Anne Frank's Stepsister Meets With Newport Beach Students Involved In Nazi-Themed Party
NEWPORT BEACH (CBSLA) – Eva Schloss, whose father, brother and stepsister Anne Frank died in the Holocaust, met Thursday with a group of Newport Beach students involved in a Nazi salute photo that has sparked community outrage.
Organizers of the meeting at Newport Harbor High School said they wanted to make the uproar over the photograph a teachable moment for students.
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"People should never, ever forget what has happened and how it came about," Schloss told reporters after the closed-door meeting with students. "I was shocked that in 2019 – in a well-educated town, in a very high-educated school – that incidents like this should still happen."
Regarding her experience surviving the Holocaust, she said, "So I was their age when I realized my life was completely shattered, I will never have a family again. And this was really something very, very hard to endure."
Schloss added, "I think this school has got the message, and I hope the state will have got the message and from now on things are going to be improved."
Before the meeting, Rabbi Reuven Mintz of the Chabad Center for Jewish Life in Newport Beach, who played a role in organizing the gathering, said, "It's imperative that today's young people come face to face with the consequences of unchecked hatred."
"Our hope is that meeting someone who witnessed firsthand the atrocities committed under that same swastika and salute will help guide these students toward a life of tolerance and acceptance, spreading a message of inclusion and love, rather than one of hatred," Mintz added.
The meeting with the 89-year-old Schloss, a Holocaust survivor herself who wrote about her experiences in her book "After Auschwitz: A story of Heartbreak and Survival," was private.
It came less than a week after a photo of the students saluting like Nazis around red plastic cups arranged to form a swastika during a game of beer pong touched off a firestorm of criticism after it was posted on social media. A few dozen teenagers from Newport Harbor, Costa Mesa and Estancia High schools have been identified.
