The following is a synopsis of Eve Kugler’s book which recounts her life before, during and after the Holocaust.
Eve Kugler was born Eva Kanner on 12 January 1931 in Halle in Germany, where she lived with her paternal grandfather, parents and two sisters in an apartment above the family shop. On Kristallnacht, 9 November 1938, the family’s shop and apartment were vandalised and Eve’s father was arrested and taken to Buchenwald.
Eve’s mother was able to obtain a visa for her father to go to France, securing his release from Buchenwald. She followed with her three daughters in June 1939, two months before the start of the war. In France, Eve’s father was again arrested, this time as an enemy German citizen. In desperation, Eve’s mother placed Eve and her older sister Ruth in a Jewish children’s home. Eve and Ruth would spend the next two years in Jewish children’s homes in France.
In June 1941, Eleanor Roosevelt and Marshall Field III managed to get approximately 100 visas for Jewish children in France to go to America. When two children got sick, Eve and Ruth were given their places. Aged just 10 and 12, they left their parents and youngest sister Lea, arriving in New York on 1 September 1941. For the next five years, Eve and Ruth moved between different foster homes in New York, not knowing whether their parents were alive.
Miraculously, both of Eve’s parents and Lea survived terrible ordeals in France during the war. The family was reunited in New York in June 1946, and began the slow process of rebuilding their lives after eight years of dislocation and separation.
Eve published the story of her mother’s war experiences in her book, Shattered Crystals, in 1997. Through this, she became involved with Holocaust education and attended 14 March of the Living trips to Poland. In 2020, she was awarded a British Empire Medal in recognition of her services to Holocaust education.
Eve had two children, Vicki and Mark, with her first husband, and two stepchildren from her second marriage to Simon Kugler. She sadly passed away on 23 April 2025 at the age of 94.
