LONDON — Eva Schloss, the Auschwitz survivor who became the stepsister of famed diarist Anne Frank and dedicated decades to educating the world about the Holocaust, has died at the age of 96.
The Anne Frank Trust UK, where Schloss served as honorary president, announced that she passed away on Saturday in London, the city where she had lived for much of her life. Britain's King Charles III expressed his condolences, describing himself as “privileged and proud” to have known her. In a statement, the king highlighted her lifelong commitment to combating prejudice, noting, “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 for the Anne Frank Trust UK and for Holocaust education across the world.”
Born Eva Geiringer on May 11, 1929, in Vienna, Austria, Schloss fled with her family to Amsterdam in 1938 after Nazi Germany annexed Austria. There, she formed a close friendship with Anne Frank, another Jewish girl born the same year, whose poignant diary entries from hiding would later captivate the world as one of the most enduring personal accounts of the Holocaust.
Like the Frank family, the Geiringers went into hiding in 1942 as Nazi forces occupied the Netherlands. For two years, they evaded capture, but betrayal led to their arrest in May 1944. Eva, her mother Fritzi, father Erich, and brother Heinz were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the notorious death camp in occupied Poland.
Schloss and her mother survived the camp's brutal conditions until its liberation by Soviet troops on January 27, 1945. Tragically, her father and brother perished there. According to historical records, Anne Frank and her family were also captured around the same time and sent to Auschwitz before Anne was transferred to Bergen-Belsen, where she died of typhus in March 1945 at age 15, just months before the war's end in Europe.
After the war, Schloss, then 15, relocated to Britain. In 1946, she married Zvi Schloss, a fellow German Jewish refugee, and the couple settled in London, where they raised three daughters. It was in 1953 that Schloss's life intersected more deeply with the Frank family: her mother, Fritzi, married Otto Frank, the sole survivor of his immediate family and Anne's father. This union made Eva and Anne stepsisters, a connection that Schloss would later leverage in her advocacy work.
For many years after the war, Schloss remained silent about her experiences. In a 2004 interview with The Associated Press, she explained, “I was silent for years, first because I wasn’t allowed to speak. Then I repressed it. I was angry with the world.” The trauma of Auschwitz had left her withdrawn, struggling to form connections with others amid the lingering shadows of loss and survival.
That changed in 1986 when Schloss spoke at the opening of an Anne Frank exhibition in London. The event marked a turning point, igniting her resolve to share her story publicly. From then on, she became a relentless educator, speaking to students in schools, inmates in prisons, and audiences at international conferences. Her efforts helped preserve the memory of the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were systematically murdered by the Nazis.
Schloss chronicled her life in several books, including “Eva’s Story: A Survivor’s Tale by the Stepsister of Anne Frank,” published in 1988, and later works like “After Auschwitz: A Story of Hearts Reclaimed” in 2013. These memoirs detailed not only the horrors of the camps but also her journey toward healing and forgiveness. She co-founded the Anne Frank Trust UK in 1992, an organization dedicated to using Anne's legacy to foster tolerance among young people.
Even into her later years, Schloss remained active. In 2019, at age 90, she traveled to Newport Beach, California, to meet with high school students who had been photographed making Nazi salutes at a party. The visit aimed to confront antisemitism directly, emphasizing the real human cost of such actions. The following year, in 2020, she joined a campaign pressuring Facebook—now Meta—to remove Holocaust-denying content from its platform, underscoring the ongoing threats of misinformation in the digital age.
In one of her final public statements in 2024, Schloss reiterated her core message: “We must never forget the terrible consequences of treating people as ‘other.’ 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.” Her words reflected a philosophy shaped by survival and a commitment to preventing future atrocities.
The Anne Frank Trust UK praised Schloss as a pivotal figure in their mission, noting her role in reaching millions through educational programs. Over the decades, the trust has distributed resources to schools across Britain and beyond, using stories like hers to challenge prejudice and promote empathy.
Schloss's family issued a heartfelt statement following her death, remembering her as “a remarkable woman: an Auschwitz survivor, a devoted Holocaust educator, tireless in her work for remembrance, understanding and peace.” They added, “We hope her legacy will continue to inspire through the books, films and resources she leaves behind.” Zvi Schloss predeceased her in 2016, and she is survived by their three daughters, as well as grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Her passing comes at a time when Holocaust education faces new challenges, including rising antisemitism and efforts to distort historical facts. Organizations like the Anne Frank Trust UK have vowed to carry forward her work, ensuring that voices like Schloss's continue to echo in classrooms and public discourse worldwide.
As tributes pour in from around the globe, Schloss's life story serves as a testament to resilience. From the ashes of Auschwitz to the halls of international remembrance, she transformed personal tragedy into a global call for humanity, leaving an indelible mark on efforts to build a more tolerant world.