Beyond this account of their tragically curtailed friendship and their brief, painful reunion, My Friend Anne Frank, written with Dina Kraft, is as much Hannah’s story as it is Anne Frank’s.

The title of Pick-Goslar’s memoir, My Friend Anne Frank, is misleading and – however unintentionally – does it a disservice. This is not really the story of Frank, who achieved posthumous fame through the diary she kept while in hiding, even though, as a neighbour and close friend of the author, she is a significant presence in the first third of the book. It is, in fact, the vivid and extraordinary story of Pick-Goslar.

Vivid.

Dina Kraft, who worked with her on the book, is to be thanked, along with Hannah’s family, for ensuring that this memoir exists at all. Pick-Goslar worked incredibly hard at Holocaust education, but it would have been a loss if there were no book to capture the tale. And Kraft should also be thanked for making a good job of it. She has clearly relied on documentary evidence as well as Pick-Goslar’s recall, but she does so in a way that strengthens the book without losing Pick-Goslar’s voice. The facts and the personal memories are integrated well. The book is readable and moving..

This book is well worth reading. It is deeply moving, beautifully written and, yes, you will need a tissue or two to get through it. But if you are one of the few people who have never read Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl, then you should read it, or re-read it, before opening Hannah Pick-Goslar’s remarkable memoir.

Vivid.

Painful history but a good choice for readers interested in Anne Frank or Holocaust-era memoirs..