Anne Frank’s stepsister to spread message of tolerance

HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR memoirist Eva Schloss will be in the island next month to share her experiences as the childhood friend and stepsister of Anne Frank, including accounts of the publishing of Frank’s famed diary.

Schloss has been traveling the globe to spread a message to others to value kindness, diversity, tolerance, and common humanity.

In a release, local Rabbi Yaakov Raskin, of Chabad of Jamaica Cultural Center, said that her message “reminds that life is precious and fragile, that the spirit is stronger than fear, that the power of good is immeasurable, and that love, dignity, and respect make a difference in bringing our communities together”.

The centre will be hosting Schloss on her visit to the island.

Schloss’ presentation will take place on April 2 at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston, starting at 7:30 p.m.

Raskin said that the presentation would be suitable for people of all ages, including teenagers, and that families of all faiths were invited to attend.

“This is a special opportunity to hear a first-hand account from someone whose life intersected with one of the most compelling figures in our history,” he said.

Chabad of Jamaica is sponsoring the event with support from Jamaica National, The Jamaica Pegasus, Isratec Jamaica Ltd and others.

In 1938, Germany invaded Austria, causing many Jewish families to flee that country to avoid persecution.

Among the emigrants was eightyear-old Eva Geiringer, who, with her mother, brother, and father moved first to Belgium and then to Holland, where one of her neighbours was Anne Frank, a German Jewish girl of the same age.

The two girls became friends and playmates (though, as Eva would say many years later, the girl was “much more grown-up and mature than me”). They passed the time by skipping, playing hopscotch, and marbles and drinking lemonade that the girl’s mother prepared.

Ultimately, both girls and their families were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Later they would become stepsisters.

Eva survived her concentration camp experience and made her way to England, where she married Zvi Schloss and raised three daughters. She worked as a studio photographer and ran an antique shop.

Her stepsister did not survive Auschwitz but kept a diary that did.

Since 1985, Schloss has devoted herself to holocaust education and global peace.

She has recounted her wartime experiences in more than a thousand speaking engagements. She has written two books and has had a play written about her life. In 1999, Schloss signed the Anne Frank Peace Declaration along with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and the niece of Raul Wallenberg, a legendary figure who rescued thousands of Jews in Budapest.

“This is a special opportunity to hear a first-hand account from someone whose life intersected with one of the most compelling figures in our history,”