More than 80 years ago, two young girls in Germany were separated by the Holocaust. The friends said goodbye and fled from the Nazis. Betty Grebenschikoff and her family moved to Shanghai, China and then the United States. Her friend Annemarie Wahrenberg moved to Chile. The two friends never saw each other again – until a recent, emotional reunion.
Annemarie’s name was changed to Ana María after her family arrived in South America, and under this name she told her story during a webinar for The Latin American Network for the Teaching of the Shoah, according to the USC Shoah Foundation.
One person in the webinar couldn’t help but take notes. It was Ita Gordon, who has been with the USC Shoah Foundation for nearly 25 years. The foundation collects testimonials from genocide survivors, with the mission of ‘developing empathy, understanding and respect’.
Gordon is used to cataloging and indexing testimonials, but for some reason she kept thinking about Wahrenberg’s story.
She searched the foundations’ Visual History Archive for an earlier mention of Wahrenberg and found her in someone else’s testimony.
Holocaust survivor Betty Grebenschikoff named a friend, Annemarie Wahrenberg, whom she had not seen since she was a little girl.
“I had a certain girlfriend whose name I always mention, can I mention her here?” Betty said in her testimony. “Her name was Annemarie Wahrenberg and I never knew what happened to her and I always wonder if maybe she is somewhere and can hear this.”
“She was my girlfriend when I was very young and we went to school together, we played together and all this, and when we left for China in 1939, we said goodbye and it was very difficult then because we were best friends,” Grebenschikoff continued. ‘And we would write to each other, but we never did and I never heard from her again and I don’t know what ever happened to her … She probably died in the war, but I know not sure. ‘
Gorgon wasn’t entirely sure Grebenschikoff was talking about the same Wahrenberg. So she contacted Museo Interactivo Judío de Chile, which organized the event where she heard Wahrenberg speak.
Both women had now changed names, but had many other similarities as well. They have spoken publicly about their Holocaust experiences, visited classrooms and written books. Both had unique stories of how their nuclear families remained intact throughout the war.
Another similarity: none of the women knew the other had survived.
Once Gordon confirmed the women’s identities, she realized that something big could happen. They could be reunited.
“I got so emotional,” Gordon told USC Shoah Foundation. “I mean I haven’t cried or anything, [but] what I did was stay very still and say to myself, “You may have to do something, but feel it now.” Because there may be a chance that two dear friends are together [again]
Rachael Cerrotti / USC Shoah Foundation
Last November, a reunion was coordinated by the foundation. The two women, along with some of their relatives, sat in front of their computers and participated in a virtual meeting. First, only the two had their cameras on so the old friends could have a good reunion.
Grebenschikoff said she had searched for her boyfriend before. “I could never find her,” she said. “I looked for her in the Holocaust Museum in Washington and I searched for her in the database.”
And I mention her name every time I give a lecture because I’m talking about the Holocaust. And nothing ever happened, you know? And I just can’t believe she’s there. It’s so exciting, ”she continued.
The friends chatted for two hours, introduced their relatives, and raised glasses of champagne – “L’chaim,” a toast to life, the foundation said.
“It was so natural for them,” Grebenschikoff’s grandson Lucas Kirschman told the foundation. ‘They picked up again and they talked about random things as no problem … And it’s almost as if language could have been a barrier, but it definitely wasn’t. I’ve never heard my grandmother speak German before, never. “
“Seeing Ana María and Betty on the Zoom call, along with their prosperous, healthy and happy families, was the ultimate victory over hatred,” said another family member.