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Stepsister of Anne Frank to speak at CSU during Holocaust Awareness Week

Eva Schloss's family was captured by the Nazis in 1944 and taken to a concentration camp. Her brother and father did not survive but she and her mother were rescued.
Credit: Colorado State University
Eva Schloss

FORT COLLINS, Colo — Eva Schloss, a Holocaust survivor and stepsister of Ann Frank, will speak at Colorado State University (CSU) next month as part of Holocaust Awareness Week.

Schloss, 90, will speak about what life was like under the Nazis during an event on Nov. 18 at the Lory Student Center Ballroom. She's scheduled to speak at 7 p.m. 

The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required and are available online at csutix.com. A ticket does not guarantee a seat; doors open at 5:30 p.m.

“We are incredibly fortunate to have Mrs. Schloss speak on our campus this year,” said Rabbi Yerachmiel Gorelik, CSU philosophy instructor and faculty adviser to Students for Holocaust Awareness Week. “Traditionally, we hold the Awareness Week in February, but when we were able to get on Mrs. Schloss’s touring schedule, we rescheduled everything.”

Schloss, who now lives in London, is the author of three books and the subject of the play, And Then They Came for Me. She is a trustee of the Anne Frank Educational Trust, and since 1985 has dedicated herself to Holocaust education and global peace. She has recounted her wartime experiences in more than 1,000 speaking engagements around the world.

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.

RELATED: Holocaust survivor tells his story to keep history alive

Schloss was born Eva Geiringer in Vienna to a Jewish family in 1929. Shortly after the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938, her family emigrated to the Netherlands, where they lived in the same apartment block in Amsterdam as Anne Frank. In 1942, both families went into hiding to avoid the Nazis, but in May 1944, Eva’s family was captured after being betrayed by a double agent in the Dutch underground and transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps.

Her father and brother did not survive, but she and her mother were freed in 1945 by Soviet troops.

They returned to Amsterdam, where Eva and her mother renewed their friendship with Otto Frank, who had lost his wife and children in the camps. In 1953, Eva’s mother married Otto Frank. After his death in 1980, Eva took up his work of keeping the memory of his daughter, Anne, and her diary alive.

Eva Schloss’s appearance is presented by Students for Holocaust Awareness Week at CSU and co-sponsored by ASCSU, Chabad Jewish Student Organization, Hillel, CSU Residence Hall Association, AEPi, SAEPi, the Office of International Programs and Lory Student Center.

Click/tap here for additional information about Holocaust Awareness Week.

“Holocaust Awareness Week is put on by a group of dedicated students who see the acts of hate occurring at CSU and want to do something about it,” said Denise Negrete, president of Students for Holocaust Awareness Week. “We believe ignorance is one of the main sources of hate, so education is how Students For Holocaust Awareness resists acts of hate.

“I think a lot of students do not understand how incredibly painful it is for a survivor to share their story with so many people,” she continued. “I hope that by presenting this opportunity to hear firsthand from a survivor it will allow a space for learning, understanding, and self-reflection. We all need to understand what hate is, what it can do, and join together to defeat it.”

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