It isn’t uncommon knowledge that the Nazi holocaust devastated an entire people group, ripping families and friends apart, and wiping out entire family trees. Those who survived often had to start from scratch without any familiar faces to support or comfort them as they started their lives over.

Two young girls who were best friends in Berlin, Germany when WWII erupted had to say goodbye to each other as their families fled the Nazi regime, but headed in completely opposite directions.

Betty Grebenschikoff fled with her family to China before eventually seeking refuge in the United States. Annemarie Wahrenberg and her family emigrated to Chile in South America, where her name was changed to Ana María. The two girls never saw or spoke to each other again, and until four months ago believed the other had died in the holocaust.

But a series of incredibly fortunate events would reconnect the childhood friends. Speaking to THE WASHINGTON POST, Grebenschikoff shared:

In a release shared by the nonprofit USC SHOA FOUNDATION, a story involving the two girls and the foundation’s cataloguer and indexer, Ita Gordon, was shared. In a webinar that Ana María participated in, Gordon listened intently while the holocaust survivor told her story. Fascinated by her  testimony, Gordon wanted to learn more about her background and how she escaped Germany.

Gordon went on to search several databases to see if  Wahrenberg  had recorded her story anywhere else before, and she finally found her name in a separate testimony made by a woman named Betty Grebenschikoff in 1997, who had details in her own story that exactly matched the ones shared by Wahrenberg  in the webinar.

In her testimony, Betty Grebenschikoff, whose given name was Sara, speaks about her lifelong search for her friend, but how she never found her and eventually concluded she had passed away. But the reason she could not locate Wahrenberg  was due to the fact that she, too,  had changed her name.

“I had one particular girlfriend whose name I always mention, can I mention it here?” Betty said in her testimony. “Her name was Annemarie Wahrenberg and I never knew what happened to her and I’m always wondering if maybe she’s somewhere and she can hear this.”

“She was my girlfriend when I was very young and we went to school together, and we played together and all this, and when we left for China in 1939 we said good-bye to one another and it was very difficult then because we were best friends,” Grebenschikoff continued. “And we were going to 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’m not sure.”

After doing extensive research to confirm the two women she had found are the long lost friends, Gordon realized that thanks to modern technology, the women could be reunited. Speaking to the USC Shoah Foundation, Gordon shared:

“I got so emotional. I mean, I didn’t cry or anything, [but] what I did was stay very quiet and say to myself, ‘You may have to act, but right now, feel it.’ Because there might be a chance that two dear friends might be together [again].”

On November 19, a zoom meeting was set up between the women and their families. Betty would be joining from St. Petersburg, FL, while Ana María signed in from Santiago, Chile. What followed was a two hour conversation–in German–where the two picked up right where they left off. The introduced their families and raised glasses of champagne, toasting “L’chaim,” the traditional Jewish toast meaning “to life.”

“This is a total gift in her life,” Grebenschikoff’s daughter Jennifer told the Post. “All of us were just stunned to watch the two women connect so quickly and start laughing like they were still 9 years old.”

The ladies committed to calling each other every Sunday on the telephone, and keep up over email as well. Ana María even said she plans on flying to Miami in September to join her friend in celebrating the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah.

Betty shares that while she can’t wait to catch up in person and show her friend around Florida, what she’s looking forward to the most is embracing her friend for the first time in 82 years.

“I just want to hug her again,” Grebenschikoff said. “It would be a culmination of a lifelong journey.”