Eva Schloss, a Holocaust survivor who launched a foundation to advance the legacy of her childhood friend and stepfather’s daughter Anne Frank, has died at 96.
Schloss’ family said she died Saturday in London, where she settled after the Holocaust and became a prominent voice among survivors. In 1990, she founded the Anne Frank Trust UK, which promotes Holocaust education in Britain.
“My wife and I are greatly saddened to hear of the death of Eva Schloss,” King Charles III said in a statement posted to social media. “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. We are both privileged and proud to have known her and we admired her deeply. May her memory be a blessing to us all.”
Schloss was born in Austria in 1929 and fled with her family in 1938 after it was incorporated into Nazi Germany. They settled in Belgium and later in the Netherlands, where Schloss befriended Anne Frank in Amsterdam. Their families lived on the same block, and she and Anne were only a month apart in age.
Like the Franks, the Schloss family went into hiding in Amsterdam but were later betrayed and arrested by the Nazis in 1944. Schloss and her mother survived Auschwitz, where her father and brother were killed.
Returning to Amsterdam, the mother and daughter reconnected with Otto Frank, Anne Frank’s father and the family’s sole survivor. Her mother Fritzi and Otto Frank married in 1953.
Schloss moved to London where she married and raised three children. She did not speak publicly about her Holocaust experience until after Otto Frank’s death in 1980. But then, having seen the impact of Otto’s efforts to share his daughter’s story, she embraced the work of Holocaust education, traveling England and beyond to tell her story. In 1990, she cofounded the Anne Frank Trust UK, and in 2012 was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire, one of England’s top honors, by Queen Elizabeth for her work.
“Eva was a beacon of hope and resilience,” Dan Green, the trust’s executive director, said in a statement. “Her unwavering commitment to challenging prejudice through Holocaust education has left an indelible mark on countless lives.”
Schloss’ death comes as the last Holocaust survivors old enough to be able to share their personal memories of the genocide are all in their nineties, posing a fresh challenge for Holocaust education. Several prominent survivors have died in recent months.
Schloss at times weighed in on contemporary politics, writing in 2016 that she believed Donald Trump, then running for U.S. president, was “acting like another Hitler by inciting racism.” She also likened the failure of countries to accept more refugees from Syria to the conditions faced by Jewish refugees from the Nazis.
In 2021, Schloss reclaimed her Austrian citizenship, saying that it was time for her to reconcile with her native country. “The Austrians are sorry about what has happened. We can’t carry on the hatred and discrimination any more. The Nazis are not with us,” she said at a ceremony where the Austrian government honored her.
At the time, she reflected on her legacy in an interview with the BBC. “I feel that perhaps I have achieved something in my life, to contribute a little bit to change people’s attitudes,” she said.
But she added that she was unsatisfied with her impact, saying, “Obviously, I’ve not done enough as I’m very worried about the way the world is going now.”
