Evelyn Bergl

Of Blessed Memory 1931-2020

Evelyn Arzt was born in Vienna in 1931. On Kristallnacht, her father was arrested. After nearly a year in Buchenwald and Dachau, he was released on condition that he leave Austria in 24 hours. He made his way to Milan, where Evelyn, her mother and her brother joined him. Unable to reach France, they were in Genoa when the war started. After a period of separation, the family was reunited in an Italian concentration camp and then hid in the Sienna woods for a year. After liberation, they lived in the Cinecittá displaced persons camp in Rome. They came to the United States in 1947, settling in Brooklyn, where Evelyn married Zdenko (John) Bergl whom she had met in Rome and who had settled in Kansas City.