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Hannah Pick-Goslar

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Hannah Pick-Goslar
Born
Hanna Elisabeth Goslar

(1928-11-12)12 November 1928
Tiergarten, Berlin, Brandenburg, Prussia, Germany
Died28 October 2022(2022-10-28) (aged 93)
Jerusalem, Israel
Other namesHanneli
Education
OccupationNurse
Known forfriendship with Anne Frank
SpouseWalter Pinchas Pick
Children3
RelativesSimon Rawidowicz (uncle-in-law)
Alfred Klee (maternal grandfather)

Hannah Elisabeth Pick-Goslar (born Hanna Elisabeth Goslar 12 November 1928 – 28 October 2022) was a German-born Israeli nurse and Holocaust survivor best known for her close friendship with writer Anne Frank. The girls attended the 6th Montessori School (named after Anne Frank in 1957) in Amsterdam and then the Jewish Lyceum. They met again at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Goslar and her young sister were the only family members who survived the War, being rescued from the Lost Train. Both emigrated to Israel, where Hannah worked as a nurse for children. They shared their memories as eye witnesses of the Holocaust.

Early life

Hanna Elisabeth Goslar was born in Berlin-Tiergarten, on 12 November 1928, the eldest child of Hans Goslar [de] and Ruth Judith Klee.[1][2] Her father was deputy minister for domestic affairs, and the ministry's chief of public relations (Leiter der Pressestelle) in Germany until 1933,[1] and her mother was a teacher. Both of her parents were observant Jews.[3]

In 1933, after the election of Hitler and the Nazi Party to the Reichstag and Hitler's appointment as Chancellor, Hans Goslar was forced to resign his governmental job.[3]: 12  After an abortive attempt to move to England, where he could not find work that would allow him to stay home on the Shabbat, the Goslars moved to Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 1933.[4][5]

The Goslar family lived close to the Frank family, and she met Anne when both girls went shopping for groceries with their mothers in 1934.[6] Both girls attended the 6th Montessori School and became best friends, Hanna being called Hanneli by Anne. Later, they attended the Amsterdam Jewish Lyceum [nl]. They were also close friends with Susanne "Sanne" Ledermann, who lived in the same area but attended a different school, and later with Ilse Wagner and Jacqueline van Maarsen.[7] "Hanneli" features prominently in Frank's Diary of a Young Girl, where Frank contemplates and dreams of her friend in captivity.[8] Hanna's sister Rachel Gabriele ("Gabi") was born in Amsterdam on 25 October 1940. Her mother died in 1942 giving birth to her third child; the baby also died.[1]

Arrest and concentration camp

In June 1943, Hanna, her father, her maternal grandparents, and her younger sister were arrested and sent to the Westerbork transit camp, where her grandparent died in November 1943 of a heart attack.[1] The family was taken to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp[1] in February 1944.[5] Hanna was in a privileged section of the camp because her family had Paraguayan passports with them.[6] Sometime between January and February 1945, she was briefly reunited with Anne Frank, who was a less privileged prisoner at the other side of the camp. After the war Hanna said she spoke to Mrs. Van Pels through the fence, finding out that Anne was on the other side. Hanna threw a package with some food over the barbed wire fence for Anne, but another prisoner caught it and didn't give it to Anne. Hanna came to the fence one more time a few days later with a package with some bread and socks in it over a hay-filled barbed wire fence dividing the two sections.[5] Hanna and Anne had three total meetings. The meeting at which Anne finally caught the package was the last time Hannah ever saw her.[6]

Hans Goslar died on 25 February 1945, his mother-in-law, Therese Klee, on 25 March 1945.[1] The girls survived fourteen months at Bergen-Belsen. They were rescued along with the other survivors of the Lost Train.[1] The sisters, sick and under-nourished, found temporary refuge in the home of the mayor of Schilda.[1]

