Eva (Eve) Erika Lasch was born on June 4, 1929, in Prague, Czechoslovakia, to a Catholic mother Anna Lasch and a Jewish father. Eva was raised Catholic. In October 1938, Nazi Germany annexed the Sudetenland border region of Czechoslovakia. In the Munich Pact, the major European powers, not including Czechoslovakia, agreed to this exchange for a promise of peace from Hitler. In March 1939, Hitler broke the Pact and occupied the Bohemia and Moravia provinces where Prague was located. Eva’s father escaped to the United States. Sometime after July 7, 1943, Eva was imprisoned in Liebenau concentration camp in Germany. Liebenau was established by the Germans to hold noncombatant civilian and diplomatic enemy nationals, chiefly female and from the United States and Great Britain, as prisoners of war. As a POW camp, it was visited by the Red Cross which supplied the inmates with food and supplies. Eva was likely released during a prisoner exchange at the camp. She was in a refugee camp in Switzerland prior to her departure from Marseille, France, aboard the ship Gripsholm. She and her mother Anna arrived in the US on February 21, 1945. In 1951, Eve married Joseph Drazen. The couple had three sons and lived in Chicago. She later married George Whyte in 1973. Eve died on January 6, 1981, in California.
Evelyn V. Anderson was born in 1907 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By age eighteen, Evelyn had appeared as a chorus girl in shows by Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle. In 1925, she was performing at the Smile-a-While Inn in Asbury Park, New Jersey, when Caroline Reagan invited her, the saxophonist Joe Hayman, and the band leader Claude Hopkins to join a revue she was creating to tour Europe. Evelyn agreed and became part of the “Black Birds” dance troupe that performed with Josephine Baker in “La Revue Negre.” The show premiered in Paris in October and was a popular sensation. Evelyn would sometimes be referred to as Evelyn Hayman because of her relationship with the saxophonist. The revue was appearing in Berlin in March 1926 and was scheduled to go to Moscow, when Baker broke her contract and left for the Folies Bergere. They had been in Europe five months and many of the cast were stranded. As Evelyn remembered later, they had been having too good a time to save any money. Joe Hayman joined a touring band led by two German brother names Siegel. Evelyn remained in Europe where, for the next fifteen years, she performed in revues and night clubs.
In May 1940, Nazi Germany occupied the Netherlands. At the time, Evelyn was dancing in a cabaret at the Zuid in The Hague, with a partner, Harry Watkins. Harry, and other American male performers were arrested as enemy aliens in 1941. Evelyn and several other women friends were arrested a little later and interned in Holland. Evelyn then was sent to Ilag V Liebenau concentration camp in Germany. Liebenau was established by the Germans to hold noncombatant civilian and diplomatic enemy nationals, chiefly female and from the United States and Great Britain, interned as prisoners of war. As a POW camp, it was visited by the Red Cross from which Evelyn was able to obtain lipstick, perfume, and face powder, as well as coffee and food. It was on the grounds of a former mental hospital staffed by nuns and Evelyn lived in the convent with her friend Ida Johnson and Ida’s two children. She was released in March 1944 with twelve African American male prisoners, including Freddy Johnson, Ida’s husband, and several other musicians as part of a prisoner exchange for Allied held German inmates. Evelyn returned to the US aboard the Swedish ship, the SS Gripsholm.
She settled in Philadelphia and married the band leader Robert (Riff) Robbins. She died, age 87, in Philadelphia in October 1994.
