Last weekend I visited eva Jellinek to show her the painting I did of her hands.
Eva was Gardener of the Year for 2009 and is a remarkable woman. She's turning 90 next year and developed her love of gardening during the war.
Eva was born in Czechoslovakia and as a child she dreamed of studying horticulture, but her reality changed dramatically when, in 1942, sixty members of her family were forced into Terezin Ghetto in Poland. Eva says, "It was a walled-in city and we grew vegetables for the Germans." When Eva's sister was to be moved from Terezin, Eva "volunteered stupidly" to go with her. They ended up in Auschwitz where her sister was "put straight away in the gas."