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‘My Friend Anne Frank’ tells the incredible story of how Anne’s best friend survived the Holocaust
(JTA) — One spring morning in 1934, two little girls followed their mothers to a corner grocery store in Amsterdam. The mothers, hearing each other speak German to their daughters, discovered they were both Jewish refugees who had recently fled Nazi Germany. The two girls peeked shyly at each other from behind their mothers’ skirts, one of them slight with dark, glossy hair, the other taller and fairer.
Those two girls were Anne Frank and Hannah Pick-Goslar. One was to become the most famous victim of the Holocaust, whose diary documented two years in hiding before the Nazis found her family and she perished at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at age 15. The other narrowly survived and made her way to pre-state Israel, eventually enjoying a new life that grew to include three children, 11 grandchildren and 33 great-grandchildren.
The day after their grocery store encounter, the girls recognized each other at the Sixth Montessori School in Amsterdam and became instant best friends. They could not predict that their final encounter would come 11 years later, against all odds, at Bergen-Belsen.
Pick-Goslar spent decades telling her story through interviews and lectures, but her recollections have only just been published for the first time in a memoir, “My Friend Anne Frank,” written with the help of journalist Dina Kraft. She did not live to see its publication on June 6: Pick-Goslar died in October, six months into writing the book and two weeks short of her 94th birthday, leaving Kraft to finish her account.
Kraft spoke with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the life of Pick-Goslar, who lived out the future stolen from her dear friend.
The conversation with Kraft, a onetime JTA reporter, has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
JTA: What was it like to tell Pick-Goslar’s story together with her?
Kraft: It was a remarkable experience being able to work with her. We had these very intense interviews where I was asking her to really dig back into her memory. A lot of Holocaust survivors, a lot of survivors of trauma, tend to tell their story — not on autopilot, exactly — but they have a script. It’s perfectly understandable, it’s a tool of self-preservation.
So I was asking her to dive deeper and look more intensely within, and that was not always easy. There were times we would finish the interview after a couple of hours and she would say, “I’m just exhausted, I need to lie down.” And I would say, “Me too,” because it was just exhausting — we were recounting very hard moments.
It got to the point where she would come in the morning and say, “I’m having bad dreams again,” and I would say, “Yeah, me too, I’m having bad dreams also.” Because it was so much of trying to step into her shoes and step into her mindset, and also reading very intensely — it was very much a research project too.
How did Pick-Goslar remember her childhood and friendship with Frank before the war?
She remembers life before the war as incredibly warm and loving. They were wrapped up in a supportive familial environment. Although both she and Anne were refugees from Germany, they came over very young — Anne was 4 and Hannah was 5.
Their parents had a hard time adapting, especially the mothers. Hannah’s mother was born and bred in Berlin, very much a creature of German culture. Her father was a high-ranking official in the Weimar government, so they lived very close to the Reichstag. On top of being horrified that they had just been kicked out of this country they viewed as home, Hannah’s family went back 1,000 years in Germany. So they were heartbroken about their country taking this terrible turn into darkness.
But for Hannah and Anne, it was a very nice life.
What kind of person was Frank, according to her friend?
She was very spunky. She had lots to say and she exhausted the adults around her. She was always challenging them, asking difficult questions, prodding, restless and impatient. The girls loved to play Monopoly, but Anne would get restless and walk off, which is frustrating for a friend! They would push back furniture in the house and do gymnastics together. Later on, when the Germans invaded and they only had other Jewish girlfriends to play with, they formed a club to play ping pong and go for ice cream.
Anne was such a know-it-all that Hannah’s mother had a phrase about her. She said, “God knows all, but Anne Frank knows better!”
But Hannah really saw her as a regular kid — she was just her friend, Anne Frank. She was not an icon of any kind, and she seemed more ordinary than she seemed extraordinary.
In July 1942, Pick-Goslar found her friend’s apartment empty. Like everyone else, she was told that the Franks escaped to Switzerland — not knowing they had actually gone into hiding nearby. What happened to Pick-Goslar while Frank went into hiding?
