Through Coloured Glass – Reflections on my changing world (2008)
By: Eva Urbach
In 1939, Eva Nothmann and her parents escaped Nazi Germany, the home of their forebears for many generations, to take refuge in faraway Australia. After she experienced the horror of Kristallnacht and the shock of seeing relatives imprisoned, thirteen-year-old Eva found herself a lonely outsider in Australia, missing home and her widely dispersed family. In time, she found solace, purpose and even love in the fledgling Zionist youth movement, Habonim. In 1946, she and her new husband, Henry Urbach, left for Palestine and participated in the establishment of the State of Israel. Circumstances forced the young family to return, reluctantly, to Australia where they and their two children rebuilt their lives. Eva is an acute observer and a skilful raconteur of the human side of some of the twentieth century’s most important events.