Later life and death

Russian authorities allowed Americans to register Goslar and her sister at the end of June 1945, and they returned to Amsterdam. She was hospitalized until the end of September, and sent to Switzerland for recovery in a sanitarium in December. She then finished school in Basel. In May 1947, she received a certificate to go to Palestine, where she arrived on May 30. She lived there for the first three months in a home for children, working for half of the day, and learning Hebrew the other half, which was required to begin training to be a nurse. She began the training in Jerusalem to be a nurse for children in October,[6] and worked as a nurse at the Bikkur Holim Hospital.[4]

Goslar married Dr. Walter Pinchas Pick; the couple had three children and settled in Jerusalem.[5] She had eleven grandchildren and more than 31 great-grandchildren.[9] She returned to places in Germany, also with her sister,[1] and told students about her memories of the Holocaust.[6] She supported the German initiative Zeichen gegen Rassismus und Antisemitismus, planting a tree in memory of Anne and the Anne Frank tree in Uedelhoven in 2019.[10] She was an eye witness in the Zweitzeugen association.[11]

Pick-Goslar died at her home in Jerusalem, on 28 October 2022, at the age of 93.[9][12]

Legacy

Pick-Goslar was featured in several documentaries related to Anne Frank, first in the 1988 Emmy Award winning documentary by Willy Lindwer The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank, the 1995 documentary Anne Frank Remembered and the 2008 documentary Classmates of Anne Frank.[13][better source needed] The 1997 book Memories of Anne Frank: Reflections of a Childhood Friend,[14] by Holocaust author Alison Leslie Gold, is based upon extensive interviews with Hannah. The 2009 television film Mi Ricordo Anna Frank is based on this book.[15]

A fictionalized account of Pick-Goslar's life and close friendship with Anne Frank, titled My Best Friend Anne Frank, was released in 2021.[9]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Kramer, Heide (November 2015). "Die Opfer vom Verlorenen Zug in Tröbitz/Brandenburg". www.hagalil.com. Retrieved 23 December 2021.
  2. ^ Gold, Alison Leslie (1998). Hannah Goslar Remembers: A Childhood Friend of Anne Frank. Bloomsbury. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-7475-4026-7.
  3. ^ a b Lindwer, Willy (1 July 1992). The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 12. ISBN 978-0-385-42360-1.
  4. ^ a b ""That's What I Hope": The Story of Holocaust Survivor Hannah Pick". Yad Vashem. 2022. Retrieved 29 October 2022.
  5. ^ a b c d Smith, Mark (16 October 2021). "My friend Anne Frank: 'She was ebullient, precocious, boy-crazy'". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 6 February 2022.
  6. ^ a b c d e "Interview with Hanneli Pick-Goslar". teacher.scholastic.com. May 1999. Retrieved 29 October 2022.
  7. ^ Frank, Anne (1995). The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition. Doubleday. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-385-47378-1.
  8. ^ Apsel, Joyce (27 September 2005). "Guilt of survival begins to take toll". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
  9. ^ a b c "Holocaust survivor Hanna Pick-Goslar passes away at 93". The Jerusalem Post. 28 October 2022. Retrieved 28 October 2022.
  10. ^ "Anne Frank Baum Uedelhoven – Hannah" (in German). Retrieved 29 October 2022.
  11. ^ "Anne Frank Baum Uedelhoven – Hannah" (in German). Heimatsucher. 6 January 2015. Archived from the original on 8 April 2020. Retrieved 29 October 2022.
  12. ^ "Anne Franks beste Freundin Hannah Pick-Goslar gestorben". Tagesschau (in German). 29 October 2022. Retrieved 29 October 2022.
  13. ^ "Classmates of Anne Frank (2008)". IMDb.
  14. ^ Gold, Alison Leslie (1997). Memories of Anne Frank: Reflections of a Childhood Friend. Scholastic. ISBN 978-0-590-90722-4.
  15. ^ "Memories of Anne Frank". jewisheye.org.il. Archived from the original on 14 March 2012. Retrieved 15 June 2011.
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