Hannah was deported a year after Anne went into hiding. In that year, she went back to school. The anti-Jewish laws meant that you couldn’t sit on benches, go to swimming pools, be on a tram, ride your bicycle — and you couldn’t go to school with non-Jewish children.
So Hannah and Anne were both fortunate to be accepted to the Jewish Lyceum, considered one of the more prestigious Jewish schools in Amsterdam under German occupation. But in the fall of 1942, the deportations had already begun. So every day there was a different student and friend missing from class, and different teachers and administrators missing. They never knew whether it was because somebody went into hiding or because they had been deported.
Another thing happened at this time. In October, when Hannah was 14 years old, her mother Ruth was pregnant. She was determined not to go to a hospital because there were rumors of people being deported directly from hospitals, so she gave birth at home with a Jewish doctor and Jewish midwife. The baby ended up being stillborn and Hannah’s mother died the next day.
As more and more Jews were deported, Hannah was protected for a while. Her family secured a pair of South American passports, and they were also on the so-called “Palestine list.” The idea was that eventually they would be part of a prisoner swap between the British and the Germans — German soldiers for “exchange Jews” who would be sent to Palestine, which was under the British mandate.
Pick-Goslar survived to have three children, 11 grandchildren and 33 great-grandchildren. (Eric Sultan/The Lonka Project)
So for a while, Pick-Goslar’s family believed they might be spared. How did she end up at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany?
By the end, the Germans rounded up all the remaining Jews from Amsterdam, including those who had special stamps in their passports. By June 1943, Hannah’s family was in one of the final roundups of Jews in Amsterdam.
First they went to Westerbork, a transit camp in Holland on the border with Germany. It was basically a holding purgatory, and from there people were deported either to Auschwitz or Sobibor — in which they were almost certainly killed — or if they were luckier, to Theresienstadt or Bergen-Belsen, which were concentration camps but not death camps. Eventually, after several months in Westerbork, Hannah’s family was deported to Bergen-Belsen.
It was bearable in the first few months and they were still fed, though not much. But by February of 1945, the Russians were approaching in the east and the Germans were trying to move people from outer concentration camps into Germany. So Bergen-Belsen swelled to many times its size and became incredibly overcrowded. There was less and less food and water, and typhus started raging through the camp.
How did Pick-Goslar and Frank find each other again at Bergen-Belsen?
Around this time, a tent camp was erected across from Hannah’s part of the camp. People saw other women speaking different languages — Hungarian, Polish, Greek, and eventually Dutch as well. They were emaciated and skeletal.
The Germans forbade going out to talk at the fence and filled it with straw, so that people wouldn’t see each other anymore. But the women found a way to communicate, and word got to Hannah that Anne Frank was on the other side of the fence. Of course, she didn’t believe it, because the Frank family had left the impression that they were in Switzerland. But she decided to go find out for herself, even though it was extremely dangerous — you’d be shot if you went to the fence.
She crept up quietly and said, “Hallo, anybody there?” Then she heard a voice from across the fence, and by chance it was Auguste van Pels, one of the people who was in hiding with Anne’s family. She said almost casually, “Oh, you must be here for Anne,” and she brought Anne from the tent.
What were their last memories together?
Anne was coming from Auschwitz, so she was a broken shadow of her former self. She was freezing, starving and wailing that she was all alone in the world. She assumed that both of her parents were dead at this point. She didn’t know that just a week or two before, her father had been liberated from Auschwitz.
Imagine two girls on opposite sides of this fence — two very loved, coddled girls, who did not know deprivation, but now were completely in the throes of the worst days of the war, completely dehumanized and mistreated. There they were on opposite sides of this fence, best friends, sobbing.
Anne begged Hannah to bring her some food and Hannah said yes immediately, without knowing how she would get it. She said that she would come back in a couple of nights. And there was this amazing moment of female solidarity: The women in her barrack were so moved by the story of this reunion, they wanted to help — so from under a pillow here, hidden in a suitcase there, they gathered the little they had to give and put everything into a sock.
