VIDEO: Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss talks of survival

Nearly 800 people listened Monday as an 84-year-old Holocaust survivor spoke of schoolchildren being thrown from cliffs, naked strangers being gassed to death, and her father and brother being killed by the Nazis in Auschwitz.

"Very often even if you've heard about the Holocaust, you can't really understand the depths we went through," Eva Schloss said.

Chabad Naples hosted the event at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, where Schloss spoke for about an hour and a half. Schloss, who lives in England, has written a book about her experiences and now travels the world sharing her story of survival.

Born in Austria in 1929, Schloss — then known as Eva Geiringer — and her family fled to Belgium, then Holland, after Germany invaded Austria in 1938.

She grew up largely unaware of the escalating intolerance that would soon change so much. In one early sign of trouble brewing, she remembered having a front door slammed in her face by a schoolmate's Catholic mother. But although her family had a sense that things were changing, there wasn't yet a panic.

"We knew there was trouble but, you know, we didn't really take much notice at the time," she said.

Schloss talked about befriending 11-year-old Anne Frank, who she remembered as "quite a little flirt."

Outside the neighborhood, tensions were rising, and one day in May 1940, Schloss remembered hearing the sounds of guns and airplanes. It was the Germans invading Holland.

Schloss said her family tried to flee on a boat to England, only to find that the last boat had left. It would have been their last chance to escape.

The family spent the next two years in seven different hiding places, until they eventually were given up by a double agent posing as a nurse. She and her mother were captured by the Gestapo on her 15th birthday, May 11, 1944.

After a few days in a holding camp where they were reunited with Schloss's father and brother, the family was put on a train that eventually stopped at Auschwitz. Again, she and her mother were separated from her father and brother, who later died in the concentration camp.

Schloss said the turn of events weighed heavily on her father. "He had no power anymore to protect us."

The family knew what they were in for when they saw the sign for Auschwitz — they'd listened to BBC broadcasts stating that it was one of the largest concentration camps, known for the systematic gassing of people sent there.

"We really thought, that's it. Our last hour on Earth had come," Schloss said.

While in Auschwitz, she recalled sleeping on bunks made of wooden planks, drinking dirty water and eating scraps of bread.

"The only company was bed bugs and lice," she said.

For three months, she was separated from her mother, who she assumed had been killed. Later, they were miraculously reunited.

That was the only time she really gave up hope.

"I was 15, and I desperately wanted to live," Schloss said.

After she and her mother were freed by the Russian army in early 1945, she resettled in Amsterdam, where she continued her studies and married her husband, Zvi Schloss, in 1952.

Schloss said she lost her faith and, like many others, identified as an atheist.

"I did pray, but it didn't help," she said. "God wasn't there for us."

Schloss credits Anne Frank's father, Otto Frank, with helping her recover from the horrors she had witnessed. Frank became Schloss's stepfather when he married Schloss's mother, Elfriede Geiringer, in 1953. He was the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust.

In honor of Schloss's visit, Naples city officials proclaimed Monday "Community Tolerance Day" and presented Schloss with the key to the city.

"I've only been here an afternoon, but now that I've got the key, you might not get rid of me," she joked.

Also at the event, Rabbi Fishel Zaklos of Chabad Naples presented the Chabad Honoree Benefactor Award to Carol Glassman, who gave a sizeable donation, although the amount was undisclosed, to the organization on behalf of her late husband, Alex.

The Glassmans have helped build new classrooms for the Preschool of the Arts.

Carol Glassman said she wanted to make the donation while she was still alive so she could see what good the money would do. She was most recently inspired after taking a trip to the preschool and watching all the children.

"They need it far more than I do and they will put it to good use," she said.

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