Childhood Friend Of Anne Frank To Speak
Hannah Pick to address audience as part of a community interfaith service in remembrance of the Holocaust
Buffalo, NY – Hannah Pick, childhood friend of Anne Frank, will share her memories of Anne as part of a community interfaith service in remembrance of the Holocaust. The service, which will be held at Canisius College on Monday, April 15 at 7:30 p.m. in Christ the King Chapel, is open to the public.Hannah Pick met Anne Frank when she and her parents fled Nazi Germany in 1933 for the Netherlands. They lived next door to the Franks in Merwedeplein in the southern part of Amsterdam, where Hannah and Anne became close friends. The girls met when they were four years old and remained friends until the Franks went into hiding.
Hannah renewed her friendship with Anne at Bergen-Belsen, where they were able to speak, not in person, but through a fence. Anne died of disease and starvation as a prisoner in Bergen-Belsen just weeks before the end of the war. She was almost sixteen years old. Pick survived Bergen-Belsen, together with her younger sister, and then settled in Israel.
When Anne Frank’s diary was published in 1947, Pick read the entries that many times bore her name. On November 27, 1943, Anne wrote: “Why should I be chosen to live and Hannah probably to die?” It is the irony in this entry that prompted Pick to talk about her memories of Anne and the Holocaust.
The service is sponsored by the Network of Religious Communities, the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ), the Holocaust Resource Center of Buffalo, and the John R. Oishei Distinguished Teaching Professorship Program at Canisius College.
For further information regarding the lecture, please call Dr. Larry Jones in the Canisius College History Department at 716-888-2686.
Canisius College is one of 28 Jesuit colleges in the nation and the premier private college in Western New York. Canisius prepares leaders – intelligent, caring, faithful individuals – able to pursue and promote excellence in their professions, communities and service to humanity.