Eva Schloss, Holocaust educator, dies at 96

Born Eva Gereinger in Vienna, Austria in 1929, she was the second child of Erich and Elfriede (Fritzi). She had an older brother, Heinz. When Hitler’s army invaded Austria in March, 1938, the family escaped first to Belgium and then to the Netherlands where they lived in an apartment block on the Merwedeplein in Amsterdam, opposite Anne Frank’s home. Eva and Anne, both born in the same year, became friends and played together, little knowing that Anne would one day become Eva’s posthumous stepsister.

But on the same day in 1942 both families were forced to go into hiding, spending two years underground, where, like the Franks, they were betrayed; in the Gereingers’ case by a double agent in the Dutch underground. They were arrested and sent to Auschwitz in 1944. When they were finally liberated by the Soviet Army in January, 1945, Eva and her mother, Elfriede were so ill they seemed barely alive. Her father Erich and teenage brother Heinz had both been murdered.

Meanwhile, Anne and her older sister Margot were sent to Westerbork and Auschwitz, and then on to Bergen-Belsen, where they both died of a raging typhus epidemic in the camp, days apart in February or March, 1945 and were buried in a mass grave.

After the war Elfriede and Eva returned to Holland and Eva resumed her education, studying art history at the University of Amsterdam. They were reunited with Otto Frank, the sole survivor of his family, mourning the loss of his daughters, and suddenly exposed to all the emotions generated by the discovery of Anne’s diary. Elfriede and Otto grew close, and in 1953 were married.

In 1951 Eva had already moved to London to study photography, where she met her future husband, Zvi Schloss, a German Jew who fled to Mandatory Palestine after his father was held at Dachau concentration camp. They got married and lived in London, becoming UK citizens, and had three daughters.

Schloss chose to dedicate her life to preserving Anne’s memory, to world peace and to Holocaust education. She travelled the world talking about her family’s experiences during the war, particularly

to young people in the UK and in Europe, ensuring that her message of remembrance, understanding and peace, as her family described in their personal tribute, would land in the minds and hearts of young people and prevent history from repeating itself.

She also took part in the USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archives, recording interactive video testimony for educational use. She wrote three memoirs: Eva’s Story, A Survivor’s Tale by the Stepsister of Anne Frank; After Auschwitz: My Memories of Otto and Anne Frank, and The Promise, the latter aimed at children.

In 1990 Eva co-founded the Anne Frank Trust UK, designed to help young people from the ages of nine to 15 to reject all forms of prejudice through learning from Anne Frank and the Holocaust. In 2024, through its schools programme the Trust worked with over 132,000 young people, and trained nearly 5,300 young people to be peer educators, who subsequently reached a further 45,000 peers.

In the same year Eva said: “We must never forget the terrible consequences of treating people as “the 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.”

Anne Frank’s Diary, which presents a detailed and often anguished day by day account of life for two families in hiding from the Nazis from the perspective of a teenager on the brink of womanhood, succeeds

in telling the story of the Holocaust more eloquently than many learned

books and narratives. It has sold over 30 million copies and has been

translated into 70 languages. Anne, herself, in constant fear of discovery and arrest, could not have believed that her prodigious memoir would one day be required reading in schools around the world.

In 2001 Schloss received an honorary doctorate from Northumbria University. She was appointed MBE in the 2013 New Years Honours. In 2021 she took up dual citizenship of the UK and Austria, having reclaimed Austrian citizenship as an act of reconciliation with her birth country and was awarded the Medal for Services to the Republic of Austria.

Nicola Cobbold, Anne Frank Trust chair said that Eva remained an “engaged and passionate supporter of its work until the end, determined that it should deliver Otto’s vision. She so warmly welcomed me into the Anne Frank Trust family and openly and honestly shared her memories, stories, fears and aspirations.

“Above all, she believed that to enable peace people should work together as human beings, recognising and challenging prejudice and promoting love and reasonableness.”

Gillian Walnes, MBE, hon vice president of the Trust, recalled Eva speaking with tireless passion, into her 90s, often giving several talks a day, including in prisons and schools. Eva’s legacy lives on in the lives she touched and the history she so bravely kept alive.”

Dan Green, Chief Executive of the Trust, described Eva as a “beacon of hope and resilience. Her unwavering commitment to challenging prejudice through Holocaust education has left an indelible

mark on countess lives. Her legacy will continue to guide and empower

young people to build a world free from hatred and discrimination.”

Eva Schloss is survived by her daughters, Jackie, Caroline and Sylvia, sons-in-law and grandchildren. Her husband predeceased her in 2016.

Eva Schloss: born May 11, 1929. Died January 3, 2026.