Adopted daughter of Anne Frank’s father dies at 96

Eva Schloss-Geiringer, who was adopted as a child survivor of the Holocaust by Anne Frank’s father, has died in London at the age of 96, the Anne Frank Foundation announced Monday.

Otto Frank adopted Schloss-Geiringer, who had lived with her family near the Franks in Amsterdam before its occupation by the Nazis in 1940, after marrying her mother, Fritzi, in 1953.

Schloss-Geiringer wrote books about her survival of the Holocaust, including Eva’s Story: A Survivor’s Tale, and has spoken countless times before audiences about the need to combat antisemitism. A self-described Zionist who married an Israeli, she has also defended Israel against allegations of genocide.

The Nazis and their collaborators murdered Otto’s two daughters, teenage diarist Anne and her sister Margot, as well as their mother, his first wife, Edith.

Schloss-Geiringer’s father and brother were also murdered. Like the Franks, Schloss-Geiringer’s family had lived in hiding in the Netherlands before they were discovered and sent to be murdered. The Franks came from Germany and the Geiringers came from Austria. Both families were Jewish and had moved to the Netherlands to flee Nazism.

Eva Schloss-Geiringer, who died on Jan. 3, was only one month older than Anne Frank, and the two girls knew each other from living in the same neighborhood of the Dutch capital, the Rivierenbuurt.

After the war, Otto Frank edited the diaries that his daughter Anne had written in hiding and published them as The Diary of a Young Girl, an international bestseller that made Anne Frank one of the world’s best-known Holocaust victims.

Frank has an “important role” in Schloss-Geiringer’s life, the Anne Frank Foundation in Amsterdam said in its announcement of Schloss-Geiringer’s death. He gave her his Leica camera and encouraged her to study photography. She moved to London to study the field, where she married her husband, Zvi Schloss. He died nine years ago. Schloss-Geiringer has often been referred to in the media as Anne Frank’s stepsister.

Schloss-Geiringer became a prominent witness survivor, recounting her survival before many audiences after she broke her silence about it in 1988. She decided to start speaking about the Holocaust when the Anne Frank exhibition traveled to London.

“I was far from politics, but I realized that the world had not learned any lessons from the events of 1939-1945, that wars continued, that persecution, racism, intolerance still existed. And then I began to share my experience, to call for changes in the world.”

An Israel advocate: 'We can just go there and be safe'

In a 2015 interview with The New Statesman, Schloss-Geiringer praised Israel and dismissed the comparisons that anti-Israel activists often make between its actions and those of the Nazis.

While she never had any intention of moving to Israel, her husband had many relatives there, she said. “It’s amazing what they’ve achieved in this relatively short time,” she continued.

Asked if she was a Zionist, she answered: “Well in theory, yes. I think we need that country but it is not a country where I would say I want to go and live.” She added: “I think it’s a country which has to stay a Jewish country because if ever something like this happens again we don’t have to wait, we don’t have to wait to get out, we can just go there and be safe.”

Asked about the comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany, she replied: “Well, I think that is completely nonsense because the Germans killed innocent people, they were good citizens, there was no quarrel, there was no dispute about anything and now of course Israel and Palestine are in war. There is no peace treaty, the Palestinians haven’t accepted the existence of Israel and there are attacks on Israel’s population… the Jewish people, because we are so small, value life very, very, very much, you know. Each soldier, each civilian who is killed, it is a tragedy for us. But the Palestinians don’t seem to realize that and—I don’t agree with the war, but the Jewish people, but the Israelis are defending themselves against continuous attacks and, of course, in a war situation, accidents do happen—innocent families are killed, children are killed, but it is because there is a war going on. So it’s completely incomparable.”

Schloss-Geiringer had three daughters and is survived by several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

King Charles III in a statement posted by the Royal House of the United Kingdom on Monday said of Schloss-Geiringer: “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend, and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding and resilience through her tireless work.”

© JNS