Netflix’s My Best Friend Anne Frank revisits the friendship between Anne Frank and Hannah Goslar. Frank and Goslar’s families escaped Germany at the start of Nazi rule and settled in the Netherlands. They built a strong friendship but were separated when Anne’s family moved to Switzerland.
Frank and Hannah reunited at the Bergen-Belsen exchange camp, though they were limited to addressing each other through a fence: Hannah lived on the more privileged side of the camp due to favorable passport papers. Goslar risked her life by throwing food to the other side for Anne.
Unfortunately, the friends never fully reunited: Anne passed away due to typhus in February 1945, weeks before allied soldiers liberated Bergen-Belsen.
Hannah Goslar is alive and well and lives in Jerusalem
Hannah Goslar, who’s currently 93 years old, is alive and well and lives in Jerusalem.
Goslar was very sick after her liberation from captivity. She told Scholastic that she went to hospital after arriving in Amsterdam in July 1945. Hannah learned that Anne Frank had passed away when she met her father, Otto Frank, at a hospital in Holland.
Hannah spent September 1945 at a hospital in Amsterdam. After recovering, Goslar moved to Basel to study and later to Palestine and Jerusalem. She told Scholastic:
“I was one year in Basel. In May 1947 my uncle got me a certificate to go to Palestine. I came to Palestine on May 30. For the first three months in Palestine, I was at a home for children. I was eighteen, so I worked half of the day. For the other half of the day I had Hebrew lessons, which I needed in order to be a nurse. In October 1947, I went to Jerusalem to be educated as a children’s nurse.”
Goslar opines that she became a nurse probably because one of her Christian friends sent her a package containing a book about Florence Nightingale. Hannah said: “She sent us little packages and put a book in it about the nurse Florence Nightingale. I often wonder if that’s why I decided to become a nurse.”
Goslar opines that we should learn from WWII to avoid making the same mistakes
History often repeats itself, but the Holocaust is one chapter in history that we shouldn’t allow to recur.
Hannah told Scholastic that people should educate themselves about the Holocaust to avoid making the mistakes that led to the catastrophic event. She said:
“People should know about the cruelty — it was unnecessary. It’s important to understand what happened so it doesn’t happen again. People need to understand that discrimination doesn’t lead to anything good.”
Goslar laments that Anne Frank died solely because she was born Jewish. “I always say that the only thing Anne Frank did was that she was born Jewish, and for that, she had to die,” Goslar added. ‘She could’ve given a lot to mankind.”