Someone Named Eva is based on true events that happened in Czechoslovakia (now known as two separate countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia) and Poland in the late 1930s. In 1939, Czechoslovakia surrendered to the Third Reich, another name for Nazi Germany. By 1942, the Czech government in hiding was based out of London and sent seven parachutists to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, a high-ranking Nazi official in Prague. On May 27, 1942, the parachutists rolled a grenade under Heydrich’s car. The grenade splinters lodged in Heydrich’s legs and lower back led to an infection of sepsis that killed him a week later (Holocaust Encyclopedia: “Lidice: The Annihilation of a Czech Town.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2022).

In retaliation, Nazi soldiers punished the Czech people by destroying the town of Lidice, which is Milada’s hometown in the story. This devastating event affected the 503 inhabitants of Lidice and is known as the Lidice massacre. On the night of June 10, 1942, Nazi soldiers shot and killed all males over age 15. The soldiers made the remaining 300+ women and children wait in a school in Kladno for three days, just as Wolf wrote. Then, children determined worthy of Germanization were sent to training centers, while the women and other children were sent to concentration camps.