In Memoriam Eva Dutton

Eva was born in Vienna on 2 November 1925, to Jakob and Rosa Rosenfeld. She grew up in Neusiedl am See in Burgenland and attended a Roman Catholic convent school there before moving to a Jewish boarding school in Vienna.

Following the “Anschluss” of Austria to the German Reich in March 1938, Eva fled with her parents to an aunt in Sopron, Hungary, where she graduated from a convent school. When Germany invaded Hungary, she was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau with her parents and maternal grandparents. There, Eva and her mother were separated from her father upon arrival; six weeks later they were sent to the women's camp in Allendorf, a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp, to work in an armaments factory.

As the war was coming to an end, Eva managed to escape from an evacuation march and hid until the arrival of US troops. Her mother also survived; her father, however, was killed in Dachau three weeks before the liberation.

After the war, Eva made her way to France with a former French POW. She worked for the US Army in Paris and later emigrated to New York to join relatives. After marrying in 1956, she and her husband moved to Venezuela and later to England. After the death of her husband, she returned to Vienna.

She spent the last years of her life at the Maimonides Centre in Vienna.

Eva Dutton was a highly eloquent contemporary eyewitness who never ceased to tire of recounting her experiences of the Holocaust, often as a guest of honour at Holocaust memorial events. Her powerful testimonies of survival are published in Volume 6 of the book series “Lives Remembered. Life Stories of Victims of National Socialism” on the subject of “Survival in Auschwitz” and in the interview project "Displaced. Recollections of Jews from Burgenland".

The funeral service for Eva Dutton took place at Vienna Central Cemetery Gate 4 on Monday, 8 July. She now lies at rest there next to her mother Rosa Rosenfeld.

Hannah Lessing, Managing Director of the National Fund, recalls compelling encounters with Eva Dutton: “Eva was an extraordinary woman; extroverted, social, with a lively temperament, a whirlwind. She was an impressive person, with her incredible memory for details, and she spoke five languages fluently. Her energetic, cheerful and positive attitude will never be forgotten. Eva Dutton leaves a huge hole in the hearts of all who knew her. Our deepest sympathy goes out to her family.”