Anne Frank's Stepsister To Speak In Petaluma

PETALUMA, CA — Anne Frank's stepsister and childhood friend, Eva Schloss, 92, will share her life story, including accounts of the publishing of Anne's famed diary, at a presentation Thursday, March 19 in Petaluma.

Like her stepsister, Schloss went into hiding in Holland and was captured and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

The talk, an opportunity to hear a first-hand account from one whose life intersected with Frank, a compelling, historical figure, is sponsored by the Chabad Jewish Center of Petaluma and the Jewish Community Center, Sonoma County and will be at 7 p.m. at the Petaluma Veterans Memorial Hall.

It is suitable for all ages, including teenagers, and families of all faiths are invited.

Many Jewish families fled Austria in 1938 after the German invasion, including the then-8-year old Eva Geiringer, who with her mother, brother and father moved first to Belgium and then to Holland, where one of her neighbors was a German Jewish girl of the same age, organizers said.

The two girls became friends, though, as Schloss would say years later, the girl was "much more grown-up and mature than me." They became playmates, skipping, playing hopscotch and marbles and drinking lemonade. Ultimately, both girls and their families were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Later they would become stepsisters, after Frank's father and Schloss' mother married.

Frank did not survive Auschwitz, but she kept a diary that did

Schloss did survive the concentration camp and went to England, where she married Zvi Schloss, raised three daughters, worked as a studio photographer and ran an antique shop.

Since 1985, Schloss has devoted herself to Holocaust education and global peace, recounting her wartime experiences in more than 1,000 speaking engagements. She authored two books and a play 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.

Tickets for the Petaluma presentation can be found here. Tickets: $25 for general admission; $15 for students; and $50 for preferred seating. Other ticket packages also are available.

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