Jacqueline van Maarsen, a childhood friend of Anne Frank who dedicated much of her later life to Holocaust education, has passed away at the age of 96, the Anne Frank House announced.

Van Maarsen was a classmate of Anne Frank at the Jewish Lyceum in Amsterdam. Just days after receiving a diary for her 13th birthday in June 1942, Frank wrote that van Maarsen, a classmate she had recently met, had become her “best friend.” The two girls made a promise to write each other goodbye letters if they were ever separated. That moment came just weeks later when Frank and her family went into hiding in July 1942. In September, Frank wrote her farewell letter in her diary, expressing hope that they would always remain best friends “until we see each other again.”

That reunion never happened. Frank was arrested in 1944 and later died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945.

Van Maarsen, however, survived.

The daughter of a Jewish father and a Christian-born mother who had converted to Judaism, she and her sister were able to escape Nazi persecution after their mother successfully had them declared non-Jewish in 1942. While van Maarsen and her immediate family survived, most of her father’s relatives perished in the Holocaust.

After the war, van Maarsen built a successful career as a bookbinder and raised three children. In the 1980s, she began publicly sharing her memories of Frank and warning about the dangers of antisemitism and racism. She wrote multiple books about her friendship with Frank, including My Name is Anne, She Said, Anne Frank (2008).

Van Maarsen remained connected to Frank’s father, Otto, and continued her relationship with the Anne Frank House. In 2020, she played a symbolic role in Holocaust remembrance by laying the first stone of a Holocaust monument in Amsterdam. Last year, she donated a book of poetry from her youth to the Anne Frank House, which included a poem written by Frank herself.

The Anne Frank House, which preserves Frank’s legacy, honored van Maarsen’s lifelong dedication to Holocaust education.

“Jacqueline was a classmate of Anne Frank and shared her memories of their friendship throughout her life,” the institution said in a 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.”

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