Hanneli Goslar and Anne Frank in Bergen-Belsen

The Kleine Frauenlager where Anne and Margot Frank stayed in Bergen-Belsen was right next to the Sternlager. The two sections were separated by a fence consisting of two layers of gauze and barbed wire with straw or reeds in between. So the prisoners could not see each other, but they could hear each other. This is how Anne met up with her good friend Hanneli Goslar (1928), who had been imprisoned in the Sternlager since January 1944, at the fence.

In January or early February 1945, someone came to get Hanneli because there was someone on the other side of the fence who had seen her friend Anne in the camp.^[1] Hanneli thought Anne had fled to Switzerland with her family and was stunned to hear that Anne had ended up in the camp. She well remembered coming to speak to Anne: "So I have no choice but to get close to the barbed wire in the evening, as far as I can. And I start shouting about that [...] And when I called out there at the barbed wire: 'Hello, hello', the woman who answered me was Peter's mother, Mrs Van Pels.(...) And she knew exactly that I was a friend of Anne's and the first thing she says was: 'Oh, you want to speak to Anne,' I say: 'Yes, of course,' We talked for half a minute, it was too dangerous. And then she only added [...]: 'I can't bring Margot, she can't walk up to this barbed wire, but I'll bring Anne,' and there I stood and waited. And really after five minutes or so, a very faint voice, and it was Anne."^[2]

After the girls first cried together, they informed each other about their experiences. As conditions in the ´small women's camp´ were a lot worse than in the Sternlager, Hanneli Goslar went in search of food and clothes for Anne. The next evening they met again at the fence and Hanneli Goslar threw a package over the barbed wire. "And then I hear Anne crying and screaming and angry. What happened? No, I couldn't see her, and that barbed wire was high and the night was dark and I had to throw at what I hear. But there were hundreds of other hungry women there, and another woman had picked up that package, run away, and didn't give her anything. Well, I had to calm her down first and I promised: 'We'll do it again.´"^[3]

Finally, Hanneli managed to put together another package and this time it did arrive in Anne's possession. In total, the friends met at the fence three times.^[3] Martha van Collem (1929), who knew the Frank family from the Liberal Jewish Congregation in Amsterdam, also attended these meetings once or twice. As did Irene Hasenberg (1930), who had become good friends with Hanneli Goslar in the camp and remembered that they had gone together looking for clothes to put in the parcel that was stolen by another woman the first time.^[4]

In all likelihood, Anne and Hanneli Goslar met between 23 January and 7 February .^[5] It must have been before 7 February, because Auguste van Pels was sent to Raguhn that day and they were able to get in touch through Auguste.^[6] We also know through a surviving list that Hanneli Goslar's grandmother received a parcel through the Swiss Red Cross on 23 January 1945 .^[7]