The Life and Times of Anne Frank and Eva Schloss” at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 26 in the Viterbo University Fine Arts Center Main Theatre.

Tickets for the event go on sale to the general public at the Viterbo box office Monday, Feb. 2. Tickets can be purchased at the Viterbo box office, online at www.viterbo.edu/tickets, or by calling 608-796-3100. Tickets are $15 for main floor and $10 for balcony seating. All tickets are $5 for students.

Following the German annexation of Austria in 1938, then eight-year-old Eva fled her native country with her family to Belgium and then later Holland, where one of her neighbors was a German Jewish girl of the same age named Anne Frank, who of course is the author of her famous diary. The two girls became friends and playmates. Ultimately, both girls and their families were deported to the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp.

Eva survived and was liberated from Auschwitz by Soviet troops in 1945. She eventually emigrated to England after the war, where she married Zvi Schloss and raised three daughters. Frank would eventually be transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where she died. Eva and Anne would become posthumous stepsisters in1953 when Eva’s mother Elfriede married Anne’s father Otto.

Eva Schloss has devoted herself to Holocaust education and global peace since 1985. She has recounted her wartime experiences in more than one thousand speaking engagements. She has written two books and has had a play written about her life.

This presentation is part of the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership Spring Lecture Series. It is being held in conjunction with Viterbo’s annual Teaching the Holocaust Workshop for educators.

In celebration of Viterbo’s 125th Anniversary, the university is collecting non-perishable food items for distribution to local food pantries. People attending Schloss’ presentation are invited to participate and bring a food item.

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