Eva Ehrlich

Eva Ehrlich died Monday August 21, 2023 after one day of illness, exactly a month before her 80th birthday. She had been a Cambridge, Massachusetts resident for a decade. She was born September 22, 1943, in London, England during WWll. Her parents Walter and Helli Ehrlich escaped Czechoslovakia in 1938, just after the Munich agreement, in imminent danger of persecution as they were active in political organizations opposing fascism and because they were Jewish. Most of their family stayed in Czechoslovakia and perished in the Holocaust. Walter joined the Czechoslovak Army in Exile in France in 1939. In London they shared a flat with other Czech families; Eva was born, as was her friend Hanka, and they were cared for during the day by teenaged Inka while the adults worked and supported the Allied war effort.

In 1945 the family returned to embrace the new state in Czechoslovakia; Eva's siblings Karel and Sonia were born in Prague. Over the next decade they and friends and colleagues were subjected to Soviet-promoted anti-Semitism. Walter was transferred out of his research institute but managed a tour of American universities to discuss his work. On his return, he and Helli tried 3 times over 3 years to escape Czechoslovakia. In 1966 the five of them managed a harrowing journey to Italy by way of Hungary and Yugoslavia.

Eva had finished her studies in Biology at Charles University but defected with her family, telling no one so as not to endanger friends left behind. She obtained her first passport from the British Consulate in Rome. The rest of the family awaited permission for a year to emigrate to the US, but Eva, with her British citizenship, was able to move in 1967 to Portland, Oregon for a biochemistry position at OHSU. She drove to Miami, Florida to work in the lab of Milos Chvapil, met a close friend of the Chvapils, Hans Kautzky, and in 1969 they married in Baltimore where her parents had positions at Johns Hopkins University. Hans, a survivor of a Nazi labor camp, also from Czechoslovakia, was an engineer in the field of gravitational and nuclear physics at Princeton University. They moved for his new position at the University of Chicago, and there Eva gave birth to their daughter Mira in 1970. Hans started a long career at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois. Eva was an inaugural parent of the Fermilab Playgroup and made lifelong friends there and through her work at Argonne National Laboratory.

In 1976 Eva and Mira moved to Baltimore and Eva started her three-decade career at the Johns Hopkins Asthma and Allergy Center. She and Mira enjoyed weekly dinners with Walter and Helli. Walter and Helli were fixtures at every Thanksgiving dinner and every backyard crab feast that Eva hosted at her Baltimore rowhouse. The tables were always extended to their maximum because Eva never forgot the warmth with which she'd been welcomed in Oregon when she first came to the United States, alone, with unpolished English and no familiarity with American customs. All newcomers and those without Thanksgiving plans were invited to her house to feast. Their new apartments were usually furnished from her basement which was ever replenished from local yard sales.

Eva and Mira were able to travel to Czechoslovakia every summer even under communism with their respective British and American passports. Eva would spend the year collecting items that were scarce behind the iron curtain (ie: jeans), and they lugged them in army duffels to pass to her old friends and their families. A friend's son wrote about those visits: We had nothing, but we had Eva. But they did have kitchen tables set with bowls of homemade soup and beds made with thick down comforters and walks in forests full of mushrooms to share with Mira and Eva in return.

Eva and the entire small family supported Mira in every endeavor, driving her daily to the Bryn Mawr School, drilling her in math (Walter and uncles took care of this), attending every performance, and sending her off to Yale University and then to medical school. They also spent every December vacation skiing together in Vermont. Eva would drive all night with Mira asleep in the back to join her family for a week of evening assembly line sandwich making, sharing one bathroom, and catching the last chair every day. Eva had been a ski instructor in Czechoslovakia; she skied beautifully and happily taught anyone who joined the group.

She was athletic her entire life. With her max height of 5'2" she played basketball in school and was the stroke of her boat while at university. Rowing also gifted her lifelong friends. In Baltimore, Mira spent years buried in a book on the sideline of Eva's aerobics classes, volleyball league matches, tennis games.

Eva was present for the birth of her two granddaughters in Philadelphia, Hazel in 2002 and Ruby in 2005, and she spent the week following each delivery as babynurse extraordinaire to Mira and her husband Keith Flaherty. She took off work when the girls' illnesses kept them from daycare. She hosted them in Baltimore while their parents travelled, her basement always yielding the best toys. She took them to the Czech Republic.

In 2013 she turned 70 and left Baltimore to become a Cantabrigian; she moved down the street from Mira, Keith and the girls, got to know all their friends, attended every school event, chauffeured to, and actively watched gymnastics and dance and lacrosse practices. She engaged in events all over the city and made friends at every location: the War Memorial Recreation Center pool and classes, the Cambridge Senior Center for table tennis and pickle ball, the Cambridge Public Library, OLLI at UMass Boston for classes that were a lifeline during the pandemic. She was looking forward to an OLLI trip to Morocco this fall. She enjoyed book clubs and became a champion for recycling in her apartment building. She was in a biking group, drove friends who needed rides, and made connections between people, cultivating the largest village she'd ever had. She spent June 2023 in Prague for the first time in years, attended a high school reunion, saw all her friends including Inka, and was hosted for the month in Hanka's flat, the two women she'd known since birth. Hanka's daughter hosted Eva's granddaughter Hazel for a week; Eva and Hazel walked the cobblestones of Prague arm in arm.

Eva cared for many and also accepted assistance from some. Her family is forever grateful to the friends who checked on and stayed with her when she became ill suddenly on August 20th.

She is desperately missed by her siblings Karel Ehrlich (Babette Holal) and Sonia Ehrlich Sachs (Jeffrey David Sachs). She was a devoted aunt to their children Lisa Ehrlich Sachs (Matthew Beck), Adam Ehrlich Sachs (Tatyana Gershkovich), Hannah Ehrlich Sachs, Elena Ehrlich (Tim Steinmeyer), Laurent Ehrlich, and Andre Ehrlich. Also to her great nieces and nephew Sienna, Willa, Olive, Nina and Leo. She lives on in her daughter Mira Kautzky and is remembered daily by her son-in-law Keith Thomas Flaherty and granddaughters Hazel Ehrlich Flaherty and Ruby Kautzky Flaherty.

If desired, donations in Eva Ehrlich's name can be directed to the Cambridge Public Library (https://www.cplfound.org/tribute-gifts.html), UMass Boston's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (https://www.umb.edu/olli/about/give/), or the International Rescue Committee (https://help.rescue.org/donate/make-tribute-donation).

An outdoor gathering to celebrate her life will occur at 11 am on September 16, 2023 next door to 107 Ellery St with remarks and then light refreshments at Mira, Keith, Hazel, and Ruby's home across the street at 104 Ellery St, Cambridge, MA.