News

Actions

Anne Frank relative compares Trump to Hitler

Posted
and last updated

In an essay recently published to Newsweek, the stepsister of Anne Frank compared Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler.

Eva Schloss, a Holocaust survivor whose mother married Frank’s father following World War II, wrote the the essay for Wednesday’s “Holocaust Remembrance Day.”

“If Donald Trump become the next president of the U.S., it would be a complete disaster,” she said. “I think he is acting like another Hitler by inciting racism.”

Schloss, who was interned at Auschwitz during World War II, also criticizes Western countries for not taking in Syrian refugees. She says their experiences are similar to those of the Jewish people during the war.

“I was 11 years old when my family first immigrated to Belgium [after Hitler annexed Austria in 1938],” she said. “We were treated as if we had come from the moon. I felt as if I wasn’t wanted and that I was different to everybody.

“This is not just a European problem, it’s a global problem. If countries as big as the U.S. and Canada would take in more people, then we would get much closer to a solution.”

Schloss’ parents died along with Frank at Bergen-Belsen Concentration camp. Schloss now lives in London and has written two books about her life as a Holocaust survivor.

Alex Hider is a writer for the E.W. Scripps National Desk. Follow him on Twitter @alexhider.