Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss, stepsister of Anne Frank, dies at 96
LONDON (AP) — Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, half-sister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator of its horrors. holocaustdied. He was 96 years old.
The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said he died on Saturday in London, where he lived.
King of Britain III. Charles said he was “privileged and proud” to know Schloss, who co-founded the charitable foundation to help young people fight prejudice.
“It is impossible to fathom the horrors she endured as a young woman, yet she dedicated the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding and resilience through her tireless work for the Anne Frank Trust UK and for Holocaust education around the world,” King said.
Born Eva Geiringer in Vienna in 1929, Schloss fled to Amsterdam with her family after Nazi Germany annexed Austria. She befriended another Jewish girl the same age, Anne Frank, whose diary would become one of the most famous chronicles of the Holocaust.
Like the Franks, Eva’s family spent two years in hiding to avoid capture after the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. They were eventually betrayed, arrested and sent to the Auschwitz death camp.
Schloss and his mother, Fritzi, survived until the camp was liberated by Soviet troops in 1945. His father Erich and brother Heinz died in Auschwitz.
After the war, Eva moved to Britain, married German Jewish refugee Zvi Schloss and settled in London.
In 1953, his mother married Frank’s father, Otto, the only survivor of his immediate family. Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the age of 15, months before the end of the war.
Schloss did not speak publicly about his experiences for decades, later saying that wartime trauma left him withdrawn and unable to connect with others.
“I stayed silent for years because I wasn’t allowed to speak. Then I suppressed it. I was angry at the world,” he told the Associated Press in 2004.
But after speaking at the opening of an Anne Frank exhibition in London in 1986, Schloss took it upon herself to educate younger generations about the Nazi genocide. In the following years, she spoke in schools and prisons, at international conferences, and told her story in books, including “Eva’s Story: The Survivors’ Story by Anne Frank’s Half-Sister.”
He continued campaigning into his 90s. In 2019, he traveled to Newport Beach, California, to meet teenagers who were photographed giving Nazi salutes at a high school party. The following year, he was part of a campaign calling on Facebook to remove Holocaust-denying material from the social networking site.
“We must never forget the terrible consequences of treating people as ‘others,'” Schloss said in 2024.
Schloss’ family remembered her as “an extraordinary woman: an Auschwitz survivor, a devoted Holocaust educator, a woman who worked tirelessly for remembrance, understanding and peace.”
“We hope his legacy will continue to inspire through the books, films and resources he left behind,” the family said in a statement.
Zvi Schloss died in 2016. Eva Schloss is survived by three daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
