Eva Heyman ( hu, Heyman Éva, 13 February 1931 – 17 October 1944) was a Jewish girl from
Oradea
Oradea (, , ; german: Großwardein ; hu, Nagyvárad ) is a city in Romania, located in Crișana, a sub-region of Transylvania. The county seat, seat of Bihor County, Oradea is one of the most important economic, social and cultural centers in the ...
. She began keeping a
diary
A diary is a written or audiovisual record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. Diaries have traditionally been handwritten but are now also often digital. A personal ...
in 1944 during
the German occupation of Hungary. Published under the name ''The Diary of Eva Heyman'', her diary has been compared to ''
The Diary of Anne Frank
''The Diary of a Young Girl'', also known as ''The Diary of Anne Frank'', is a book of the writings from the Dutch-language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherl ...
''. She discusses the extreme deterioration of the circumstances the Jewish community faced in the city, offering a detailed account of the increasingly restrictive anti-Jewish laws, the psychological anguish and despair, the loss of their rights and liberties and the confiscation of property they endured. Heyman was 13 years old when she and her grandparents were murdered in the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
.
In May 2019, the Eva Stories project was launched, visually depicting extracts from her diary on
Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
. On International Holocaust Day 2020 (27 January), Eva Stories was also launched on
Snapchat
Snapchat is an American multimedia instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are usually only available for a short time before the ...
.
Biography
Heyman started writing her diary on her thirteenth birthday 13 February 1944 (the same year
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
occupied Hungary).
The town she was born has been called
Nagyvárad
)
, blank2_name_sec1 = Patron saint
, blank2_info_sec1 = Saint Ladislaus[Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...](_blank)
; in her diary, Heyman calls it "Varad", short for Nagyvárad, a colloquial name widely used. The city was part of Hungary that time.
She was raised in an assimilated
Hungarian-Jewish
The history of the Jews in Hungary dates back to at least the Kingdom of Hungary, with some records even predating the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895 CE by over 600 years. Written sources prove that Jewish communities lived i ...
family. Her father, Béla Heyman, was an architect from a prominent family. The family owned a hotel which Heyman wrote was "full of Persian rugs". Her parents divorced when she was a young child. Her mother married socialist writer
Béla Zsolt
Béla Zsolt (born as Béla Steiner, 8 January 1895 – 6 February 1949) was a Hungarian radical socialist journalist and politician. He wrote one of the earliest Holocaust memoirs, ''Nine Suitcases'' (''Kilenc koffer'' in Hungarian). Tibor Fis ...
. Her grandfather was a pharmacist, who had supported the
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephen ...
against Romania. Heyman recalls watching the arrival of
Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya ( hu, Vitéz nagybányai Horthy Miklós; ; English: Nicholas Horthy; german: Nikolaus Horthy Ritter von Nagybánya; 18 June 1868 – 9 February 1957), was a Hungarian admiral and dictator who served as the Regent o ...
from the window of her grandfather's pharmacy.
Her mother Ágnes "Ági" Zsolt was also a pharmacist. Her daughter described her as "more beautiful than
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo (born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson; 18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990) was a Swedish-American actress. Regarded as one of the greatest screen actresses, she was known for her melancholic, somber persona, her film portrayals of tragedy, ...
". Ági and Zsolt were living in Paris when the Germans
invaded Poland. Terrified for her daughter, she convinced her husband to return to Budapest. She was held at the
Bergen-Belsen
Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentrati ...
concentration camp, but made it to safety in
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
after she was rescued from the camp. Her mother committed suicide after her daughter's diary was published. The location of the original manuscript is not known.
Being raised in a political family, Heyman and her grandparents would have been expecting rough treatment as the Nazis approached Nagyvárad in 1944. Heyman was morbidly preoccupied with her own death at the hands of the Nazis, which she grew to believe was inevitable after her best friend was killed by Nazis. Her diary begins as air raids sirens herald the approach of the Nazis in Nagyvárad. Together with her grandparents, Heyman was murdered in
Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
in October 1944.
Diary and publication
Heyman's diary was published first in Hungarian. It was first translated into Hebrew by
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...
in 1964, then into English by Moshe M. Kohn. The English edition was published by Yad Vashem in 1974.
The diary has been compared to ''The Diary of Anne Frank''.
