News of: Friday, November 03 2006,
On 14 December 2006 at 17.30, Ms Eva Schloss-Gieringer will open the exhibition Eva’s Story. The hideaway paintings of Erich and Heinz Gieringer (Dutch: Eva's verhaal. De onderduikschilderijen van Erich en Heinz Geiringer) in the Dutch Resistance Museum.
The exhibition shows the complete collection of paintings which Eva Schloss, nee Gieringer, donated to the museum earlier this year. The exhibits were painted by her father and her brother, neither of whom survived the war, while they were in hiding. The exhibition will be open to the public from 15 December through 5 April 2007.
In 1944, the entire Gieringer family was betrayed and put on a transport. On the train from Westerbork to Auschwitz, Heinz told his sister Eva that he had hidden the paintings under the attic floor of their hideaway address. After Eva and her mother survived the horrors of Auschwitz concentration camp, they found the paintings with a moving note: 'Property of Eric and Heinz Geiringer from Amsterdam who are in hiding and will collect the items after the war.' But Erich and Heinz never returned.
The exhibition shows some 30 paintings in an historic-personal context. Using quotes, photographs, drawings and poems, the exhibition tells the story of the Geiringer family, who emigrated from Austria to the Netherlands in the late 1930s, from 1940 resided in the Rivierenbuurt area of Amsterdam across the road from the Frank family, went into hiding in 1942 and was betrayed and deported in 1944. After the war, the survivors of the two families formed their own family: Eva’s mother married Otto Frank.
Anne Frank left her diary behind, Erich and the highly talented Heinz Geiringer a unique collection of powerful paintings which express their feelings of being locked away and their longing for freedom. The entire collection of paintings will be on view in the Netherlands for the first time from 15 December.
Eva Schloss lives in England these days. She wrote the book: Herinneringen van een joods meisje (Eva’s story: A Survivor's tale by the stepsister of Anne Frank). In January 2006, Eva Schloss donated her father’s and brother’s paintings to the Resistance Museum. They will now be exhibited in the Netherlands for the first time. The exhibition will be open daily until 6 April 2007.