Out went Hannah again, a night or two later, to the fence. When she threw the sock over, she suddenly heard footsteps and then a scream — Anne had just lost the package to a fellow prisoner who took it out of her hands. She was distraught and couldn’t stop crying, but Hannah said, “Just stop crying, I’ll come back again with food.”
So she went back a few days later again with more food collected from her barrack. This time they triangulated better and Anne caught the package. That turned out to be the last time they ever met.
How did Hannah remember the end of the war?
At the very end of the war, the Germans forced everybody who could still walk at Bergen-Belsen onto a couple of different trains. These trains were meant to go to Theresienstadt, where they would be killed.
Hannah was put on a train with her little sister Gabi, whom she was trying to keep alive. It was a harrowing 13-day ride throughout the eastern German countryside. The people were very sick and starving, with no food or water for the journey. There was one especially awful moment when the man next to Hannah tried to spill his bowl of diarrhea outside the door of the train, but instead it splashed all over her.
She was so ill with typhus that she eventually passed out around day 13. When she woke up, people were already off the train. She asked what was going on, and someone said, “Don’t you know? We were liberated by the Russians.”
What did Pick-Goslar make of the tremendous legacy left by Frank’s diary? Did she feel that her friend was correctly understood?
For her, reading the diary was a revelation. She felt like she was sort of reunited with this old friend, which was a very powerful feeling, but also very sad. She saw a girl developing into a young woman whom she would still like to know. She was very grateful that Anne’s diary had been recovered, that so many people got to know her story, and that her diary became a gateway to learning more about the Holocaust.
I think she was a little upset by the sanitized version of Anne Frank. She spoke often about the famous passage in her diary, which is repeated and painted on walls and put on postcards: “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.” Hannah said that if Anne had survived the hell of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, she did not think she would stand by that statement anymore. I think she was concerned about some level of oversimplification.
She was very gratified that Anne’s voice never died and still lives on through her words, but she also wanted people to have a richer and more contextual understanding of the slaughter of millions of people that was the Holocaust.
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Progress Without Power: The Limits of the Lebanon Ceasefire
Smoke rises following explosions in southern Lebanon, near the Israel-Lebanon border, as seen from northern Israel, April 27, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Shir Torem
Last month’s announcement by President Donald Trump of a temporary extension to the Lebanon–Israel ceasefire, amidst ambassador-level Israeli-Lebanese talks in Washington, was greeted, in some quarters, with cautious optimism.
This is understandable.
Lebanon and Israel have been in a technical state of war for decades, with even basic engagement once unthinkable.
What’s more, rhetoric emerging from the Lebanese government of President Joseph Aoun — including unprecedented criticisms of Hezbollah, the heavily armed Iranian terrorist proxy which has dominated Lebanon for decades — provides even more reasons for optimism.
But that optimism collided almost immediately with reality. Soon after the extension was announced, Israeli troops came under attack from a Hezbollah drone strike, leaving six wounded and 19-year-old Sgt. Idan Fooks dead — the third Israeli soldier killed since the ceasefire began in early April.
Israel responded, as it was entitled to under the terms of the ceasefire agreement, with targeted strikes on Hezbollah positions and infrastructure. Retaliatory attacks have since continued.
These events expose the limits of the ceasefire.
The intentions may be honorable, and hopes may be real. But hope is not a strategy. And the situation in Lebanon is such that any positive hopes for an end to the violence cannot be fulfilled while an armed Hezbollah remains a decisive power in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has long operated as a state within a state — exercising power far beyond Lebanon’s elected government. Any agreement struck with Beirut is therefore inherently constrained, because the Lebanese government does not control much of its own territory, and does not currently have the ability to make Hezbollah stop firing at Israel, much less disarm. Indeed, Hezbollah openly says it will not be bound by any deal the Lebanese government makes with Israel.
