Chapter 26
By JOYCE APSEL
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 29, 2000
The following accounts are taken from The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank by Willy Lindwer (Anchor Books, 1988):
Hannah Pick Goslar and Anne Frank were 4 years old when they fled Germany in 1933 and their families were neighbors on the Merwedeplein in Amsterdam. They went through school together and were friends until the Frank family went into hiding in July 1942. Goslar remembers:
"When we went on vacation in the summer, we took Anne with us. Anne hung a photograph of our little vacation house above her bed, the same photograph as in her room in the Anne Frank House. Anne must have liked it very much, otherwise she wouldn't have chosen this picture to hang up. When we went to Zandvoort for a day in the summertime, we would ask Mrs. Frank if Anne and Margot could go with us. They were just like sisters -- my mother and Mrs. Frank."
The Goslars continued to live in Amsterdam a while longer. "In October, my mother died during childbirth. The baby was born dead. That was in Anne's diary. Someone told Anne that our baby had died, but not that my mother had died, too. They probably didn't have the heart to tell her."
Hannah Goslar, her father and sister eventually were rounded up and taken to the transit camp Westerbork, the same camp the Frank family would be taken to when their hiding place was uncovered. Goslar recounts that transports filled with Jews were constantly being sent to Auschwitz:
"I remember the terrible November night. ... Then the entire orphanage was emptied. I remember Rabbi Vorst, who took all those children and laid a large tallit (prayer shawl) over them and blessed them. Most of the teachers went because they wanted to stay with the children. That was awful. On the Friday afternoon after the train left, the only ones still there were me, my sister in the hospital, and two or three other children. All of the rest who had been on the lists disappeared.
"On Feb. 15, 1944, neither our Palestine papers nor our passports could help anymore. But the big difference for us was that we weren't sent to Auschwitz. If we had been sent to Auschwitz in 1943, I wouldn't be able to talk about it now. Because those people who were taken away in the beginning were almost all killed."
Anne Frank and Hannah Goslar did not see each other again until the winter of 1945. Hannah, her sister and father were sent from Westerbork to Bergen-Belsen; Anne and her family were sent to Auschwitz and then Mrs. Van Daan, Anne and Margot were transported to Bergen-Belsen. Anne and Hannah both were in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and despite the great danger of being caught, they spoke through the barbed wire fence separating them.
Hannah Goslar recalls: "Anne came to the barbed-wired fence -- I couldn't see her. The fence and the straw were between us. There wasn't much light. Maybe I saw her shadow. It wasn't the same Anne. She was a broken girl, I probably was too, but it was so terrible. She immediately began to cry, and she told me, "I don't have any parents anymore.'
"I always think, if Anne had known that her father was still alive, she might have had more strength to survive, because she died very shortly before the end -- only a few days before (liberation). But maybe, it was all predestined.
"So we stood there, two young girls, and we cried. I told her about my mother. She hadn't known that; she only knew that the baby had died. And I told her about my little sister. I told her that my father was in the hospital. He died two weeks later; he was already very sick. She told me that Margot was seriously ill and she told me about going into hiding because I was of course extremely curious.
"Then she said, "We don't have anything at all to eat here, almost nothing, and we are cold; we don't have any clothes and I've gotten very thin and they shaved my hair.' That was terrible for her. She had always been very proud of her hair. It may have grown back a bit in the meantime, but it certainly wasn't the long hair she'd had before, which she playfully curled around her fingers. It was much worse for them than for us. I said, "They didn't take away our clothes.' That was our first meeting."
Hannah Goslar recounts meeting again and throwing a small package over the fence and hearing screaming. " "Oh, the woman standing next to me caught it, and she won't give it back to me.' " Then Anne began to scream. Hannah recalled trying to calm Anne down and arranging to meet again; this time Anne was able to catch the small package.
"After these three or four meetings at the barbed wire fence at Bergen-Belsen, I didn't see her again, because the people in Anne's camp were transferred to another section in Bergen-Belsen. That happened around the end of February.
"That was the last time I saw Anne alive and spoke to her."
Hannah Goslar's father and grandmother died and she was left alone with her sister, Rachel. When Bergen-Belsen was evacuated toward the end of the war, the sisters were put on a transport probably headed for Theresienstadt. After about 10 terrible days of hunger and cold, Hannah Goslar describes waking up one morning and seeing the Germans with white flags in their hands. "We couldn't get over it. What had happened? The Russians had come, and the first thing they did was to seize the Germans. They didn't know exactly what to do with us, and it was probably a terrible sight -- all those Jews and sick people, thin as rails."
Eventually, Goslar was sent to a hospital in Maastricht and one day she had a surprise visitor:
"And who stood there, suddenly before me? Mr. Frank. And I was so so happy. I couldn't wait to tell him: "Your daughter is alive.' And I told him that, and he answered, "No.' He had already learned that she was no longer living, but I didn't know that.
"Mr. Frank had seen Hannah and her sister's name on a list; and he traveled to visit her -- six to eight hours -- and helped arrange for papers to go to Switzerland. I know the exact date: December fifth. I wear a necklace with a pendant: the queen is on one side and Mr. Frank had them engrave "December 5, 1945' on the other side. That was the day that he took me, my sister and a girlfriend and her sister to Switzerland. He himself took us on the plane. My uncle came from Geneva to Zurich to pick us up, and Mr. Frank went to visit his father."
Hannah Pick Goslar and her family had dreamed of going to Palestine before the war. After she recovered, Goslar immigrated to Israel, married and had a family. She continued to write to Otto Frank and in 1963, when he came to Israel for the first time, he visited her. She continued to keep in touch with him and his second wife, Fritzi.
Dr. Joyce Apsel lectures nationally on Anne Frank, genocide and human rights. She teaches at New York University. Please address questions or comments about this series to: Floridian, Anne Frank and Human Rights, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731, or e-mail Floridian@sptimes.com.
"Anne Frank: A History for Today," an international touring exhibit at the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg, 55 Fifth St. S. The exhibit, which traces Anne Frank's life and times through family photographs and diary passages as well as examines prejudice and violence today, is made available through the Anne Frank Center USA. Exhibit sponsors include the Eckerd Family Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Paul W. Martin, Jr., the Sembler Family and the state of Florida.