Holocaust survivor Eve Kugler, who was scheduled to march on Thursday with a delegation of 80 Holocaust survivors in the March of the Living from Auschwitz to Birkenau, died on Wednesday in London at the age of 94. She is survived by two children and four grandchildren.
Kugler, a journalist by trade, was born in Germany and personally experienced Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, when SS officers stormed her family’s home, destroying their possessions and tearing apart Torah scrolls.
Last year, Kugler participated in the March of the Living. In an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth and Ynet, she shared: "I was born in 1931 in Halle, a city of 200,000 residents, of whom only 2,000 were Jews. My father owned a small department store, and my grandfather, who came from Poland, founded a synagogue in the city where we learned Hebrew. I know we kept a kosher home and always celebrated the Jewish holidays."
She recounted the horrors of Kristallnacht in November 1938. "I was just a seven-year-old girl when SS officers entered our home. They tore apart my grandfather’s tallit (prayer shawl), pages of the Talmud, and his Torah scroll," Kugler recalled. "My family managed to smuggle my sister and me to America, where we were placed in foster homes. My parents survived concentration camps in France, where they had fled, and my younger sister went into hiding from the Germans. Miraculously, our family was reunited in the United States in 1946. I lived in New York until 1989, and then, after marrying my soulmate, I moved to London."
Kugler shared that she chose to forget the atrocities for many years, only asking her mother at age 40 to remind her of what happened.
"My father and my older sister Ruth, who never forgot anything, told me about the Nazis’ shouts that woke us up," she remembered. "Their screams pierced the air. We crept out of bed and stood at the entrance of our house, shocked and silent. Men in uniforms—leather boots, swastika armbands—marched through the hallway. They opened cabinets and smashed dishes. The worst was in my grandfather's room. He was 79 years old, a deeply religious and learned Jew, and they tore apart all his holy books."
She admitted she didn’t share her experiences of life in Nazi Germany with her friends. "Even as an adult, I still hid what I had gone through from everyone. Another feeling I lived with was guilt for surviving. I only began speaking about it publicly in 1997 after publishing my book on the Holocaust, "Shattered Crystals." Since then, I’ve been speaking at schools, government offices, and businesses. I’ve spoken in the UK, the US, Canada, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, and even Dubai."
She continued: "I live by my mother’s words: 'Everyone needs to know what happened so it won’t happen again.' When I speak, I see the shock on the faces of the audience, especially schoolchildren when I tell them, 'When I was your age…' The many questions I receive after my talks show the interest and concern people have. "Shattered Crystals" is part of library collections in the U.S., UK, Canada, France, and Germany. Additionally, I’ve had the honor of participating as a member of the British delegation in every March of the Living since 2012."
In an interview last year, she also addressed the wave of antisemitism, which has not spared Britain. "How can it be that protesters in the streets don’t understand the magnitude of the atrocities Hamas committed on October 7 against babies, women, and innocent elderly people? They slaughtered, burned, and kidnapped people to Gaza. There’s evidence of all these horrors. How long will they hate us, the Jews?
"For me, October 7 was a renewed Kristallnacht. It reminded me of the Nazis on Kristallnacht who broke into my house, when our German friends turned on us, attacking and arresting Jews, destroying their property, and harming their bodies," she said. "Personally, I have not removed the mezuzah from my door, but many Jews are forced to do so, as well as remove kippahs from their heads and Star of David necklaces, out of fear of antisemitic attacks. I am a Jew, and I will remain one until my last day, without shame and without hiding my identity."