This reality was laid bare in March, when Lebanon expelled the Iranian ambassador — only for him to simply refuse to leave.
To its credit, for the first time in years, Lebanon has shown signs of recognizing the problem, and trying to actually do something about it. For example, Lebanon has moved to end Hezbollah’s control over Beirut’s airport, taken steps against unauthorized weapons, and President Joseph Aoun has even accused Hezbollah of treason.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces continue to uncover Hezbollah weapons stockpiles — including in children’s rooms and underground bunkers within populated areas in southern Lebanon, which the Lebanese army claimed to have cleared of Hezbollah military bases and activity last year. All of this is in direct violation of the 2006 United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which calls for Hezbollah’s disarmament, as well as the ceasefire agreement that ended the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2024, in which Beirut promised to finally fulfill its obligation under 1701.
This is why the current ceasefire does not fully address the real sources of violence and instability, even as too many in the international community continue to confuse ceasefires with peace.
Reports indicate that Hamas is using the ceasefire in Gaza to rebuild capabilities and consolidate control there. Hezbollah has followed a similar pattern. So even if periods of calm emerge, they are unlikely to last long.
There is no question that Iran and its proxies have been weakened by the last two and a half years of war. But ideological regimes do not measure success in conventional terms. They do not concede defeat. And they do not abandon their objectives.
This is why the persistent focus by parts of the international community on ceasefires and “de-escalation” — with the demands directed mainly at Israel — risks overlooking the central challenge.
French President Emmanuel Macron continues to push for de-escalation, urging Israel to withdraw from Lebanese territory and calling for Hezbollah to cease its attacks. He also says Hezbollah must ultimately be disarmed by the Lebanese themselves.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong echoes similar concerns, condemning Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel and calling for an immediate cessation. At the same time, she has condemned in the “strongest terms” Israeli strikes on Lebanon, without fully acknowledging that they have been targeted against Hezbollah infrastructure and operatives. She mentions in passing that Hezbollah should be disarmed.
Yet both leaders failed to address just how Hezbollah can be disarmed — which is the central question. Statements that Hezbollah “should” be disarmed are nothing but empty words.
When dealing with absolutist religious ideologies, diplomacy is not necessarily a strength. It can become a vulnerability — exploited by those who understand that the Western aversion to conflict can itself be weaponized.
The Israel-Lebanon talks are signs of progress. But progress without power is terribly fragile. And as long as Hezbollah remains armed and entrenched, hope is a dangerous strategy.
Justin Amler is a policy analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).
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Israel Must Stop Handing Victories to Its Critics
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem, May 29, 2019. Photo: Reuters / Ronen Zvulun.
Are some of Israel’s own decisions undermining its future?
No one who cares about Israel wants to ask that question. No one who understands Jewish history, regional reality, or the relentless threats Israel faces wants to even entertain it. Yet concern is growing among many who support Israel deeply and sincerely. They are not questioning Israel’s right to exist — but they are questioning if Israel’s actions are harming the Jewish State in the long run.
Let me be clear from the start: Israel has every right to exist. Israel has every right to defend its citizens. Israel has every right to confront terrorism and prevent those who openly seek its destruction from succeeding. In a region where genocidal rhetoric is still common, self defense is not optional. It is essential.
But rights alone do not guarantee wisdom. A nation can be morally justified and strategically misguided at the same time.
Recent events surrounding attempts to breach the Gaza maritime blockade offer a telling example. Many of the activists involved are not neutral humanitarians. Some seek spectacle more than solutions. They understand that confrontation with Israel generates headlines and outrage, and that images travel quickly across the world. Provocation is often the point.
Yet Israel too often responds in ways that hand these provocateurs exactly what they want.
Stopping a vessel at sea may secure an immediate tactical objective. But if the result is another cycle of global accusations, another flood of hostile coverage, and another round of diplomatic damage, then a narrow operational success becomes a strategic failure.
Israel frequently wins the immediate encounter while losing the larger narrative.
