The 10th of May, 1940, World War 2, the
Netherlands.

Nazi Germany invades Holland and the German Air Forces – the Luftwaffe –
use paratroopers in the capture of tactical points and to assist in the advance
of ground troops across the country.

The invasion is accompanied by heavy aerial
bombardment of Rotterdam and culminates on the 14th of May with the destruction of its
entire historic center.

Because the Germans threaten to bomb the city of Utrecht in the same
way, the Dutch forces surrender one day later.

Soon after the Nazis start to occupy the whole
country and pass new anti-Jewish laws which are designed to exclude Jewish people from society and
restrict their livelihood.

15,000 Jews who fled from Nazi Germany to the Netherlands between 1933
and 1939 are once again under Nazi domination.

One of them is Edith Frank, whose daughter Anne would
become one of the world’s most famous diarists.

Edith Frank, née Holländer, was born
on the 16th of January 1900 in Aachen, then part of the German Empire.

Her parents
– Abraham and Rosa Holländer – were wealthy Jews trading in industrial equipment.

Edith, the youngest of four children, was 14 when her sister Bettina died, and
she also had 2 brothers – Julius and Walter.

After Edith finished high school, she worked
in the family business for a few years.

In 1924 she met Otto Frank – a German businessman
who was 12 years her senior.

They fell in love and on the 8th of May 1925, the couple celebrated
their civil wedding in Aachen and 4 days later, on Otto’s 36th birthday, they had their
Jewish wedding in the Aachen synagogue.

The couple then moved to a new housing
estate in Frankfurt am Main, where Margot, their elder daughter, was born on the
16th of February 1926.

Anne was born three years later on the 12th of June 1929.

The Franks were liberal Jews and lived in an assimilated community of Jewish and
non-Jewish citizens of various religions.

The stock market crash on the 24th of
October 1929, marked the beginning of the Great Depression in the United States which
soon spread across the globe.

It hit particularly hard in Europe where multiple nations were
indebted to the United States.

While Britain and France became indebted to the United States
during the World War 1 when they bought a great deal of military weapons and products by using
loans, Germany borrowed millions of dollars from the United States as well to pay the extensive
reparation payments imposed by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles which held Germany responsible for
starting the war and liable for massive material damages.

When the United States called for those
loans to be repaid to stabilize its own economy, it threw foreign economies, including
Germany, into economic depression as well.

The Great Depression also played a role in
the emergence of Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi Party, as a viable political
leader in Germany.

Deteriorating economic conditions in Germany in the 1930s created an
angry, frightened, and financially struggling populace open to more extreme political
systems, including fascism and communism.

Hitler’s antisemitic and anticommunist rhetoric
depicted Jews as causing the Depression.

Fear and uncertainty about Germany’s future
also led many Germans in search of the kind of stability that Hitler offered.

While the Great Depression and German economic conditions were not solely
responsible for bringing Hitler to power, they helped create an environment in which he
gained support and on the 30th of January 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany
by the German President Paul von Hindenburg.

It was a moment when the Franks knew that dark
clouds were gathering over the Jews in Germany including them.

The economic crisis was also
hitting Otto’s business and the Franks remembered well how in the summer of 1932, the members of
the SA, which was a paramilitary organization associated with the Nazi Party, also known
as the Storm Troopers and the Brownshirts, for the color of their uniform, had marched
through the streets of Frankfurt wearing swastika armbands and singing loudly „When Jewish blood
spurts from the knife, things will go well again”.

They became even more concerned when the Nazi
regime quickly began to restrict the civil and human rights of the Jewish people who according
to the census of June 16, 1933, accounted for less than 0,8 percent of the total population
of 67 million.

The first concentration camp – – Dachau – was established in March 1933, less
than 2 months after Hitler became the chancellor.

Because of business problems
and growing antisemitism, the Franks made a difficult decision to leave
their country and emigrate to the Netherlands.

In September 1933, Otto founded a
franchise for the Amsterdam branch of Opekta company that traded in pectin,
a gelling agent for making jam.

The rest of the family moved to Amsterdam soon after.

The Franks were among 300,000 Jews who fled from Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1939.

After the experiences in the Third Reich, the family soon felt at home in Amsterdam
and the girls enrolled in Dutch schools.

They made new friends and despite initial
problems with the Dutch language, they became excellent students, especially Margot.

While the girls seemed to be happy about their new life in the new country, for their
parents the situation was more challenging.

Otto had to work hard to get his company going
and build a new life for his family.

Seeing the development in Nazi Germany, he even tried to
set up a new business in Great Britain and move there but this plan did not work out.

However, the
financial situation of the family improved in 1938 when Otto started a new company called Pectacon,
which was a wholesaler of herbs and spices.

Edith, concentrated on running the household,
struggled with a new language and had a hard time settling in the Netherlands.

She missed
her family and friends who were still living in Germany and in conversations she would often
refer with melancholy to their life in Frankfurt.

At the end of 1937 in a letter to a friend
who had lived next door to them in Frankfurt, Edith wrote ‘The years on the Marbachweg street
in Fankfurt were among the most beautiful’.

In the meantime, Edith’s family, who had been
left behind in Aachen, witnessed the violence and destruction of the Kristallnacht which occurred
on the 9th – 10th of November 1938, when the Nazi leaders unleashed a series of coordinated violent
riots against the Jews throughout Nazi Germany and recently incorporated territories.

The Nazi SA and
German civilians not only ransacked Jewish homes, businesses, synagogues, hospitals, and schools
but the German SS and police sent almost 30,000 Jewish males to concentration camps,
primarily Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen.

