Eva Paddock

Prepared by the Witnesses of War team

Eva Paddock, née Fleischmannová, was born on 31 December 1935 in Proseč, Czechoslovakia. Her mother, Sonya, was a physician, and her father, Rudolf Fleischmann, was an editor and political activist who had helped the German writer Thomas Mann obtain Czechoslovak citizenship. The family moved to Prague in 1938, as Nazi persecution increasingly threatened their future.

When German troops occupied the Czech lands on 15 March 1939, Rudolf fled, eventually reaching Britain. Eva’s mother remained behind and arranged for her daughters to escape. On 31 July 1939, three-and-a-half-year-old Eva and her nine-year-old sister, Milena, left Prague on a Kindertransport organised by Nicholas Winton and his fellow rescuers. Milena was entrusted with looking after her younger sister during the journey to England.

In Britain, the sisters were welcomed into the Radcliffe family’s home. Their mother escaped through Norway, reaching England in 1940, and the family was reunited. Unlike many children rescued by the Kindertransport, both sisters were able to grow up with their parents. Following the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948, the family decided to remain in Britain.

Eva became a teacher and headteacher, later living in Canada and the United States with her husband, Jim, and their three children. Only after Winton’s rescue work became widely known in 1988 did she learn his identity; she subsequently met him personally. Through school visits and public testimony, Eva has shared both the story of her rescue and the lasting emotional consequences of childhood separation, helping new generations understand persecution, displacement and the courage of those who helped.