Eva Rindner papers

Eva Rindner papers 

Eva Rindner was born Eva Schutzmann on 5 June 1928 in Vienna, Austria to Lola and Herbert Schutzmann (1890-1937). Her mother Lola (née Zipser, later Blonder, 1894-1998) was born on 21 May 1894 in Vienna to Regina (née Losch, 1865-1950) and Joseph Zipser (1860-1925). Both her parents had immigrated to Vienna from Galicia (present-day Lviv and Kolomyya, Ukraine). Lola had 4 siblings: Hedwig (1905-1973, Felix (1897-1984), Julian (1893-1960), and another sister who died very young. Eva had one brother, Robert (b. 1924). Her father was a lawyer and active Zionist. Her mother Lola was a voluntary nurse during World War I, and continued in that field after the war. Eva was infected with tuberculosis at age two, and spent several years in a hospital in Switzerland. She learned to walk with the aid of braces in July 1935, and returned home to her family in Vienna in 1936. Her father died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1937. After the German annexation of Austria (Anschluss) in March 1938, the family apartment was occupied by a Nazi lawyer. Eva and her family were forced to live in a side room. Most of their possessions were seized and the family was eventually forced out. Lola’s brother Felix was arrested in May 1938 and deported to Dachau and then Buchenwald in September 1938. He was released in February 1939. Her other brother Julian was arrested shortly after the Anschluss. Her sister Hedwig immigrated to the United States around this time. Lola managed to secure travel visas to Palestine, and she and her children sailed out of Trieste, Italy and arrived in Haifa in July 1938. Eva’s brother attended a maritime college and she attended school. Lola’s brother Julian joined them in September 1938. Felix, his wife, and Lola’s mother also made it to Palestine. Eva met a fellow Austrian refugee, Sigmund Blonder (1887-1949), who was a jeweler and he taught her how to repair watches. They ran a business out of the family apartment. Lola and Sigmund married in 1948. In Haifa, Lola trained to be a beautician. Eva joined the Israeli Air Force, where she met Wilhelm Rindner (nicknamed Willi, 1923-2005), whom she would eventually marry. Eva and Willi immigrated to the United States in 1958, and settled in Lexington, Massachusetts. Lola joined them the same year, and later in life became a poet and writer. 

Eva Rindner papers