Eva Reichmann
Eva Reichmann (1897–1998), a prominent German historian and sociologist who fled Germany in 1939, became the Director of Research at The Wiener Library where she researched German Jewry and anti-Semitism. She led a project to gather more than a thousand testimonies of Holocaust survivors in the 1950s.
Born in Upper Silesia, Reichmann grew up in a liberal Jewish home. She studied economics in Breslau, Berlin, Munich and Heidelberg where she earned a doctorate in 1921. She married the jurist Hans Reichmann in 1932. In the years from 1924 till 1939 Reichmann worked for the Central-Verein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens (Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith). In Berlin, she also worked for the Jewish Agency as well as the Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden (Reich’s Representation of German Jews) with Leo Baeck.
Following her husband’s release from Sachsenhausen concentration camp after the events of the November Pogrom in 1938, the couple fled to London in 1939. Her research on Nazi anti-Semitism was published in 1950 as Hostages of Civilisation.
From 1942–1943, Reichmann worked for the BBC’s German listening service, after which she became the Director of Research at The Wiener Library. There she led an ambitious effort to record Holocaust survivor testimonies. Over seven years, with financial support of the Jewish Claims Conference Reichmann and her team gathered reports from refugees and survivors in Britain and abroad. The project gathered more than 1300 reports in seven different languages.
Reichmann belonged to the Belsize Square Synagogue, where she received numerous honours for her work. She died in London in 1998.
“We all have a duty to fulfil towards our past.”
Extract from the online event for the special exhibition "Crimes Uncovered. The First Generation of Holocaust Researchers"