Eva Marks July 1, 1932-January 27, 2020
Shakespeare asked, “What’s in a name?” With hers a derivation from the Hebrew name meaning “life”, “living one” or “full of life”, our Eva will always be remembered as absolutely that. A creative, vibrant Viennese woman, Eva Marks’ indomitable spirit touched all who knew and loved her.
Having endured unthinkable human atrocity as a child, she spent much of her adult life fulfilling what she felt an obligation, to serve the community that had given her a new and rewarding life.
Born to Austrian parents Erna and Robert Maas in Vienna in 1932, Eva’s early years as cosseted only child were ended abruptly at six when the Nazis entered Austria in 1938. She followed mother and grandmother to Latvia, travelling half the journey alone on a swastika-covered biplane. When the Germans invaded Russia, Eva was transported with her mother, grandmother and stepfather for six weeks in a locked cattle train to the dreaded gulags – first Siberia, then Kazakhstan, where she remained as slave labour from the age of nine to 15.
During these years Eva’s incredible fighting spirit and formidable will to survive was fortified. Her transition from Viennese dumpling to fair dinkum Aussie was marked dramatically by this horrific yet formative time and was the making of the remarkable woman Eva became. Her continued transformation into craftsperson, author, volunteer and public speaker only further serves to illustrate Eva’s “fullness of life”, despite the trauma that cruelly cut her childhood short.