Auschwitz survivor and Anne Frank's stepsister Eva Schloss dies at 96

Auschwitz survivor and Anne Frank's stepsister Eva Schloss has died aged 96, as King Charles pays tribute to a 'courageous' and 'resilient' woman. 

Eva Schloss-Geiringer passed away peacefully in London on January 3, 2026, the Anne Frank House has confirmed. 

Her death marks the loss of one of the last powerful eyewitnesses to the Nazi death camps and a tireless campaigner against racism, intolerance and hatred.

Writing on social media King Charles said: 'My wife and I are greatly saddened to hear of the death of Eva Schloss. 

'The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding and resilience through her tireless work for the Anne Frank Trust UK and for Holocaust education across the world. 

'We are both privileged and proud to have known her and we admired her deeply. May her memory be a blessing to us all.' 

As a child, Eva lived just yards from Anne Frank on Merwedeplein in Amsterdam. The two girls played together on the square, unaware their lives would later become tragically intertwined. 

Like Anne, Eva was forced into hiding with her family to escape Nazi persecution.

Born in Vienna on 11 May, 1929, Eva fled Austria after Hitler's regime annexed the country in 1938, placing Jews in immediate danger. 

She arrived in Amsterdam in 1940 with her parents and brother Heinz, settling opposite the Frank family home.

In 1942, after her brother received a summons 'to work in Germany', the Geiringer family went into hiding. They remained concealed for two years before being betrayed by a Dutch nurse who collaborated with the Nazis.

On 11 May, 1944, Eva's 15th birthday, she and her family were arrested and deported to Auschwitz. Eva and her mother survived the camp's brutal conditions, but her father Erich and brother Heinz were murdered.

After Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet forces in January 1945, Eva returned to the Netherlands, where she met Otto Frank, Anne's father and the only member of his immediate family to survive. 

Otto would later become Eva's stepfather, marrying her mother Elfriede in 1953, and encouraging Eva to pursue photography - a path that led her to London and a new life.

For more than four decades, Eva remained silent about her experiences. She later explained why she chose to speak out: 'I talked about this for the first time in 1988, when the exhibition dedicated to Anne Frank came to London. 

'I was far from politics, but I realised that the world had not learned any lessons from the events of 1939 to 1945, that wars continued, that persecution, racism, intolerance still existed. And then I began to share my experience, to call for changes in the world.'

From that moment on, Eva devoted herself to education, speaking in schools, universities and prisons across the globe, often alongside the Anne Frank Trust UK. 

She recorded her testimony for the USC Shoah Foundation and the Anne Frank House to ensure her story would endure.

Her achievements were widely recognised. Eva was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Northumbria, appointed a Knight of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, and had her Austrian citizenship restored in 2021 as a gesture of reconciliation.

She also honoured a promise made to her father and brother during their transport to Auschwitz to save their artwork. Decades later, Eva recovered and donated Heinz's paintings to the Dutch Resistance Museum in Amsterdam.

Eva continued to support the Anne Frank House throughout her life. In 2017, aged 88, she returned to her childhood home to speak to schoolchildren, even showing them the tattooed number on her arm.

Eva Schloss died nine years after her husband Zvi. She is survived by her daughters, grandchildren and extended family.