The world has lost one of the last powerful eyewitnesses to the horrors of the Holocaust with the death of Eva Schloss, the Auschwitz survivor and stepsister of Anne Frank. She passed away peacefully in London on 3 January 2026, aged 96, the Anne Frank House has confirmed.
A Life Dedicated to Overcoming Hatred
King Charles led tributes to the 'courageous' and 'resilient' woman, writing on social media of his and the Queen's profound sadness. He praised her for devoting her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice after enduring unimaginable horrors as a young woman. 'We are both privileged and proud to have known her and we admired her deeply,' the King stated, adding 'May her memory be a blessing to us all.'
Eva Schloss's life was tragically intertwined with that of Anne Frank from childhood. Born in Vienna on 11 May 1929, she fled to Amsterdam with her family in 1940 after the Nazi annexation of Austria. There, she lived just yards from the Frank family on Merwedeplein and the two girls played together in the square.
Betrayal, Auschwitz, and Survival
In 1942, after her brother Heinz received a summons for forced labour, the Geiringer family went into hiding. They remained concealed for two years before being betrayed by a Dutch nurse collaborating with the Nazis. On her 15th birthday, 11 May 1944, Eva and her family were arrested and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Only Eva and her mother, Elfriede, survived the camp's brutal conditions. Her father, Erich, and brother, Heinz, were murdered. After the camp's liberation by Soviet forces in January 1945, Eva returned to the Netherlands where she met Otto Frank, Anne's father and the sole survivor of his immediate family.
Otto later married Elfriede in 1953, becoming Eva's stepfather, and encouraged her passion for photography, which led her to a new life in London.
A Forty-Year Silence Broken for Education
For more than four decades, Eva remained silent about her traumatic experiences. She broke her silence in 1988, prompted by the arrival of an Anne Frank exhibition in London. 'I realised that the world had not learned any lessons,' she later explained, noting the persistence of war, persecution, and racism.
From that moment, she became a tireless campaigner for Holocaust education and against intolerance. She worked extensively with the Anne Frank Trust UK, speaking in schools, universities, and prisons globally. She recorded her vital testimony for the USC Shoah Foundation and the Anne Frank House to ensure her story endured.
Her remarkable contributions were widely honoured:
- She was appointed a Knight of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.
- She received an honorary doctorate from Northumbria University in 2001.
- In a gesture of reconciliation, Austria restored her citizenship in 2021.
She also fulfilled a poignant promise made during the transport to Auschwitz, later recovering and donating her brother Heinz's artwork to the Dutch Resistance Museum in Amsterdam.
Eva Schloss continued her advocacy into her late eighties, returning to her childhood home in Amsterdam in 2017 to speak to schoolchildren, even showing them the tattooed number on her arm. She died nine years after her husband, Zvi, and is survived by her daughters, grandchildren, and extended family.
