( JTA ) — On June 15, 1942, days after receiving a diary for her 13th birthday, Anne Frank wrote that a classmate she had only recently met “is now my best friend.” She and that friend, Jacqueline van Maarsen, promised to write each other goodbye letters if they were forced apart — which came to pass just weeks later. Frank went into hiding in Amsterdam in July, and wrote van Maarsen her farewell letter in the diary in September, wishing that “until we see each other again, we will always remain ‘best’ friends.” That meeting never took place, as Frank was murdered by the Nazis in 1945. But beginning in 1986, van Maarsen began lecturing on the Holocaust and hate, and writing about her friendship with Frank. On Friday, the Anne Frank House announced that van Maarsen had died on Feb. 13, at age 96. “Jacqueline was a classmate of Anne Frank at the Jewish Lyceum and shared her memories of their friendship throughout her life,” the institution, which is the official custodian of Frank’s ...
