Eva Schloss, who survived the Holocaust as a teenager, became Anne Frank’s sister-in-law and a tireless campaigner against bigotry, has died at the age of 96, her trust announced Sunday.
“Eva was a remarkable woman, an Auschwitz survivor, a dedicated Holocaust educator, and a tireless campaigner for remembrance, understanding and peace,” Britain’s Anne Frank Trust, which Schloss co-founded, said on Sunday.
Her influence was so great that King Charles III of England paid homage to her.
“My wife and I are deeply saddened to hear of Eva Schloss’s passing,” he said in a statement. “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 and promoting kindness, courage, understanding, and resilience.”
Schloss was born in Vienna, Austria, one month earlier than Frank in 1929, and like Frank, his family fled to Amsterdam, Netherlands, to escape the Nazi regime. The family met in Amsterdam and the two girls sometimes played together, but they were not particularly close, Schloss recalled.
“I was a tomboy, but she was much more sophisticated,” Schloss told the Guardian in 2013. “We simply didn’t have the same interests.”
Her family went into hiding on the same day as the Frank family in 1942 and remained in hiding for two years until someone betrayed them in 1944 and sent them to the Auschwitz death camp.
Schloss’s father, Erich Geiringer, and brother, Heinz, were murdered here, leaving Eva and her mother, Fritzi, as the only survivors of the family.
After the war, Fritzi reunited with Anne’s father, Otto Frank, who had lost his wife and two daughters in the Holocaust, and they married, and Schloss became Anne’s sister-in-law after her old friend’s death.
Schloss settled in London, where she met her husband, Zvi Schloss, and they had three daughters, Jackie, Caroline, and Sylvia.
Anne Frank began speaking publicly about the trauma she experienced at Auschwitz in 1988, when an exhibition dedicated to her was held in London.
“Although I stayed away from politics, I realized that the world had not learned any lessons from the events of 1939-1945, that wars continue and that persecution, racism and intolerance still exist,” she said, according to the Anne Frank House Museum in Amsterdam. “And I started sharing my experience to demand change in the world.”
Since then, Schloss has dedicated his life to telling the world about the horrors of the Holocaust. She lectures at schools and universities, has written three books – Eva’s Story, After Auschwitz and The Promise, and co-founded the Anne Frank Trust UK in 1991. The organization specifically aimed to educate children between the ages of 9 and 15 about the dangers of anti-Semitism and other forms of prejudice.
