26/08/2026
We lower our heads in profound sorrow as we remember Eva Schloss, Holocaust survivor, witness, educator, and a courageous voice who spent her life carrying the memories of those who never had the chance to grow old, has passed away in London at the age of 96. Her passing marks the loss of another precious firsthand witness to one of the darkest chapters in human history, but her extraordinary life and the testimony she preserved will continue to speak to generations long after her death.🕊️
Born Eva Minni Geiringer on May 11, 1929, in Vienna, Austria, she was still a child when the world around her began to change. After N**i Germany annexed Austria in 1938, antisemitism and persecution increasingly invaded the lives of Jewish families like hers. Eva, her parents, Erich and Elfriede “Fritzi” Geiringer, and her older brother Heinz eventually fled Austria and found refuge in Amsterdam.
There, Eva lived only a short distance from another Jewish girl whose name would later become known throughout the world: Anne Frank.
They knew each other as children and attended school in Amsterdam. Neither could have imagined the terrible fate that awaited them.
When N**i Germany occupied the Netherlands, Jewish families were progressively stripped of their freedom, their rights, their homes, and their sense of safety. Eva's family eventually went into hiding, desperately trying to escape deportation.
For nearly two years, hiding became their life.
On May 11, 1944, Eva’s 15th birthday, a betrayal shattered the fragile safety her family had desperately tried to preserve.
Eva was still only a child when the darkness of the Holocaust stole her childhood away. Her family’s hiding place was betrayed, and they were arrested and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. There, on the 15th birthday that should have been filled with love, family, and hope, Eva was instead confronted with hunger, terror, cruelty, and the unimaginable reality of a world determined to destroy her.
She endured conditions no child should ever have been forced to face. She witnessed suffering that would remain with her for the rest of her life, and she endured the devastating loss of those she loved most. Eva survived Auschwitz, but her beloved father and her brother, Heinz, did not.
She returned from the camps carrying wounds that could not be seen and memories that could never be forgotten.
Yet Eva refused to let her suffering be the end of her story.
For decades, she transformed unimaginable pain into a mission of remembrance. She stood before generations of young people and told them what happened, not to seek hatred or revenge, but to ensure that the world would never forget the human cost of hatred, antisemitism, prejudice, and indifference.
Through her mother’s marriage to Otto Frank, Eva also became Anne Frank’s posthumous stepsister, forever linking her life to one of the most enduring stories of the Holocaust. But Eva's own story stood powerfully on its own: the story of a frightened teenage girl who survived Auschwitz and grew into a tireless guardian of memory.
At the age of 96, Eva Schloss passed away in London.
Another voice of the Holocaust has fallen silent.
And yet, she is not truly gone.
She lives on in every testimony she recorded, every book she wrote, every young person she taught, and every heart she touched with the simple but profound truth that we must remember.
She carried the memories of her father and brother when they could no longer carry them themselves. She carried the memories of millions who were murdered and silenced. And until the very end, she carried them with extraordinary courage.
Eva Schloss survived the darkness so thWith profound sorrow, we remember Eva Schloss, Holocaust survivor, witness, educator, and a courageous voice who spent her life carrying the memories of those who never had the chance to grow old, who passed away in London at the age of 96. Her passing marks the loss of another precious firsthand witness to one of the darkest chapters in human history, but her extraordinary life and the testimony she preserved will continue to speak to generations long after her death.at others could hear the truth.
We remember not only the suffering she endured, but the courage with which she transformed that suffering into a lifetime of hope, education, and remembrance.
May her memory be a blessing.
May we never forget Eva Schloss.
May we never forget those she remembered.
And may we never forget.
