Survivors

Grebenschikoff spent her childhood in China, married, moved to Australia and then New Jersey, raising five children. She relocated to St. Petersburg after her husband died.

No matter where she lived, Gr e bensc h ikoff actively spoke about her experiences in Germany and those she lost to the Holocaust.

“Two sets of grandparents, uncles and cousins,” she said. “I would say two dozen people of the family.”

In 1997, her Holocaust testimony was among the 55,000 collected by the Steven Spielberg-founded USC Shoah Foundation. During that interview, as she did during most public speaking engagements, Grebenschikoff mentioned her best friend, saying she hoped Wahrenberg would see the footage and reach out.

Still, Grebenschikoff admitted, she figured Wahr e nberg had n ot escaped Germany and died during the war. “She would talk about Anne Marie and what it meant for her to lose this friendship,” said daughter Jennifer Grebenschikoff of Tampa.

It turned out that Wahrenberg, who changed her first name to Anna, fled to Chile months after the Grebenschikoff escaped. Still residing in Chile, Wahrenberg also spoke publicly about growing up as a Jewish girl in Nazi Germany.

In November, Wahrenberg spoke at a Zoom conference about the Night of Broken Glass.

Ita Gordon, an indexer with the Shaoh Foundation, was also a part of the conference. Wanting to learn more about Wahrenberg, Gordon searched the foundation archives for a testimony. She could not find one, but did come upon Grebenschikoff ’s mention.

“What followed Ita’s work was a series of phone calls and correspondence between USC Shoah Foundation and The Florida Holocaust Museum, where Betty is active, and the Museo Interactivo Judio de Chile, where Ana Maria has long been involved in a range of activities.,” The Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg wrote in a statement.

Found

After eight decades, they had found each other.

They talked on Zoom in November and hope to meet in person in Miami in September.

“We speak every week or every other week,” Grebenschikoff said. “We talk about the old days. We talk about our lives now. It is incredible that we are talking. We had a connection from the start. We were laughing and talking in German while everybody else, the families on both sides, were crying. It is unbelievable.”

Jennifer Grebenschikoff hopes others are inspired by this positive story born from a dark period and playing out against the backdrop of a pandemic keeping loved ones apart.

“Never give up,” she said, “You just never know when the universe is going to come together in a way that’s going to bring you something that you hadn’t expected. Never give up. Never forget.”