Jacqueline Sanders-Van Maarsen, Anne Frank’s friend and classmate, cited by the Jewish girl in her famous ‘Diary’, died on Thursday 13 February at the age of 96. The home of Anne Frank in Amsterdam is news. Van Maarsen and Frank had met at the Dutch Jewish high school.
Van Maarsen was born on January 30, 1929 in Amsterdam to a Jewish father and French mother of Catholic faith. After the occupation of Holland by Nazi Germany, in 1941 he had to move from a public school to the Jewish high school bringing a yellow star to the coat. There he became Anne Frank’s friend. “I met Jacqueline Van Maarsen only in the Jewish high school and is now my best friend,” writes Anne Frank in his diary on June 15, 1942. On September 25, 1942, when Anne Frank was already hidden in the secret accommodation, he wrote in his ” Diary “An farewell letter never sent to Van Maarsen:” I hope that, when we see again, we will remain better friends. Finally, Van Maarsen’s mother managed to have the non -Jewish daughters and the whole family declare, including the father, survived the war. However, many relatives of the father were killed in the extermination camps. Anna Frank and her sister died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in the spring of 1945, probably of typhoid fever. Only after the end of the war, Jacqueline received the farewell letter that Anne had sent her signing “your best friend Anne”. He later worked as a bishop of books.
Van Maarsen wrote several books on his friendship with Anne Frank, including “Your best friend Anne” (Edizioni San Paolo, 2021). The author tells how she met Anne Frank in 1941 and in a few days they became great friends. The two girls were inseparable, until Anne, suddenly, disappeared with his family. Although Jacqueline and Anne will never come back, friendship will remain, stronger than anything else.
In 1954 Jacqueline Van Maarsen married Ruud Sanders (who died three years ago), with whom he had three children. With Otto Frank, Anne’s father, who survived the Holocaust, remained in contact until his death, which took place in 1980. Jacqueline kept silent his friendship with Anne for a long time. The silence ended with the publication of the book “Anne and Jopie” in 1990: he felt the duty to “write for the one who could no longer write”. Three other books followed, including “Your best friend Anne”, awarded with Zilveren Griffel in 2012. In his books and during his visits to schools, Jacqueline spoke of his friendship with Anne, but also of the danger of anti -Semitism and racism.
Jacqueline meant a lot for Anne Frank’s house. “We have always been able to count on her, even when she was already in old age – writes the museum in a press release – on June 12, 2019, on the occasion of Anne Frank’s 90th birthday, Jacqueline went with the former classmate Albert Gomes de Mesquita in Anne Frank’s old house in Merwedeplein. , they recalled and interacted with the young people of the life and meaning of Anne Frank. He had carefully kept the album with Anne’s verses for all these years, testifying to their profound friendship “. (by Paolo Martini)