“Eva’s Promise” is a documentary about a sister who vowed to her brother to retrieve the paintings and poetry he had hidden under the floorboards of his attic hiding place.  Eva and her brother Heinz came from an assimilated and cultured middle-class Jewish family, the Geiringers, in Vienna. After the Nazis marched into Austria, the family relocated to Amsterdam in 1940.

There they became neighbors to the Frank family that included the famous Anne Frank. Both families had to hide from the Nazis, with the Geiringer family separated, Heinz hid with his father, while Eva hid with her mother. Unfortunately, someone betrayed them, and just as with the Frank family they were put on a train to the concentration camp, Auschwitz. Although Eva and her mother survived, Heinz died of exhaustion after a forced march from Poland to Mauthausen in April 1945, while the father, Erich, died just three days before the war ended. 

After the war, Eva did retrieve the cache of art, hidden with some 200 of his poems. She also became the posthumous stepsister of Anne Frank when her mother married Anne’s father. Eva is hopeful that a memorial to her brother will be generated through this documentary along with her brother’s art and poems, just as The Diary of Anne Frank has done for Anne Frank. The film is directed by Steve McCarthy and produced by Susan Kerner/Steve McCarthy.  Visit the Website

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