Anne Frank’s cousin who ran foundation dies in Basel

Buddy Elias, a professional actor and clown who devoted much of life to leading the Basel-based foundation that bears the name of his younger cousin Anne Frank, has died aged 89. The foundation Anne Frank Fonds said Wednesday that Elias died peacefully at his home in Basel surrounded by his family. It said Elias died on Monday and a private funeral is planned. Born on June 2, 1925 in Frankfurt, Germany – four years before the birth of his first cousin who would become the famed Holocaust teen diarist – Bernhard “Buddy” Elias and his Jewish family moved to Basel in 1931. It would remain his home for the rest of his life. Though Elias and Frank only spent the first few years of her life in the same hometown, Frank visited him and his family in the Basel home where he lived until his death. Her visits preceded the time that her family spent hiding in Amsterdam to avoid Nazi persecution which she chronicled in a diary now known to countless readers around the world. … Show more
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Culture
– SWI swissinfo.ch