Hannah (Hanneli) Pick-Goslar, one of Anne Frank’s closest friends, died Friday, the Anne Frank Foundation announced. She was 93.
The Anne Frank Foundation paid tribute to Pick-Goslar, who is mentioned in the Jewish diarist’s diary about her life in hiding from the Netherlands’ Nazi occupiers, The Associated Press reported. The organization praised Pick-Goslar for helping to keep Frank’s memory alive with stories about their youth.
“Hannah Pick-Goslar meant a lot to the Anne Frank House, and we could always call on her,” the foundation said in a statement.
We were sad to learn of the death of Hannah Pick-Goslar today at the age of 93. Hannah, or #Hanneli as Anne called her in her diary, was one of Anne Frank’s best friends; they had known each other since kindergarten.
— Anne Frank House (@annefrankhouse) October 28, 2022
More: https://t.co/cBy3od7Iv1 pic.twitter.com/y53AFbCF4y
The organization did not provide any details or the cause of her death.
Goslar was born in 1928, and her family fled Nazi Germany five years later, according to The Guardian. She met Frank in the Netherlands at school when their families lived in Amsterdam.
Frank described Pick-Goslar in her diary as one of her best friends, The Jerusalem Post reported.
The two friends lost touch in 1942 when the Frank family went into hiding. Goslar-Pick and her family were arrested by the Gestapo the following year and in 1944 were deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, according to the AP.
In her diary, Frank called the Goslar household “really a sight,” adding that after going into hiding, she saw her friend in her dreams.
“Hanneli, you’re a reminder of what my fate could have been,” Frank wrote. “I hope that you live to the end of the war and return to us.”
We are very sad to hear of the death of Hannah Pick-Goslar.
— Anne Frank Trust (@AnneFrankTrust) October 29, 2022
Referred to as 'Hanneli' in the diary, she was one of Anne Frank's best friends and one of the last people to see Anne alive in Bergen-Belsen in 1945. pic.twitter.com/a3ZcbbgHuy
The two girls met again briefly in February 1945, at Bergen-Belsen, shortly before Anne died there of typhus, according to the AP.
After the war, Pick-Goslar was released from the concentration camp, the Post reported. According to Rosemary Sullivan’s 2022 book, “The Betrayal of Anne Frank,” Otto Frank, the father of the diarist, took Pick-Goslar and her younger sister “under his wing,” arranging for the necessary papers for the sisters to travel to Switzerland to live with an uncle.
“He became my father from there on,” Pick-Goslar said, according to Willy Lindwer’s 2004 book, “The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank.”
After resting in Switzerland, Pick-Goslar moved to Israel in 1947, when she enrolled to become a nurse at Jerusalem’s Bikur Holim hospital, according to the Post.
Goslar married Pinchas Walter Pick, one of the founders of Israeli intelligence who later worked as a military historian, the newspaper reported.
Pick-Goslar recalled her friendship with Frank in “Memories of Anne Frank; Reflections of a Childhood Friend,” by Allison Leslie Gold. The book spawned a 2021 film, “My Best Friend Anne Frank,” according to the AP.
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