Tom Pfister - Eva and Otto: Resistance, Refugees, and Love in the Time of Hitler

This riveting history of the anti-Nazi resistance paints an extraordinary portrait of two peoplea Jewish woman and a German manwho fought Hitler and also fell in love. Using the memoirs, diaries, and letters of Eva Lewinski and Otto Pfister, their three children have written the account of their parents efforts to undermine Nazism as they risked their lives in Germany, France, and Belgium. An intimate story about Germans and Jews opposing the same horrific enemy, this book adds a whole new dimension to Holocaust literature. This is a moving love story and an important history made human at the grassroots level.

Marion A. Kaplan, author of Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany

Eva Lewinski and Otto Pfister courageously devoted themselves, over a period of years, to combating Nazism, while carefully nurturing a deep, life-sustaining love for one another. Their intermingled life stories, ably contextualized by the authors of this book, provide readers with a moving, richly documented, real-life drama, lovingly presented and thoroughly researched.

Jack Jacobs, author of Jews and Leftist Politics: Judaism, Israel, Antisemitism, and Gender

Their courage, resourcefulness, love, and unending optimism against all odds are thrilling. This is the American story of the mid-twentieth century.

Tom Brokaw, author of The Greatest Generation

The authors have done a superb job in supplementing their parents letters and diaries using their own rigorous research, and the story progresses in a way that is historically interesting and emotionally satisfying.

Susan Elisabeth Subak, author of Rescue and Flight: American Relief Workers Who Defied the Nazis

This is a book for every student and every teacher. I had the privilege of being one of Evas high school students from 19691971, and our friendship continued. As she wrote, she related to kids because she liked and respected them. She inspired us to learn, and she responded to me and other teens from her deep well of experience. She nurtured every interest in the bigger things in life: purpose, service to others, and appreciation for the anchors of nature, spirit, music, poetry. At the time, I did not know much detail about her remarkable early life with Otto. But how we all benefited! I am grateful that this history has been told and will be preserved. I am deeply touched and inspired.

Carol Larson, President and CEO, David and Lucile Packard Foundation

Eva and Otto is a moving story of resistance and love told largely through the correspondence of Eva Lewinski and Otto Pfister. It provides a rare view into what it can mean personally to dedicate oneself wholeheartedly to a struggle against tyranny. Eva and Ottos love for each other sustained them as they suffered long separations, danger, and imprisonment to fulfill their mission. Their longing to marry and create a family existed in tension with the rigorous ethic of the tightly knit resistance group of which they were a part and their commitment to carrying out anti-Nazi activities until Hitler was defeated. The extraordinary job that Eva and Ottos children have done in tracking down the documents needed to tell their parents story also illuminates a little-known chapter in the history of the fight to rid the world of Nazism.

John F. Sears, former Executive Director of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute

Purdue University Press West Lafayette, Indiana

Copyright 2020 by Purdue University. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Pfister, Thomas L., 1948- author. | Pfister, Katherine D., 1946- author. | Pfister, Peter J., 1948- author.

Title: Eva and Otto : resistance, refugees, and love in the time of Hitler / Tom Pfister, Kathy Pfister, Peter Pfister.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019026491 (print) | LCCN 2019026492 (ebook) | ISBN 9781557538819 (paperback) | ISBN 9781612496153 (epub) | ISBN 9781612496146 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Political refugees--United States--Biography. | Pfister, Eva Lewinski, 1910-1991. | Pfister, Otto, 1900-1985. | Anti-Nazi movement--Germany--Biography. | Anti-Nazi movement--France-Biography. | United States. Office of Strategic Services--Officials and employees--Biography. | World War, 1939-1945--Secret service-United States. | Refugees--Government policy--United States. | World War, 1939-1945--Refugees--United States. | Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund--History.

Classification: LCC D809.U5 P45 2020 (print) | LCC D809.U5 (ebook) | DDC 940.54/86730922--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019026491

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019026492

To our parents,
for the precious writings they preserved,
for the sacrifices they made for others, including us,
and for the lessons that can be learned from their lives

You have decided, and so have I, to go the hard way, to do what we think was our duty. And even though we realize only too well that our individual action does not change the course of things one way or the other, we did individually all that we could. And we did it as one which makes us very, very rich. I think we can say, without being pretentious, that we do not have to be ashamed of ourselves.

EVAS LETTER TO OTTO ON DECEMBER 24, 1944, REFLECTING ON THEIR YEARS OF RESISTANCE WORK

A few words about my visit with Mrs. Roosevelt. That I, an unknown refugee, should be able to enter the White House; that the wife of the President would receive me, shake my hand with great warmth, listen to what I had to say, ask questions, and then promise to try to helpthat was perhaps one of the most profound experiences that I ever had.

EVA RECALLING HER MEETING WITH ELEANOR ROOSEVELT IN THE WHITE HOUSE ON DECEMBER 27, 1940, SEEKING HELP WITH THE RESCUE OF OTHER ANTI-NAZI POLITICAL REFUGEES

Now, lets go for a little walk, you and I. I take your hand, and we walk through the streets of Marseille which have seen your eyessad like on the photo that you left for me, but infinitely good.

OTTOS LETTER FROM MARSEILLE TO EVA IN NEW YORK ON NOVEMBER 8, 1940

This is a true story about German opposition and resistance to Adolf Hitler as revealed through the early lives of Eva Lewinski Pfister (1910 1991) and Otto Pfister (19001985). WeTom, Kathy, and Peterare the three grown children of Eva and Otto and the authors of this book. Our parents chose to dedicate their early lives to helping others in the most challenging of historical circumstances. We wrote this book because we believe that their story is important. We feel privileged to share it.

In 1979, our parents gave us a 130-page unpublished memoir titled To Our Children. Eva described it as an attempt to give you an overview of your family background and noted that it was mostly written by Eva with Ottos additions and help. Otto died in 1985 and Eva in 1991. They left a unique treasure by preserving papers written as the events in this book unfolded: Evas handwritten diaries, hundreds of pages of correspondence to each other, and documents pertaining to their anti-Nazi work and efforts to obtain emergency U.S. visas for themselves and others. We carefully stored these papers at Toms house in an old wooden cabinet that had been crafted by Ottos hands.