Credit: Ziv Koren
International March of the Living mourns the passing of Holocaust survivor and educator Eve Kugler at 94 years of age.
Born in 1931 in Halle, Germany, Eve Kugler experienced the horrors of Kristallnacht, before fleeing to France on a forged visa on the eve of the outbreak of World War II.
Eve was sent to a home for displaced Jewish children run by the Jewish welfare organisation, OSE, where she endured continuous bombing in the weeks before the Nazis took Paris.
Eventually, Eve was evacuated to other OSE homes in central France. In 1941, the home Eve was staying in received visas for America for a small number of orphan children. At the last minute, two children lost their place due to illness. Eve and her sister Ruth took their place, leaving the rest of their family behind in Europe.
For the next five years, Eve lived in New York in three different foster homes, sometimes separated from her sister, until her entire family was reunited in 1946. Eve worked as a journalist in the US, before moving to London in 1990.
Through her book about her family’s Holocaust history, Shattered Crystals, her website, her many public speaking engagements with students in the UK, and through her participation in the March of the Living, Eve educated thousands of young people about the history and lessons of the Holocaust. In 2019, Eve was a recipient of the British Empire Medal.
On April 24, 2025, Eve was scheduled to join a delegation of 80 Holocaust survivors from Israel and around the world for the 2025 March of the Living from Auschwitz-Birkenau on Holocaust Remembrance Day Until her very last days, up until her untimely death, Eve remained dedicated to the cause of Holocaust education.
International March of the Living Global CEO Scott Saunders said, “Eve had been a part of the March of the Living UK since the very beginning. She was a wonderful, inspiring lady who taught all of us the resilience and positivity of life. She was my friend, my mentor and i and the whole March of the Living family will miss her.”
Eve’s legacy will live on in the hearts of minds of the thousands of young people who were privileged to hear her testimony first hand on the March of the Living and in many other educational programs and settings.
May her memory always be for a blessing.
See Statement from March of the Living UK
Eve Kugler – In Her Own Words
“I feel now along with other survivors I have a duty to my parents, and to the survivor community, to share this story.. And I find that no matter what programs there are, the reaction to someone who tells a story and says, “I was there and this is what happened to me” always has the.. most immediacy, the most influence.
….learning what happened to – to the Jewish people, how, how terrible it was, and you know, how six million people, including over a million children, perished. That this is something which should not be repeated. And if you understand it and take in what happened, hopefully, that you will do what you can in whatever small way even if it’s just speaking to other people, and telling them about what you’ve seen, and telling them, sharing even just this experience to try and make people see that they should… stop killing each other.”
After taking part in the 2012 March of the Living Eve wrote the following:
“My….group of young people thanked me constantly for being with them, talking to them and sharing my story. Over and over they told me that they found me an inspiration. The truth is this group of young men and women in their twenties were an inspiration to me in how they listened and took in all they saw and heard. Unasked, they promised me they would tell everyone about what they saw, learned and experienced on the March, and some asked to become volunteers at London’s Holocaust Survivors’ Centre.
No matter how much you read, how many films you see, how many survivors’ stories you hear, nothing can make you comprehend the scale and the tragedy of the Holocaust until you visit the camps and see for yourself that I have described.
As we mourn the six and a half million, our solace is that Hitler and Nazism failed, though at a terrible, terrible cost. The young Jewish people with whom I shared this journey represent the future of the Jewish people –Am Israel Chai, the Jewish people live.”
