Eva D. Ostwalt (or Oswalt; April 2, 1902 – May 23, 2010) was a German Jewish

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 ...

survivor. Ostwalt was born into a

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

ish mercantile family in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...

, the eldest of three daughters. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, she was forced to work for

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', '' ...

in a camp next to the

Ravensbrück concentration camp Ravensbrück () was a German concentration camp exclusively for women from 1939 to 1945, located in northern Germany, north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel). The camp memorial's estimated figure o ...

. She lost her mother 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 ...

and her daughter during the bombing of

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

. She barely survived. In 1947, she married her second husband Heinz Ostwalt and they soon emigrated to the United States. Her daily life was shown in a TV documentary titled ''Lust am Leben - mit 103 in Amerika'' by Michael Marton, which aired in Germany on WDR. She lived on the outskirts of

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

At the age of 105, Ostwalt was still able to drive and use a computer. During the documentary, it became apparent that the

was frequently on her mind. Even over 60 years after the event, Ostwalt did not want her neighbours to know of her Jewish background. Marton is preparing a longer version in English, to be entitled ''"To Live - what else!''.

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Eva Ostwalt obituary
tributes.com. Accessed 2 April 2024. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ostwalt, Eva 1902 births 2010 deaths 20th-century German Jews Emigrants from Allied-occupied Germany to the United States Ravensbrück concentration camp survivors German centenarians Women centenarians Jewish centenarians

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