Published: 5 January, 2012
by JOHN GULLIVER

THE annual ritual of the Queen’s New Year Honours often mystifies people.

Why certain people have gained honours can be baffling.

But of all the hundreds in the list, one could not have been more deserved.

It is that awarded to Eva Schloss – a woman who has probably done more as an individual to campaign against bigotry than any other I can think of.

And yesterday (Wednesday), as two murderers of Stephen Lawrence were jailed, Eva, who has met Stephen’s mother Doreen several times, must have felt a certain satisfaction.

Not necessarily because Stephen’s killers are now behind bars but because the goal of equality of all races is now one tiny step nearer.

Eva’s story has become a legend – born into a Jewish family in Vienna in 1929 she became a victim of the Holocaust, fleeing to Holland, then sent to Auschwitz, where only she and her mother survived.

The connection with Anne Frank then began because Eva introduced her mother to Anne’s father whom she married.

Eva came to London, and settled in St John’s Wood, but it was only in her 60s that she realised the only way to unblock her painful memories was to release them into a book, which has become a bestseller.

Her real qualities only emerged then because, shy as she had been all of her life – her self-confidence crushed by Nazi cruelty, she found herself leading a campaign to bring the horrors of the Holocaust to schoolchildren, touring schools, several in north London.

A play about her life has been performed throughout the UK as well as in the US and Australia.

Early last year it was performed in Beijing, recently at the Chinese embassy in London, and in June it is to be performed before all the representatives of the UN as well as relayed worldwide on the UN satellite channel.

Many honours have come her way but when I spoke to her yesterday she sounded the same as on the many occasions I have met her – quiet, modest and caring.

She is one of the few women I have met – Doreen Lawrence is another – whose quiet demeanour covers an inner strength and determination to spread the gospel of equality that is still so needed today.