In the shadow of trauma - Life after Auschwitz | DW Documentary

Eva Umlauf is one of the youngest survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp. She has no active memory of the time she spent there. For more than 70 years, her past and her family’s fate played no role in her life.

But when she suffered a heart attack at the age of 74, she realized that she had to come to terms with this part of her life.

Eva Umlauf was two years old, emaciated and extremely ill when the Red Army liberated the Auschwitz camp on January 27, 1945.

Her mother returned with her two daughters to her father's birthplace, near Bratislava. Everyone else in the family was dead. A shadow of trauma lay over Eva’s young life.

During her medical studies, she met her first husband Jakob, a Polish Jew, and followed him to Munich. She found happiness and security at his side.

But a few years later, Jakob died in a tragic accident. Eva was left on her own to fend for herself and her young son. Eventually, she remarried and had two more sons.

Later in life, her past suddenly caught up with her. She decided to consciously confront it, to give her children and grandchildren a life less burdened by the past.

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