Eva Akerman was born into a Jewish family from Varaždin. On the day when the Germans entered Yugoslavia, April 6th, 1941, Eva Akerman’s father committed suicide. In the summer of 1941, together with the members of her close family, she was taken by the Ustaše to the French pavilion of the then Zagreb Fair (today’s Student centre), which the Ustaše regime used as a detention camp. After a few days they were transferred, by means of cattle trucks, to the Ustaše prison in Gospić. After the arrival of the Italians in Gospić, she managed to escape to Dalmatia, where she got married. Both she and her husband were arrested by the Italians and sent to the Italian fascist camp of Kampor on the island of Rab. Male members of the family who were left in Gospić were taken to Jasenovac by the Ustaše and killed there. Her mother and grandmother were taken to Auschwitz. That is the last that Eva Akerman heard of them. Apart from her, none of the members of her family who lived in Croatia survived the Second World War. Following the capitulation of Italy in 1943, the Kampor camp was shut down and Eva Akerman joined the Partisans. She earned a degree in pharmacy in Zagreb. She lived in Zadar with her husband and was there when the war in the 1990s broke out. Today she lives in a retirement home in Zagreb and spends her time painting and involved with music.