That problem extends well beyond maritime incidents.
Many people around the world defend Israel in increasingly hostile environments. Diaspora Jews face intimidation on campuses and in public life. Christian allies speak out despite social pressure. Non-Jewish advocates challenge lies, distortions, and double standards at personal cost. They write, donate, organize, and absorb abuse.
Too many feel taken for granted.
Allies matter. Gratitude matters. Communication matters. Nations under pressure cannot afford to neglect those who stand with them. Support should not be treated as automatic or endless. It must be nurtured.
Another issue that troubles even committed supporters is the use of administrative detention and other extraordinary emergency powers. Israel undeniably faces real security threats. Some dangers cannot be handled through ordinary methods alone. But emergency measures that become routine create a moral and political burden.
When people are held for long periods without normal judicial processes, Israel’s critics seize on every case. More importantly, genuine friends of Israel become uneasy. They ask whether a state founded as a refuge for a persecuted people is drifting from the democratic principles it was meant to embody.
There is also a message for ordinary citizens in Israel — especially those on the far right.
Israel is judged by a harsher standard than most nations. That reality is unfair, often hypocritical, and sometimes openly antisemitic. But it is reality nonetheless. Every act of racist violence, every attack on innocent civilians, every mosque vandalized, every tree burned, every mob chanting hatred, every soldier filmed humiliating noncombatants without cause becomes a global symbol.
One reckless act by one person can damage an entire nation.
Israel does not have the luxury of indiscipline. It is not a quiet country insulated by geography and history. It carries the security of millions of Jews. It carries the memory of exile and extermination. It carries the burden of proving that Jewish sovereignty can be both strong and just.
That requires more than military power. It requires discipline, humility, gratitude, legal integrity, and strategic patience.
Israel’s enemies would love nothing more than to see the Jewish State become isolated, angry, careless, and morally confused. Their greatest victory would not come on the battlefield. It would come if Israel helped destroy its own legitimacy.
The answer, then, is not despair. It is course correction.
Think carefully before reacting. Think strategically before escalating. Think morally before normalizing emergency measures. Think politically before alienating allies.
Israel was built through courage, sacrifice, and vision. It should not be weakened by avoidable mistakes.
The gravest danger to Israel may not come only from those who seek to destroy it from without. It may also come from forgetting how to preserve itself from within.
Sabine Sterk is the CEO of Time To Stand Up For Israel.
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BDS, Pro-Terror, and Anti-Israel Activism Are Still Happening at US Colleges and Universities
A pro-BDS demonstration. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Universities remain under pressure from market forces as well as the Trump administration regarding DEI, antisemitism, and funding. Polls also indicate that public trust in higher education continues to decline. The continued closure of smaller institutions such as Hampshire College and the elimination of courses and majors deemed unproductive point to the continuing consolidation of the higher education industrial complex across the US.
Foreign student enrollment has been reduced by US scrutiny of visa applicants, and the administration has proposed steep cuts to US research funding. A new report on academia’s narrowing donor base, where some 2% of donors provided 89% of the $78 billion given in FY 2024-2025, suggests another crisis. Despite these crises, analytical and anecdotal evidence indicate that universities have retained most DEI programs and staff under different labels.
Surprisingly, a report by Yale University faculty attributed plummeting public trust in higher education to institutions themselves, citing rising costs and lowering standards. Harvard president Alan Garber obliquely expanded this critique by noting the combination of student ignorance and arrogance regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Another tacit recognition that protests have damaged both campus safety and public image may be continuing restrictions on student commencement speakers, some of whom particularly in New York City area universities have excoriated Israel and the universities themselves since October 7th.
Amidst these structural changes Jewish students have continued to migrate to southern and southwestern institutions such as Vanderbilt and Clemson which are regarded as safer and more supportive. Active campaigns aimed at Jewish students by other institutions such as American University have touted safety.
