On the eighteenth of February, at Calabasas High School’s Performing Arts Educational Center, Eva Perlman stood on the stage, microphone in hand, and told her audience of hundreds, “No Jew could survive the war alone.”

Perlman was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1932, to parents Charlotte and Rodolphe. Less than a year later, Hitler would come to power in 1933 and install anti-semitic laws forbidding Jews from having jobs or attending school. 

This caused Perlman’s father to lose his job as a parent lawyer and move to Paris, seeking work. Shortly after, Perlman’s mother lost her position in med school, halting her dreams of becoming a doctor and spurring her to follow Perlman’s father to Paris. 

In their time away, Perlman would be given two younger brothers, while her uncle and grandparents would escape to Palestine. In 1940, France would be invaded by the Nazis and Perlman and her family would be forced to leave Paris and move far away from the capital city. They stayed in the mountains of Grenoble, where Perlman was found to have acute appendicitis. She cited her survival as one of the many miracles that guided her through her life.

“I was lucky to make it,” said Perlman.

They then moved to Clairefontaine in Autrans, where a woman named Manthonnex took Perlman and her brothers into her home. She was risking not only her life but the lives of her family and the lives of all the other children she was taking care of to help them. If the Nazis found even one Jew, everyone would be killed.

Eventually, they left Manthonnex’s home and, with their mother, went to live in a yellow house to hide. The landlords of the house were also at risk of death if a Jew was found living in their rooms, but they took them in all the shame.

Eventually, her father decided to enlist in the French Resistance. He said, according to her, that, “If I die, I will die with a weapon in my hand.”

While they were in the yellow house, Nazis stayed in Perlman’s mother’s room for over two weeks, blind to the fact that Jewish children were sleeping in the room next door. If Perlman’s father were to return during that period, he would throw a stone at the Nazi’s window, thinking it was Perlman’s mother. Thankfully, the Nazis eventually left, and her father returned from war. 

It is another one of those close calls that becomes a miracle. 

Although, much later on in her life, it will be revealed to her that the landlords were pretty sure the Nazis suspected there were Jews in the house. Why they never did anything about it, however, is unknown. 

Soon, the Allies claimed victory, and finally, the Nazi regime ended. 

After, Perlman goes on to live a long, prosperous life. She got married in 1956 and took a job in nursing. She goes into accounting, marketing, rhetoric, and real estate and has three children, six grandchildren, and many great-grandchildren. 

“I thought it was very moving,” Angelina Hiuriono, a sophomore from Calabasas, commented on her thoughts on the presentation. “The fact that she survived through all of that and is willing to share a part of history that is a sensitive topic shows how much power she has.”

“Please, please be grateful,” Perlman ends her speech by saying. “Think of a million and a half Jewish children who never got the chance to live.”