Elfriede Geiringer Frank (Fritzi;

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

Markovits; 13 February 1905 – 2 October 1998) was a

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

survivor of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and

the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

. She was the second wife of

Otto Frank Otto Heinrich Frank (12 May 1889 – 19 August 1980) was a German businessman, and the father of Anne Frank. He edited and published the first edition of her diary in 1947 (subsequently known in English as ''The Diary of a Young Girl'') and adv ...

, who was the father of

Anne Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female name Anna (name), Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah (given name), Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie (given name), Annie a ...

and

Margot Frank Margot Betti Frank (16 February 1926 – ) was the elder daughter of Otto Frank and Edith Frank and the elder sister of Anne Frank. Margot's deportation order from the Gestapo hastened the Frank family into hiding. According to the diary of her ...

Biography

Early life

Elfriede Markovits was born in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, Austria in 1905. She married Erich Geiringer and the couple had two children: son Heinz, born in 1926; and daughter Eva, born in 1929. The family fled first to Belgium and then to the Netherlands in 1938, where they settled down as neighbours to the Frank family. Eva and Anne knew each other.

Second World War

When the Germans invaded the Netherlands and Heinz received a call-up to a work-camp, the family went into hiding. They successfully hid for two years and might have survived the war if they had not been betrayed in May 1944. They were then captured by the Nazis and sent to

Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...

. They were liberated in January 1945 by the Soviets, but Erich and Heinz Geiringer had perished in the forced march to Mauthausen that came just before the war ended. Geiringer and her daughter Eva returned to Amsterdam on 13 June 1945. Otto Frank visited them at their apartment not long after.

Later life

Geiringer married Otto Frank in November 1953 and settled in

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. They spent a large part of their time educating people about the importance of

Anne Frank's diary ''The Diary of a Young Girl'', commonly referred to as ''The Diary of Anne Frank'', is a book of the writings from the Dutch-language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of t ...

and the horrors that the Jews experienced during the Holocaust. Their commitment led to the creation of the

Anne Frank House The Anne Frank House () is a writer's house and biographical museum dedicated to Judaism, Jewish wartime diarist Anne Frank. The building is located on a canal called the Prinsengracht, close to the Westerkerk, in Amsterdam-Centrum, central Amst ...

in Amsterdam.

Death and since

After living long enough to see the birth of five of her great-grandchildren, Elfriede Geiringer died peacefully in her sleep on 2 October 1998 at her home in London. She is buried along with the ashes of her second husband, Otto in Birsfelden's Cemetery. A memoir by her daughter Eva Schloss, concerning the family's life after the Holocaust, ''After Auschwitz: A Story of Heartbreak and Survival by the Stepsister of Anne Frank'', was published in 2013.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Geiringer, Elfriede 1905 births 1998 deaths Austrian emigrants to the United Kingdom Austrian Jews Auschwitz concentration camp survivors Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom Jewish concentration camp survivors Anne Frank