Recent studies have suggested that institutions such as Yale and Harvard have deliberately reduced their Jewish populations to post- World War II quota levels as a function of both embracing DEI and globalization. As colleges seek to increase more Arabic and Muslim enrollment, it is undeniably clear that anti-Jewish sentiment has increased on campus. It’s fair to ask questions about whether there is a direct correlation — but critics try to stifle any attempt at an actual conversation or debate with charges of anti-Muslim prejudice.
Finally, reports indicate that the Qatar Foundation has hired two Washington, D.C. public relations firms to provide crisis communications regarding that country’s massive funding to American universities. The move came after a US House committee released emails it had subpoenaed from Northwestern University showing foundation executives consulting university officials regarding PR issues that arose immediately after October 7th.
Faculty misrepresentation of Middle Eastern affairs on campus — and in the press — continues to be a major problem. This was exemplified by an op-ed in The New York Times authored by University of California Berkeley faculty member Ussama Makdisi, in which he attacked Israel over its policy in Lebanon. Makdisi has a long record of troubling anti-Israel hatred. Makdissi’s appointment as the chair of a newly established program in “Palestinian and Arab Studies” at Berkeley institutionalizes and further legitimizes Palestinian grievance and antisemitism.
In a sign of European academic attitudes towards Israel, three Belgian universities conveyed honorary degrees on the deeply antisemitic and relentlessly hostile to Israel United Nations Special Rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, who remains under US sanctions.
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters and their allies continue to disrupt pro-Israel events across the country, including at Ohio State, the University of Connecticut, SUNY Buffalo, Florida State, the University of Minnesota, the University of Oregon, Stanford University, Rutgers University, and the University of Washington. SJP protestors also disrupted a trustees meeting at Bryn Mawr College. A pro-Hamas encampment was also created at Occidental College.
BDS resolutions and referendums continue to be considered by student governments. At Ohio University, a divestment referendum approved by the student government in March was overwhelmingly approved by students. Similar resolutions were passed at Colorado State, the University of Wisconsin, and San Diego State University. New divestment campaigns have also been launched at Rutgers University and other schools.
Student groups continue to showcase actual Palestinian terrorists in events. In one recent case the Berkeley SJP featured Israa Jabaris, convicted of attempting a car bombing outside Jerusalem in 2015. She was released from prison in exchange for Israeli hostages held in Gaza. Jabaris thanked students for their “solidarity.”
In another case at the University of Washington, Students United for Palestinian Equality & Return at UW (SUPER UW) co-hosted a fundraiser to support the “Lebanese resistance.” The university banned the group after a building takeover which caused several million dollars in damage. Reports now indicate the group is under investigation by the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice.
Support for those with terror ties was also expressed by the Georgetown SJP chapter, which held a letter writing campaign for “Palestinian prisoners” including those convicted in the Holy Land Foundation case and other “comrades caged by the US empire” including several convicted of arson and assault.
Student governments also remain in the lead in limiting other Jewish and Israeli events. The appearance of former Gaza hostage Omer Shem Tov at UCLA was condemned by the student government as the “selective platforming of narratives that obscure the broader reality of state violence” which shows a “troubling disregard for Palestinian life and contributes to a campus climate in which Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students are further marginalized, silenced, and harmed.” The university condemned the statement as did trustee Jay Sures who stated he was “disgusted and appalled” by the decision. Conversely, the student government at Stanford awarded the Muslim Student Union $175,000, more than all Christian groups combined or the marching band.
Finally, the role of teachers unions as key drivers of left wing politics inside and outside of classrooms was highlighted by a report that noted that since 2015 unions have contributed more that $1 billion to political activism and advocacy. Causes include “human rights” — which often means anti-Israel activism.
In a convenient illustration of teachers union attitudes towards Israel, New York City delegates of the United Federation of Teachers approved a resolution condemning Israel and demanding a US arms embargo. The measure will be voted on by members in May.
Alex Joffe is the Editor of SPME’s BDS Monitor and director of Strategic Affairs for the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA). A completely different version of this article was originally published by SPME.