Author of My Friend Anne Frank dies aged 93

The author of My Friend Anne Frank, Hannah Pick-Goslar, died in Jerusalem on 28th October two weeks short of her 94th birthday.

Ebury publisher Andrew Goodfellow acquired world rights to Pick-Goslar’s “profound and moving” memoir directly from the author and her family in April this year.

Pick-Goslar finished the telling of her memoir shortly before she passed away. Ghost-written by journalist Dina Kraft, it will be published on Anne Frank’s birthday in June 2023.

Kraft said: “I vividly remember feeling bereft after finishing reading Anne Frank’s diary when I was a girl. The loss felt real, as if I had lost a friend. And now I have had the profound privilege of helping tell the story of Hannah, one of Anne’s closest friends, which is, in part, the story Anne did not survive to tell. In the process I found a new friend in Hannah, who I now miss and mourn.

“Yet I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to interview and work with her at what turns out to have been, just in time. Her loss is a stark reminder we are losing Holocaust survivors every day, making the task of preserving their stories ever more urgent. As I stood by her freshly dug grave Saturday night, after hundreds had come to pay their respects to this remarkable woman, I searched for a stone to press on it, per the Jewish custom of remembrance. Instead of one, I placed three stones, one for myself, one for her parents, and the other for Anne and her other friends.

“This book will tell of the dehumanisation and terror of life in a concentration camp and where Hannah, her parents now dead, found the strength to keep herself and her little sister alive and then, at 16 years old, after bearing witness to the unimaginable, to forge an entirely new life.

“Our heartfelt condolences go out to Hannah’s large and deeply loving family who laid her to rest at the Mount of Olives. Describing her beloved three children, 11 grandchildren and 31 great-grandchildren, as Hannah would say, ‘This is my answer to Hitler.’”

The late Pick-Goslar said earlier this year, speaking of the book: “At a time when the world is taking a dark turn and we see millions of innocent people on the move and under attack, alongside a rise of antisemitic hate crimes and Holocaust denial, I feel my personal story takes on new urgency.

“As a girl I witnessed the world I loved crumble and vanish, destroyed by senseless hatred, and with it, my best friend Anne Frank. Anne was able to tell part of her story. I hope my memoir will help illuminate what she, and so many other children like us, endured at the hands of the Nazis, only because we were Jewish. And for those of us who were lucky enough to have survived, I hope my story will shed light on how we rebuilt our lives.”

Goodfellow commented: “From Viktor Frankl to Edith Eger, we have a proud history of publishing books that keep alive the memory and truth of the Holocaust. It is just incredible that Hannah’s own history and the light it sheds on Anne Frank’s story has never been fully shared before. It’s an inspiring story we felt the world needed to hear and so we reached out to Hannah. We feel privileged that Hannah and her family entrusted us with that role.”