Holocaust survivor and childhood friend of Anne Frank – Jacqueline van Maarsen – dies at 96

Jacqueline van Maarsen, a childhood friend and classmate of Anne Frank, passed away on Feb. 13 at the age of 96, the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam announced.

“Jacqueline was a classmate of Anne Frank at the Jewish Lyceum and shared her memories of their friendship throughout her life,” read the statement.

“In her books and during school visits, Jacqueline spoke not only about her friendship with Anne but also about the dangers of antisemitism and racism, and where they can lead.”

Van Maarsen and Frank reportedly promised to write goodbye letters to each other if they were ever separated during the Nazi persecution. When Frank’s family went into hiding in Amsterdam, she wrote a farewell letter to van Maarsen in her now-famous diary, stressing that “until we see each other again, we will always remain ‘best’ friends.”

Unlike Frank, who was murdered by the Nazis, van Maarsen survived the Holocaust.

Van Maarsen's survival was likely due to her official classification as non-Jewish, as her mother was raised Christian and only later converted to Judaism. In contrast, most of her father’s Jewish relatives were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators in the Netherlands.

After World War II, van Maarsen became a prominent bookbinder and wrote several books about her childhood friend including the acclaimed book, “My Name is Anne, She Said, Anne Frank.”

In 2020, van Maarsen laid the first stone of a Holocaust monument in Amsterdam. In 2024, she donated a book containing poetry from her youth, including a poem composed by Frank.

Frank, who was born in Germany and later moved with her family to the Netherlands, became an iconic symbol of Jewish children who were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. She died at age 15 in the Nazi concentration camp, Bergen Belsen, in 1945.

Anne Frank’s diary eventually became famous worldwide, serving as a warning of the consequences of genocidal antisemitism.

However, in recent years, anti-Israel activists have twisted the memory of Frank by falsely presenting the Jewish state as the new “Nazis” and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip as a new “Warsaw Ghetto.”

In May 2023, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an institution dedicated to combating antisemitism worldwide, condemned the vocal anti-Israel artist Roger Waters for performing in an SS uniform and “desecrating the memory of Anne Frank” and other Jewish victims of the Holocaust.