Eva Duldig

Her father was modernist sculptor Karl Duldig (1902–1986).

Her mother was artist and inventor Slawa Horowitz Duldig (c. 1902–1975), who invented and patented an improved folding umbrella in 1929.

He played international soccer as a goalkeeper for Hakoah Wien, was the Austrian table tennis champion in 1923, and was one of the country's top tennis players.

Eva Ruth de Jong-Duldig (née Duldig; born 11 February 1938) is an Austrian-born Australian and Dutch former tennis player, and current author.

From the ages of two to four, she was detained by Australia in an isolated internment camp, as an enemy alien.

In 1938 when she was eight months old, in the wake of deportations of Jews from Vienna to Dachau concentration camp, fleeing the Nazis the family left Austria for Switzerland.

The family managed to escape after Nazi Germany's Anschluss of Austria in March 1938, as her father traveled to Switzerland on a temporary visa to play in a tennis tournament.

Later that year he convinced an official to allow his family to come and "visit" him in Zurich, thereby staying a step ahead of the Holocaust.

Duldig later said: "We were lucky to get out with our lives. Most of our family was obliterated."

The family was only allowed to stay in Switzerland for a short time.

Austria had been annexed by Germany in March 1938 in the Anschluss, and therefore the family and all other Austrians by law had become citizens of the German Reich.

Across the British Empire the same laws were applied to what were deemed "aliens," and the British colonial government classified the family as "citizens of an enemy country" – "enemy aliens".

They therefore then moved to Singapore by boat in April 1939.

There, initially her parents ran an art school and her mother restored paintings.

In Singapore, six months after their arrival the British arrested them, because they had German identity documents.

They were deported by boat from Singapore to Australia in September 1940.

In Australia, in the wake of the outbreak of World War II, two-year-old Eva and her parents were classified as enemy aliens upon their arrival due to their having arrived with German identity papers.

Beginning the year prior to their arrival in Australia, a new Australian law had designated people "enemy aliens" if they were Germans, or were Australians who had been born in Germany.

The Australian government therefore interned the three of them for two years in isolated Tatura Internment Camp 3 D, 180 kilometers north of Melbourne.

They were held with nearly 300 other internees.

The internment camp was located near Shepparton, in the northern part of the state of Victoria.

There, armed soldiers manned watchtowers and scanned the camp that was bordered by a barbed wire fence with searchlights, and other armed soldiers patrolled the camp.

Petitions to Australian politicians, stressing that they were Jewish refugees and therefore being unjustly imprisoned, had no effect.

They remained in the internment camp until 1942, when her father enlisted in the Australian Army.

The family later lived in St Kilda, in Glen Iris, and then in Malvern East, in Melbourne, Australia, and became Australian citizens.

In 1956 she won the Victorian Schoolgirls Championship.

Duldig graduated from Melbourne University in Australia (GDip Physical Education 1957, BA 1971).

She took a role as physical education teacher in 1957 at Mount Scopus College, a Jewish day school in Melbourne.

Duldig became a tennis player in Australia.

In the 1957 Maccabiah Games, Duldig won gold medals in singles and doubles.

Playing in the Australian Open, Duldig made it to the Round of 16 in singles in 1957, 1959, and 1968, and to the Round of 32 in 1958 and the Round of 64 in 1961.

In doubles at the Australian Open, she made it to the quarterfinals in 1958 and 1959, to the Round of 16 in 1961, and to the Round of 32 in 1968.

She later competed in tennis, representing Australia at the Wimbledon Championships in 1961.

In the 1961 Maccabiah Games, she again won a gold medal in singles, this time defeating South African Marlene Gerson in the final, and won a silver medal in women's doubles.

She played tennis at the Wimbledon Championships in 1961, 1962, and 1963.

She took unpaid leave from her job as a teacher to compete at Wimbledon.

In 1961 Duldig played women' singles at Wimbledon, representing Australia, and defeated West German Renate Ostermann in Round 1, and Robin Blakelock of Great Britain in Round 2, while losing to #8 seed American Karen Hantze in Round 3.

In addition, she played mixed doubles with partner Roger Dowdeswell from Zimbabwe, and they lost in Round 2 to Geoffrey Paish of Great Britain and Susan Chatrier of France.

She also played at Wimbledon in 1962 and 1963 for the Netherlands, and competed in the Australian Open, French Championships, Fed Cup, and in the Israel-based Maccabiah Games, sometimes called the Jewish Olympics, where she won two gold medals.

Duldig was born in Vienna, Austria, and is Jewish.