Someone Named Eva - Joan M. Wolf.

Someone Named Eva is a young adult novel by Joan M. Wolf. It concentrates on the life of Milada, an eleven year old Czech girl, who lives during World War II, after Hitler annexes Czechoslovakia, during the years 1942 - 1945.

Milada Kralicek, a young Czech girl, lived in the village of Lidice, a few miles away from Prague. In May, she celebrated her eleventh birthday. She received a telescope as gift from her father, because she loved gazing at the stars. Her best friend, Terezie, Zelenka and Hana and a classmate, Ruzha attended the birthday. A few days later, the Nazis soldiers came to their house, taking Milada, her mother, her younger sister Anechka and her grandmother away. Her father and Jaroslav, Milada's older brother were separated from the rest of the family and taken somewhere else.tuzset

Milada, her mother, grandmother and Anechka were held together with the rest of female inhabitants of Lidice in a school building of Kladno. For having straight blond hair and light-colored eyes, Milada fitted the Aryan ideal. She is sent to a Lebensborn center outside of Pucshkau,Poland along with Ruzha and several Polish girls. She is renamed Eva, and Ruzha is renamed Franziska. The camp is brutal, and she works hard to remember her name Milada. But as hard as she works to remember, Franziska works to forget as Ruzha fades to a shadow. She spends years around other Aryan girls including Siegrid,Ilsa,Gerde,Leisel(who Eva befriends, learning her real name is Katarzyna),Heidi(who is sent off to a concentration camp after speaking Polish), and Heidi's sister Elsa(who is sent away shortly after Heidi).The camp and its staff seem cheerful on the outside,but appear to be hiding something unpleasant.

Once judged sufficiently trained, she was adopted by a German family from Fürstenberg near Berlin. The Werner family was composed of Vater, (father in German) who was a high official at the Nazi government, Mutter (mother), Elsbeth and Peter, her adoptive sister and brother. They lived in a very large house, where Eva enjoyed her own room. She was well treated, helping Eva to develop quite positive relations with her new family. The only strange feature she noticed was a horrible smell that penetrated the house nearly all the time.

One day, as she walked around the house with Elsbeth, Eva heard the Czech anthem being sung. Coming closer, she discovered a concentration camp with female prisoners singing in Czech. This brought back all the memories, enabling Milada to see clearly who she really was. Elsbeth explained to her that this was the Ravensbruck concentration camp and that her Vater was the head of the camp. Eva/Milada had some strange feelings that possibly her family could have been detained in this camp, meaning that all that time she could have been so close to her family.

By April 1945, the Nazi were losing on all the war fronts and Berlin was encircled by the Russian troops. Vater and Peter decided to go hiding, while Mutter, Elsbeth and Eva moved to a shelter made in the basement to protect themselves. In May Russians soldiers came and asked for the papers left by Vater in his office, but Mutter told them that she was not aware of anything. They left without causing any harm to a family that had done so much damage.

A few days later, Hitler was declared dead and the war was over. Eva, Elsbeth and Mutter decided to fix up and clean the house, trying to survive in the new situation.

Some time after, two representatives of the Red Cross Associaton came to the house and announced that Milada's mother was alive and launched a search after her daughter. Eva recognized that she was the person they were looking for. At that moment Eva was Milada again. She was taken back to Czechoslovakia.

She met her mother in Prague, discovering that her mother was indeed detained in Ravensbruck, a few steps away from the Werner household. Milada also learned that sadly her father and brother Jaroslav were killed by the German Nazi the same day after they were separated and that her grandma died in the Ravensbruck concentration camp. She was also told that her sister Anechka got separated from her mother and taken away and that the red cross are looking for her. Her close friend Terezie was killed in Poland.

As their house, as well as all other houses in Lidice, were completely devastated by the Germans, Milada and her mother lived since then at house of their distant cousin in Prague. Milada had to learn the Czech nearly from scratch. Milada and her mother got closer again as they were telling each other what had happened during the horrific times of their separation. Finally, Milada managed to recover her true identity and pride.