Hannah Goslar death: Anne Frank’s friend and Holocaust survivor passes away aged 93

A Holocaust survivor and childhood friend of Anne Frank has died aged 93.

Hannah Goslar, who had known Frank since kindergarten, was referred to in her famous war-time diaries as ‘Hanneli’.

Like her friend, Ms Goslar was held in the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp during World War II.

Born in November 1928 in Berlin-Tiergarten, her family fled Germany when the Nazis rose to power in 1933. They settled in Amsterdam, where she met Frank.

According to Anne Frank House, the biographical museum dedicated to her memory, Ms Goslar recounted: “My mother described Anne Frank well. She said: ‘God knows everything, but Anne knows better’.”

The two school friends lost touch in 1942 when the Frank family went into hiding in the Secret Annex on Prinsengracht to escape the Nazis. Ms Goslar and her family were arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 and deported to Bergen-Belsen the year after.

The camp would provide a dire backdrop to the final meeting between the teenagers, who reunited there in February 1945, just before the death of the young diarist aged 15.

Ms Goslar and her sister Gabi were the only members of their family to survive Bergen-Belsen.

The camp was liberated in 1945 by British soldiers, who discovered around 60,000 prisoners inside, most of them starving and severely ill, and another 13,000 corpses lying unburied around the camp.

After the war in 1947, Ms Goslar emigrated to Jerusalem and became a nurse. She married Walter Pick and had three children, 11 grandchildren, and 31 great-grandchildren. “This is my answer to Hitler,” Ms Goslar would say.

A tribute on the Anne Frank House website said Ms Goslar would share memories of her friendship with Frank and the Holocaust into old age.

“One and a half million children, like Anne and Margot Frank, were murdered simply because they were Jewish,” a tribute on the website said. “She felt obligated to talk about Anne and the Holocaust ‘because I survived, and Anne didn’t.’

“Hannah Pick-Goslar meant a lot to the Anne Frank House, and we could always call on her. Hannah’s last visit to the Anne Frank House was in October 2012, at the opening of the temporary exhibition ‘So now I’m fifteen’.

“The exhibition featured photographs of Hannah and Anne. A short video was recorded in which Hannah talked about her friendship with Anne.

“We offer Hannah’s relatives and friends our deepest sympathy and sincere condolences. May her memory be for blessing.”