Anne Frank: After the Diary Ends

  “It was around ten-thirty. I was upstairs with the Van Daans in Peter’s room and I was helping him with his schoolwork. I was showing him the mistake in the dictation when suddenly someone came running up the stairs. The stairs were squeaking, I stood up, because it was still early in the morning and everyone was supposed to be quiet - then the door opened and a man was standing right in front of us with a gun in his hand and it was pointed at us.” -Otto Frank

  Friday, August 4, 1944, is a day like any other day. The helpers are working in the office in the front part of the building. Upstairs, the people in hiding are quietly going about their business. Suddenly, out front on the Prinsengracht, a vehicle comes to a halt. Out jumps an SS-officer and three Dutch policeman. They enter the building and go directly to the office. Mr. Kraler must escort them to the Secret Annex. The people in hiding have been betrayed…

  After the arrest, the people in hiding and the helpers are brought to the German Security Police's jail on Euterpestraat in Amsterdam.

  The people in hiding and the two male helpers are arrested and taken for interrogation to a jail run by the Germans. The two helpers are later transferred to a the city prison. Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl are left behind on the Prinsengracht. They rescue Anne Frank's diary papers.

 Camp Westerbork: Westerbork is a transit camp: from here Jews, gypsies, and members of the Resistance in the Netherlands are deported to the concentration and extermination camps. ---  On August 8, 1944, the eight people in hiding are taken to Westerbork by passenger train. Because they did not report voluntarily, but have been arrested instead, they are assigned to barracks in the punishment block. They have to work all day breaking up old batteries. Even though it is grimy and unhealthy work, the prisoners can still talk to each other.

 Every man and woman receives a number, which is tattooed on their arm. All their heads are shaved bald. They receive prison-camp clothes, because they are not allowed to keep their own clothes. The men are placed in one part of the camp, the women in another. Otto Frank and Peter Van Daan manage to stay together. Most prisoners have to perform heavy labor digging trenches. Peter is luckier: he is assigned to the camp post office. Guards and non-Jews may receive mail. Because Peter handles the packages that arrive, he is sometimes able to “arrange” a bit of extra food.

 “Of course, all of us had to work in the camp, but in the evenings we were free and we could be together. For the children especially, there was a certain relief; to no longer be cooped up and to be able to talk to other people. However, we adults feared being deported to the notorious camps in Poland.” -Otto Frank ---  Freight trains filled with prisoners leave regularly for unspecified destinations in the East. A long list of prisoners names is read aloud on September 2, These people must depart the next day. The names of the eight people in hiding are also on this list.

 On the morning of September 3, 1944, a very long train comprised of freight cars leaves Westerbork. There are more than 70 prisoners packed into each wagon. Among the 1019 Jewish prisoners are also the eight people from the Secret Annex. After a dreadful train trip, lasting three days, they arrive at Auschwitz-Birkenau. ---  “I can no longer talk about how I felt when my family arrived on the train platform in Auschwitz and we were forcibly seperated from each other.” -Otto Frank

 On the platform at Auschwitz- Birkenau, the men and women are separated. Nazi doctors divide the prisoners into two groups: prisoners who they consider fit enough to work and prisoners who will be killed immediately in the the gas chamber. The eight people in hiding are spared. They are expected to perform heavy labor. After a short while, Mr. Van Daan can no longer do this kind of work. He is murdered in the gas chamber.

 After the selection, Edith, Margot and Anne are assigned to the same barrack. Mrs. Van Daan is most likely sent to a different part of the camp. During the day, the women have to work very hard hauling heavy stones or grass mats. They often have to stand outside for hours on end to be counted for roll-call, no matter how awful the weather conditions might be.

 In the winter of 1944, the Russian Army is on the advance. The Nazis decide to take as many prisoners as possible, who are still capable of working, back to Germany. The health of the women prisoners is a primary factor. Edith may not go along. Margot and Anne are then considered. Margot and Anne Frank are crammed into a crowded freight train bound for the concentration camp at Bergen- Belsen. Edith Frank is left behind at Auschwitz. She falls ill and dies on January 6, 1945.

 After an awful train journey lasting three days, Margot and Anne arrive at Bergen-Belsen. More and more prisoners are being sent to Bergen-Belsen from the other concentration camps. The camp is already much too full when their transport gets there, so the new women are placed in tents. A few days later the tents are destroyed in a heavy storm. These prisoners must then find a space in one of the already overcrowded barracks.

 Mrs. Van Daan arrives at Bergen-Belsen with another transport of prisoners in November There she meets Anne and Margot again. Mrs. Van Daan is only at Bergen-Belsen for a short while and probably dies during a transport of prisoners to Theresienstadt. She dies somewhere in Germany or Czechoslovakia, probably between April 9 and May 8, 1945.

 In the winter of , the situation at Bergen-Belsen deteriorates. There is little or no food and the sanitary conditions are dreadful. Many of the prisoners become ill. Margot and Anne Frank come down with typhus. They both die just a few weeks before the camp is liberated. Janny Brilleslijper witnesses their deaths: “First Margot had fallen out of bed onto the stone floor. She couldn’t get up anymore. Anne died a day later.”

 On January 27, 1945, Russian soldiers liberate Auschwitz- Birkenau. There are only 7650 survivors. Otto Frank is one of the prisoners who are still alive. He weighs less than 115 pounds, while he weighed over 150 pounds in the Secret Annex.

 Shortly before liberation, the Nazis evacuate the camp. Prisoners, who can still walk, must go with them. Peter Van Daan is among these prisoners. He arrives at the Mathausen concentration camp in Austria at the end of Janaury.

 After a grueling journey, Peter lands in the Mathausen concentration camp in Austria. There he has to perform heavy labor in a stone quarry. Exhausted and sick, he dies on May 5, 1945.

 Otto Frank needed this document, a Repatriation Card, to travel through France on his way back to the Netherlands. ---  In the weeks after his liberation from Auschwitz, Otto Frank slowly begins to regain his strength. On March 31, 1945, Otto and other prisoners can finally begin their journey back to the Netherlands. Otto Frank arrives back in Amsterdam on June 3, He immediately goes to Miep and Jan Gies’ home. They are overjoyed to see him again. They tell him that all of the helpers have survived the war.

 Otto Frank decides to have Anne’s diary published. The first printing is quickly sold-out, a second printing follows in Decmber 1947, and in February 1948 the book is printed for a third time in an edition of 10,000 copies. In 1950, German and French translations of Het Achterhuis appear. Two years later, English translations are released in both Great Britain and the United States.  By now the diary has been translated into more than sixty- five languages and has sold more than thirty million copies.

 Right up to the end of his life, Otto Frank dedicated himself to helping to create a better world. A year before his death, he said: "I am now ninety, and my powers are slowly waning. But the task that I received from Anne constantly gives me new strength to struggle for reconciliation and human rights around the world."  Otto Frank died on August 19, 1980.

Who betrayed the people in hiding?

Somebody called the German Security Police to notify them that Jews were in hiding at 263 Prinsengracht. Exactly who that was has never been discovered. This is a question that many people still want answers to. There were certain suspicions and a first investigation was conducted in Fourteen years later, once again, an attempt was made to unravel the mystery of who was responsible for the betrayal. In 1998, Melissa Müller, in her biography about Anne Frank, suggests a woman named Lena-Hartog van Bladeren as a possible suspect. Two years later, another writer, Carol Anne Lee, presents a new theory in her biography about Otto Frank. She believes the guilty party is Tony Ahlers, an acquaintance of Otto Frank.