Before Eva Schloss and Anne Frank Were Related, the Two Girls Were Friends

With each passing year, the world runs the risk of losing an integral part of human history as the remaining survivors of the Holocaust pass away. It's a somewhat morbid thought, but difficult to ignore. In January 2026, memoirist Eva Schloss was the first survivor to die during the year that would mark the 81st anniversary of the end of the Holocaust. She was 96 years old.

In 1942, Eva and her family went into hiding in Amsterdam, per Lilith magazine. On Eva's 15th birthday in 1944, a Dutch nurse who was a double agent for the Gestapo betrayed her family. Eva and her mother were not with her brother and father, but they were soon reunited on a train to Westerbork, a Dutch holding camp. They were eventually sent to Auschwitz, where Eva's brother and father died. Later in life, Eva would become related to Anne Frank. Here's how.

In a January 2009 interview with The Times, Eva revisited the events that led to her meeting Anne and her family. When Adolf Hitler invaded Austria in March 1938, 8-year-old Eva and her family emigrated to Belgium, then the Netherlands. They rented an apartment in Merwedeplein Square in Amsterdam, which is where the family met the Franks.

"We children all played together outside — skipping, hopscotch, and marbles — and one day a girl ran over to me and introduced herself," recalled Eva. "'I’m Anne and my family comes from Germany,'" she told Eva. Anne was only a month older than Eva, but seemed much wiser than her years. "She attended the local Montessori school and was an academic year ahead of me. I went to an ordinary local school," Eva said.

Eva and her family were discovered months before Anne's. In January 1945, the Russian army arrived in Germany. Eva's brother and father died while marching towards Mauthausen, but she and her mother survived. Six months later, they found themselves back in their Amsterdam apartment. They met up with Anne's father, Otto, who had learned his wife and daughters had been killed. Otto eventually married Eva's mother, technically making them stepsisters.

Although it became much easier later in life, there were many years when Eva couldn't speak about her time in the notorious concentration camp. "I was in shock when the Nazis arrested us," said Eva. “I didn’t cry at first." Her mother told the soldiers that Eva wasn't Jewish, claiming she was a product of an affair with a German. "I did have blond hair. But it didn’t help," she said.

The torture began almost immediately. Eva was beaten and repeatedly asked to give up the names of the Dutch Resistance people who helped hide her family. "Luckily I never knew their real names," Eva said. It took Eva four decades to reveal what happened during the year she was at Auschwitz. After they were captured, Eva saw her father a couple of times but never saw her brother again.

Upon arriving at Auschwitz, Eva's entire body was shaved. She was forced to walk naked past several SS soldiers on her way to get the obligatory numbers tattooed on her arm. Eva quickly contracted typhus, which left her weak. After she was somewhat healthy again, Eva was forced to work under the constant threat of death. She buried her thoughts and feelings for years until a traveling Anne Frank exhibition gave her the opportunity to speak. After that, Eva never stopped.