Eva Salier

She was born on March 26, 1923, in Koblenz{{Cite web |date=2021-03-10 |title=Eva Salier-Hellendag (1923-2014) |url=https://heimatfreunde-horchheim.de/eva-salier-hellendag/ |access-date=2022-03-06 |website=Heimatfreunde Horchheim |language=de-DE}} to Jewish parents Simon Hellendag (a Dutch merchant) and his wife Antonie.{{Cite web |title=045. Eva Salier, geb. Hellendag (Jüdisches Mädchen aus Koblenz-Horchheim) |url=https://mahnmalkoblenz.de/index.php/2013-12-12-02-07-02/die-personentafeln/187-045-eva-salier-geb-hellendag-juedisches-maedchen-aus-koblenz-horchheim |access-date=2022-03-06 |website=mahnmalkoblenz.de}}

She attended Horchheim elementary school from 1929 until 1933, when the Nazis rose to power. In 1933 she started at the Hilda School and where anti-Semitism was on the rise, she was spat on and insulted. Her father attempted to get her to England but died before that was possible, just as she was expelled from school. In 1938 her mother sent her to the Netherlands, where she was captured by Nazis. Officers separated her from the other 499 detainees and forgot about her location. She escaped, but was later arrested again with her family and made to do forced labour. In 1944 she was taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau but spared death after being declared fit to work and forced to assemble radios. In 1945 she was liberated.

After World War II she emigrated to the United States, living most of the rest of her life in New Jersey.{{cite news|title=Eva Salier Obituary|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thedailyjournal/obituary.aspx?pid=172092699|accessdate=8 August 2015|publisher=The Daily Journal|date=14 August 2014}} Eva recalls that in 1946 America people didn't believe the stories of her holocaust experience, or didn't want to hear them. Originally recorded for her son, Eva's records of these events were forgotten for decades before being rediscovered and published.{{cite web|url=https://www.jweekly.com/1996/04/05/survivor-s-memoir-reveals-role-humor-played-in-the-camps/|title=Survivors memoir reveals role humor played in the camps|date=5 April 1996|access-date=7 March 2022|publisher=The Jewish News of Northern California}}

The story of her enslavement by the Nazis: "The Survival of a Spirit",{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/32773248|title=Survival of a spirit|first=Eva|last=Salier|date=October 29, 1995|publisher=Shengold|oclc=32773248|via=Open WorldCat}} is a summation of the hardships suffered by her {{Cite web|url=https://www.goodreads.com/search?force_amazon=true&q=Eva+Salier|title=Search results for "Eva Salier" (showing 1-1 of 1 books)|website=www.goodreads.com}}Krimmer, E. (2018). German Women's Life Writing and the Holocaust: Complicity and Gender in the Second World War. India: Cambridge University Press. p199 small group of "girls" as they were forcibly moved between various secret locations where they worked on electronic gear, including sending tubes for the enigma coding machine and V-2 guidance systems. As she tells the story, she worked on the first solid state transistors that would replace the tubes in the guidance system of the V-2. But this has never seen the light of day. The book was also translated into German as Lebensweg einer Koblenzer Jüdin{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/50811937|title=Lebensweg einer Koblenzer Jüdin|first=Eva|last=Salier|date=October 29, 2001|publisher=Plöger|oclc=50811937|via=Open WorldCat}} and as Ungebrochen durch die Hölle.{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/237234390|title=Ungebrochen durch die Hölle|first=Eva|last=Salier|date=October 29, 1995|publisher=Stadtbibliothek|oclc=237234390|via=Open WorldCat}}

Her memoir is notable for its discussion of the use of humour as a coping tool to deal with traumatic events.Gudgel, M. R. (2021). Think Higher Feel Deeper: Holocaust Education in the Secondary Classroom. United States: Teachers College Press.{{Citation |last=Ellger |first=Hans |title=Gespräche mit Überlebenden des Holocaust — eine Chance der dritten Generation |date=2003 |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-89787-9_28 |work=Lebendige Sozialgeschichte: Gedenkschrift für Peter Borowsky |pages=454–463 |editor-last=Hering |editor-first=Rainer |place=Wiesbaden |publisher=VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften |language=de |doi=10.1007/978-3-322-89787-9_28 |isbn=978-3-322-89787-9 |access-date=2022-03-06 |editor2-last=Nicolaysen |editor2-first=Rainer}}

Her art work can be found in the book published in Sweden under the title “Pa Gransen Mellon Kroger och Fred” (On the boarder between War and Peace - memorial images from Malmo (Sweden) 1939–1945. Pages 140–141).

Salier taught art and painted. Her work is in the collection of the Goodwin Holocaust Museum and the Koblenz Mittelrhein Museum.

In 1995 Salier was interviewed, and the record of that interview is in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.{{cite web |title=Oral history interview with Eva Salier |url=https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn512198 |website=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |access-date=27 February 2022}} Additionally, some of her letters from Vught concentration camp to her mother have been archived at the Holocaust Museum.{{cite web |title=Eva Salier papers |url=https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn28927 |website=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |access-date=27 February 2022}} A book of her collected works can be found at several public libraries and the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.{{citation needed|date= March 2022}}

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Category:1923 births

Category:2014 deaths

Category:20th-century American painters

Category:21st-century American painters

Category:Emigrants from Allied-occupied Germany to the United States

Category:Holocaust survivors

Category:German women memoirists

Category:American women memoirists