Hannah Goslar and her parents fled Nazi Germany for the Netherlands in 1933. They moved next door to another German Jewish refugee family, the Franks, whose youngest daughter Anneliese - nicknamed Anne - became Hannah's closest friend. Anne died of disease and starvation at age 15 as a prisoner in Bergen-Belsen where, a month or so earlier, the girls had a tearful reunion, communicating across a solid wall separating the camp.

When Anne's diary was published in 1947, many of the names were changed to protect the privacy of the people involved. That is how Hannah Elizabeth Goslar became "Hanneli" or "Lies" in Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. Anne wrote in her diary on November 27, 1943 about her friend Hannah: "Why should I be chosen to live and she probably to die?" Ironically the opposite was true.

Because of this irony, Hannah Pick-Goslar chooses to tell her story and Anne's at functions throughout the world.

The students of the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School in Rochester NY were privileged to spend an evening with Hannah Goslar on Thursday, April 11. Also joining us for the evening as guests of the Mini-School were our families and friends and middle and high school students, many of whom had never heard a survivor speak.

Ms. Goslar, who now lives in Israel, related her life story to our modern experience: "Once we were victims who could not fight back. Today we have our own country and can and must defend ourselves!"