The world has lost a remarkable woman, Eva Schloss, a Holocaust survivor and stepsister of Anne Frank, who passed away at the age of 96. Schloss, a tireless educator and advocate for Holocaust remembrance, dedicated her life to raising awareness about the horrors of the Holocaust and promoting understanding and peace. Her story is a powerful reminder of the resilience of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable tragedy.
Schloss, born Eva Geiringer in Vienna in 1929, fled with her family to Amsterdam after Nazi Germany annexed Austria. She became friends with Anne Frank, whose diary would later become one of the most famous chronicles of the Holocaust. Like the Franks, Schloss's family spent two years in hiding to avoid capture after the Nazis occupied the Netherlands. They were eventually betrayed, arrested, and sent to the Auschwitz death camp.
Schloss and her mother, Fritzi, survived until the camp was liberated by Soviet troops in 1945. Her father, Erich, and brother Heinz died in Auschwitz. After the war, she moved to Britain, married German Jewish refugee Zvi Schloss, and settled in London.
Schloss did not speak publicly about her experiences for decades, citing wartime trauma as the reason for her withdrawal and inability to connect with others. However, after addressing the opening of an Anne Frank exhibition in London in 1986, she made it her mission to educate younger generations about the Nazi genocide. Over the following decades, she spoke in schools and prisons, at international conferences, and told her story in books, including 'Eva's Story: A Survivor's Tale by the Stepsister of Anne Frank'.
Schloss's commitment to Holocaust education and remembrance continued into her 90s. In 2019, she traveled to Newport Beach, California, to meet teenagers who were photographed making Nazi salutes at a high school party. The following year, she was part of a campaign urging Facebook to remove Holocaust-denying material from the social networking site. 'We must never forget the terrible consequences of treating people as ‘other’,' Schloss said in 2024. 'We need to respect everybody's races and religions. We need to live together with our differences. The only way to achieve this is through education, and the younger we start the better.'
Schloss's family remembered her as 'a remarkable woman: an Auschwitz survivor, a devoted Holocaust educator, tireless in her work for remembrance, understanding, and peace.' Her legacy will continue to inspire through the books, films, and resources she leaves behind. Zvi Schloss died in 2016, and Eva Schloss is survived by their three daughters, as well as grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