In her diary she talks about her 13th birthday party, the last before she is murdered at Auschwitz. She writes of a pleasant party with tea,
sandwiches
A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...
, and a type of chocolate cake called ''
Sachertorte
Sachertorte (, , ) is a chocolate cake, or torte of Austrian origin, invented by Franz Sacher, supposedly in 1832 for Prince Metternich in Vienna.Michael Krondl, ''Sweet Invention: A History of Dessert'', , 2011, p. 290: "my best guess i ...
''. She is given a navy blue knit dress, a light tan spring coat and for the first time two pairs of sheer stockings. She also received an assortment of books, candies, records, oranges and chocolates.
She writes of her mother burning books written by
Béla Zsolt
Béla Zsolt (born as Béla Steiner, 8 January 1895 – 6 February 1949) was a Hungarian radical socialist journalist and politician. He wrote one of the earliest Holocaust memoirs, ''Nine Suitcases'' (''Kilenc koffer'' in Hungarian). Tibor Fis ...
, who she calls "Uncle Bela", and the destruction of works by other authors who were deemed dangerous like
Ferenc Molnár
Ferenc Molnár ( , ; born Ferenc Neumann; 12 January 18781 April 1952), often anglicized as Franz Molnar, was a Hungarian-born author, stage-director, dramatist, and poet, widely regarded as Hungary’s most celebrated and controversial playw ...
. She admits to having read Molnár's novel ''
The Paul Street Boys
''The Paul Street Boys'' ( hu, A Pál utcai fiúk) is a youth novel by the Hungarian writer Ferenc Molnár, first published in 1906.
Plot outline
The novel is about schoolboys in Józsefváros neighbourhood of Budapest and set in 1889. The Pau ...
''.
Commemoration and representation in culture
* In 2012, a research center for Jewish history was opened at the University of Oradea (Nagyvárad) that was named after Eva Heyman.
* In 2015, in the city of Oradea (Nagyvarad) there was placed a statue of Eva Heyman in memory of the children of the city who were murdered in the Holocaust. It is situated in Bălcescu Park, from where over 20,000 Jews were deported by trains to Auschwitz between 24 May and 3 June 1944. This statue was the result of 3 years of hard pro bono work by the not for profit organisatio
and the generosity of donors from around the world. The sculptor was Flor Kent. In 2018 the statue was gifted by Asociatia Tikvah to the City of Oradea.
* In 2017, a theater show entitled "Eva Heyman: Anne Frank of Transylvania" was staged in Romania based on Eva's story.
Eva Stories
In May 2019, a series of short videos that illustrate her story was uploaded to Instagram in the style that characterizes the media, under the title Eva Stories. The videos went viral and attracted worldwide interest. During the 2020
World Holocaust Forum The World Holocaust Forum is a series of events aimed at preserving the memory of the Holocaust. It is also known as the "Let My People Live!" Forum.
The World Holocaust Forum Foundation was established in 2005 under the chairmanship of Viatcheslav ...
in Jerusalem, world leaders planned to post Eva-related online messages in order to popularize the project and help combat anti-Semitism.
On International Holocaust Day, 27 January 2020, Eva Stories was also launched on
Snapchat
Snapchat is an American multimedia instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are usually only available for a short time before the ...
.
See also
*
List of Holocaust diarists
Diarists who wrote diaries concerning the Holocaust (1941-1945).
* Mary Berg
* Hélène Berr - a French diarist
* Willy Cohn
* Adam Czerniaków
* Arnold Daghani
* Petr Ginz
* Zalman Gradowski
* Etty Hillesum - Dutch Jewish diarist and Holo ...
*
List of diarists
This is an international list of diarists who have Wikipedia pages and whose journals have been published.
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
Y
Z
Diaries of disputed authenticity
*The B ...
*
List of posthumous publications of Holocaust victims
This is a list of Holocaust victims whose writings were published posthumously.
Published in English or translated into English
*Hinde Bergner (1870–1942): ''On Long Winter Nights: Memoirs of a Jewish Family in a Galician Township, 1870–19 ...
References
External links
About Eva Heyman's diary in Yad Vashem website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Heyman, Eva
1931 births
1944 deaths
Hungarian people who died in Auschwitz concentration camp
People from Oradea
Jewish children who died in the Holocaust
Children who died in Nazi concentration camps
Hungarian Jews who died in the Holocaust
Holocaust diarists
Women diarists