Holocaust Survivor Talks of Anne Frank

The last time Hannah Pick spoke with her friend Anne Frank, it was through a barbed-wire fence filled with hay to prevent seeing the other side.

That was in January 1945, a few months before Pick and the people interned with her in the German concentration camp Bergen-Belsen were liberated by Russian soldiers. It was also just a few months before Anne Frank would die in the camp before the liberation.

On Tuesday, as part of Holocaust Remembrance Week, Pick, a Holocaust survivor and childhood friend of Anne Frank, the young girl who wrote a now-famous diary while hiding from the Nazis in an attic apartment in Holland, shared her life story with the students of Emek Hebrew Academy.

“Anne was a spicy little girl,” recalled Pick in a German accent. “We were too little bad girls, maybe normal girls, trying to grow up and have fun together.”

Pick told how her family, the Gosslars, left Germany for Holland just as Adolf Hitler came to power.

She explained how her family became friendly with the Franks just as the Nazis were taking away the freedoms of Jews in German-occupied Holland.

“They took away our bicycles. They took away our jewelry. They took away anything that was fun,” Pick said to a room full of fourth- to eighth-graders.

“On park benches a sign said, ‘Not for dogs and Jews.’ ”

The talk was arranged by school librarian Sharon Blumenstein to ensure the children understand the realities of the Holocaust.

“The point is for you [the students] to hear firsthand witnesses so you know that the Holocaust isn’t exaggerated,” Blumenstein said. “And then you can become firsthand witnesses and educate others.”

As Pick told a tale of a young girl trying to survive while caring for her baby sister, the students were riveted.

“She was so strong,” said Anne Haber, 14. “She never gave up.”

Other students enjoyed the stories about the young Hannah and Anne before the trouble began, especially the one about the two girls mischievously splashing water from Anne’s father’s office window onto the heads of passersby on the street below.

“It was amazing to hear someone who knew Anne Frank,” said Renit Laviany, 14. “It makes her even more real.”