Someone Named Eva

Milada and Terezie are looking forward to Terezie’s 11th birthday party. However, before they can plan the party, Nazis barge into Milada’s home and tell the family to pack their things. While packing, Babichka gives Milada a star-shaped garnet pin. Babichka discreetly fastens the pin to the inside of Milada’s blouse and tells Milada to always remember who she is and where she comes from.

Milada, Mama, Anechka, and Babichka are separated from Papa and Jaro. The women of Lidice are stripped of their belongings and taken to a large school in Kladno, a nearby town. Soldiers make them wait atop hay spread throughout the gymnasium. On the second day, doctors assess the women and children and tell select children, including Milada, to go to a separate room on the second story. Upstairs, the children exclusively have blond hair and light-colored eyes. They must undress and go through a medical exam. One doctor is only interested in facial aesthetics, such as hair and eye color as well as the sizes of their noses and head.

After the exam, Milada and the other children return to their mothers. Milada asks if they will ever go home, and Mama answers that she does not know. After three days, the Nazi soldiers tell the women they are going to a “work camp” and will be reunited with their husbands. The soldiers explain that the children will ride separately in a more “comfortable” bus. The women panic and try to hold onto their children until one of the Nazis fire a gun. Milada says goodbye to Mama, Anechka, and Babichka and is taken away to an almost empty bus. Besides the Nazi doctors, the only other person on the bus is the mean girl, Ruzha.

Milada and Ruzha are driven to Poland. Milada believes that if she obeys the Nazis, then they will allow her to return home to her family. When the bus stops, Milada thinks they are at a work camp. Another bus arrives transporting a dozen girls with blond hair and light-colored eyes.

The soldiers herd the girls inside a facility that was a former church. Inside the large room, the girls receive their cot assignments. The walls are freshly painted, and a photograph of Adolf Hitler hangs above each bed. Ruzha is assigned the cot next to Milada and tells Milada that she does not like her and that they should not be there.

A female guard makes the girls salute the photo of Hitler above their bed and gives them clean nightgowns. Milada salutes but does not look at the photograph, ashamed to think of what Babichka would say if she saw Milada saluting Hitler. Before she falls asleep, Milada remembers the garnet pin and secures it to the inside of her nightgown.

The next morning, the girls wake up to the German national anthem. Their old clothes have been replaced with uniforms. On the front of the uniform is the emblem of an eagle with a swastika clutched in its claws. Milada makes sure to hide the pin inside her blouse. The girls eat a hearty breakfast and are brought to an auditorium. Fräulein Krüger, the facility’s headmistress, speaks to them in Czech and Polish, telling them that their families were killed in an Allied air raid, and that each of the girls have been chosen to be Aryan children who will “save the world from Jewish scourge” (36).

Milada is confused and scared. She remembers the Nazis standing in her living room and knows that her parents were not killed as Fräulein Krüger maintains. Fräulein Krüger continues, telling the girls that their needs will be provided for and they will soon fulfill their roles as German wives and mothers.

Fräulein Krüger then begins to christen each of the girls with German names. She names Ruzha “Franziska” and Milada “Eva.” Milada rejects her new German name, and Fräulein Krüger slaps her. Fräulein Krüger then points out the fence that surrounds the facility. She explains that the girls may only speak German and will be severely punished if they communicate in any other language. In bed that night, Milada, now Eva, repeats her Czech name to herself while tracing the shape of her grandmother’s pin.