Eva Schloss, Anne Frank’s Stepsister and Holocaust Survivor, Dies at 96

Freed from Auschwitz, she was silent about her ordeal for four decades. Then she decided to dedicate her life to educating people about the dangers of prejudice.



Eva Schloss in 2019. In a tribute, King Charles III lauded her for “overcoming hatred and prejudice” and for “promoting kindness, courage, understanding and resilience.” Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

By Jenny Gross
Reporting from London
Jan. 5, 2026
Updated 4:48 p.m. ET

Eva Schloss, an Auschwitz survivor who dedicated her life to speaking out against prejudice and to preserving the legacy of her stepsister Anne Frank, died on Saturday at a care home in London. She was 96. ... “We hope her legacy will continue to inspire through the books, films and resources she leaves behind,” Ms. Schloss’s family said in a statement published by the Anne Frank Trust UK, an organization she co-founded to challenge intolerance and educate young people about the Holocaust. After World War II, her mother married Anne Frank’s father, Otto, the sole survivor of the Frank family.

For more than 40 years, Ms. Schloss remained silent about the horrors she endured at Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp to which she had been deported as a teenager. When her grandchildren once asked about the tattoo on her arm that she had been branded with at Auschwitz, A-5272, she told them it was her telephone number, she wrote in a memoir, “After Auschwitz.”


Ms. Schloss carried into old age the inmate number that had been tattooed on one arm at Auschwitz. Derek Webb/Alamy

It was not until 1986, when she was invited to speak at the opening of a traveling Anne Frank exhibition in London, that she began to tell her story publicly. From that point on, and into her 90s, she traveled widely to speak — particularly to young people in schools and prisons — about the dangers of injustice.

In 2019, when she heard about students at a California school who had been photographed giving a Nazi salute while standing in front of several dozen red cups arranged in the shape of a swastika, she decided to have a private meeting with them. ... “I think they really didn’t think about the consequences, but I think they have learned a lesson for life,” Ms. Schloss, then 89, said at the time. She had been on a tour of the United States speaking out against prejudice.

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Anne Frank’s Stepsister Meets Teenagers From Swastika Photo
March 8, 2019

Jenny Gross is a reporter for The Times covering breaking news and other topics.