Eva Schloss, Anne Frank’s stepsister and Holocaust survivor, passes away at 96

LONDON (AP) – Eva Schloss, an Auschwitz survivor, sister-in-law of teenage diarist Anne Frank, and a devoted educator about the Holocaust, has passed away at the age of 96.

The Anne Frank Trust, where Schloss served as honorary president, confirmed her death on Saturday in London, her home for many years.

King Charles III expressed that he felt “honoured and proud” to know Schloss, who co-founded a charity aimed at combating prejudice among young people.

“The horrors she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend, but she dedicated the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding, and resilience through her tireless work with Britain’s Anne Frank Trust and Holocaust education around the world,” the King noted.

Eva Geiringer, born in Vienna in 1929, fled with her family to Amsterdam after Nazi Germany annexed Austria. It was there that she became friends with another Jewish girl, Anne Frank, whose diary would become one of the most recognized accounts of the Holocaust.

Like the Franks, Eva’s family hid for two years to escape arrest after the Nazis took control of the Netherlands. Unfortunately, they were ultimately betrayed, apprehended, and sent to Auschwitz.

Along with her mother, Fritzi, Schloss survived until the camp’s liberation by Soviet troops in 1945, but her father Erich and brother Heinz were killed at Auschwitz.

Following the war, Eva relocated to England, married Zvi Schloss, a fellow Jewish refugee from Germany, and made London her home.

In 1953, her mother married Otto Frank, the only remaining member of his immediate family. Anne Frank died of typhus at 15 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, just months before the war ended.

For many years, Schloss hesitated to share her experiences publicly, explaining that the trauma had made her reclusive and withdrawn.

“I was silent for years, first because I wasn’t allowed to speak. Then I suppressed it. I was angry at the world,” she revealed to The Associated Press back in 2004.

However, her perspective shifted after she spoke at the Anne Frank exhibition opening in London in 1986. From then on, she dedicated herself to educating younger generations about the Nazi genocide. Over the ensuing decades, she engaged with schools, prisons, and international conferences, sharing her experiences in books, including “Eva’s Story: A Survivor’s Story by Anne Frank’s Sister-in-Law.”

Even into her 90s, she remained active in her campaigns, traveling to Newport Beach, California, in 2019 to meet teens involved in a Nazi salute incident at a high school party. The following year, she joined a movement urging Facebook to eliminate Holocaust-denying content from the platform.

Reflecting on issues of difference and respect, Schloss stated in 2024, “We must never forget the dire consequences of treating people as ‘others.’ We need to respect everyone’s race and religion. We need to live with differences. The only way to achieve this is through education, and the younger you start, the better.”

Her family remembers her as “a survivor of Auschwitz, a committed Holocaust educator, and a remarkable woman who worked tirelessly for remembrance, understanding, and peace.” They expressed hope that her legacy will continue to inspire through the various books, films, and materials she created.