Two Lives of Eva

By Esther Hoffenberg

Eva, my mother, a Polish woman of German-Protestant culture, was brought up in the high industrialist bourgeoisie of Sosnowiec. She left Poland when the Soviets arrived in 1945. It was in post-war Germany that she met Sam, a survivor from the Warsaw ghetto. She left with him for Paris. In marrying Sam, Eva also married his story and identity and said good-bye to her own. As a couple, my parents grew increasingly happy until 1970, when Eva had her first fit of delirium. In 1978, she lived through a second attack and began to tell me about the young girl she was before she met my father. She revealed her tortured conscience regarding her German identity during the war.