Edith’s brother Julius escaped arrest
because he had fought in the German army and been injured in the First World War.

However, Edith’s other brother, Walter, was arrested and briefly imprisoned
in a concentration camp.

Soon after, both brothers emigrated to the United States via
the Netherlands.

Edith’s mother Rosa left Nazi Germany as well.

She came to the Netherlands
and moved in with the family in March 1939.

World War 2 started on the 1st of September
1939.

All of Edith and Otto’s hopes that they would be safe in the Netherlands were dashed
by the invasion of the German army in May 1940.

Desperate attempts to emigrate to the United
States, with the help of Edith’s bothers Julius and Walter as well as Otto Frank’s
American friend Nathan Strauss, failed.

The life of the Franks, who were once again
under Nazi domination, changed completely.

The criminal Nazi regime from which they ran
away in 1933 finally caught up with them in the country which had become their new home and
had made them feel free to live their own life.

The Netherlands became an occupied territory,
and it did not take long for the Nazis to begin introduce new anti-Semitic laws and
regulations that restricted the lives of Jews.

Jewish civil servants were fired
and Jewish businesses as well as the Jews themselves had to be registered.

They could no longer visit parks, cinemas, or non-Jewish shops.

Many places thus became
off-limits to Anne who could not even go to same school as all Jewish children
had to go to separate Jewish schools.

According to new laws, Jews were no longer allowed
to run their own businesses and the Nazis forced Otto Frank to give up his companies.

However,
Otto had managed to transfer control of his businesses to his employees soon enough
to keep his companies out of Nazi hands.

But the situation only continued to get worse
and in 1941 Jewish men were arrested during raids and then deported to the Mauthausen
concentration camp.

Among them were friends and acquaintances of the Franks and reports
of their deaths soon started coming in.

Otto understood that the situation was
critical and continued trying to emigrate to the Unites States and Cuba.

However, he never
managed to obtain the necessary documents.

In January 1942, Edith’s mother Rosa died.

It was in the spring of the same year when Otto Frank, anticipating deportation
of his own family, decided to set up a hiding place in an empty part of his
business premises at Prinsengracht 263.

Regulations which forced the Jews to wear a
yellow badge in the form of a Star of David as a means of identification were announced in
the Netherlands on the 29th of April 1942.

Those who were caught without the badge after the 5th of
May of the same year when they came into effect, were arrested and detained for six-week period.

The systematic deportation of Dutch Jews to the death camps started in the summer of 1942.

Transports regularly left the transit camps of Westerbork and Vught.

Out of 140,000 Jews
who lived in the Netherlands by the beginning of the Second World War, 107,000 including
little children were deported mostly for Auschwitz and Sobibor by September, 1944.

Only 5,000 of them returned after the war.

Before going into hiding, the 12th of
June 1942 was probably the last happy moment for the Frank family.

It was the day
when Anne celebrated her 13th birthday and received her diary.

A diary which would
one day make her famous and in which she would write about her thoughts and feelings
during difficult times that were to come.

Less than one month later on the 5th
of July 1942, Margot, Anne’s sister, received a call-up to report for a so-called
‘labor camp’ in Nazi Germany.

Knowing the faith of their friends and acquaintances who had been sent
to such camps and never returned, the Franks did not hesitate for a second.

The next morning, they
went into hiding in order to escape persecution.

In the secret annex, Edith and Otto were to stay
with a rebellious Anne and a thoughtful Margot for 761 long days.

After 7 days, the Franks
were joined by the Van Pels family made up of Hermann and Auguste, and 16-year-old Peter
from whom Anne would receive her first kiss.

In November, they were joined by Fritz
Pfeffer, a dentist and family friend.

It is Anne’s diary thanks to which we
know how the Frank family and 4 other Jews lived for more than 2 years in a three-story
space entered through a revolving bookcase.

The people in hiding were completely
dependent on six helpers – these were Miep and Jan Gies, Johannes Kleiman, Victor Kugler,
and Bep and Johan Voskuijl .

They were employees and friends of Anne’s father who provided food,
clothing, and everything necessary to the 8 people in the Secret Annex between 1942 and 1944.

Writing helped Anne pass the time and it is thanks to her diary that we can get a glimpse
into the everyday life of the people in hiding.

It was important to be silent especially
from 8:30 AM when the men in the warehouse, which was located below the Secret Annex,
started their working day.

Any sound could cause suspicion.

The morning was devoted to reading,
studying, and preparing for their lunch break.

At 12:30 PM, when the warehouse workers went home
for lunch, a few of the helpers came up to the Secret Annex to have lunch with people in hiding.

Miep Gies usually stayed in the office to keep an eye on things.

The people in hiding could see
other faces and listen to the “Radio Oranje” which was a programme broadcasted by BBC where
Dutch Queen Wilhelmina, who on the 13th of May 1940 had escaped from the invading German troops
and then travelled to England, spoke 34 times.

While in the afternoon some people in hiding
took a nap, Anne, who wanted to become a writer and journalist, would study or write in her
diary.

Margot, who saw a future for herself as a maternity nurse in Palestine, also had
a diary.

Then they had a coffee, prepared for dinner and at 5:30 PM, when the warehouse workers
went home, the people in hiding could leave the Secret Annex and spread out through the building.

They would cook dinner and took turns using the bathroom as they did in the morning before the
warehouse workers started their working day.

In the hiding place, Edith and Anne often clashed.

In her diary, Anne did not spare her mother and would often write about the disagreements,
conflicts, mutual lack of understanding, and her mother’s pessimism from which
she wanted to disassociate herself.

At the same time, Anne realized that their
quarrels were exacerbated by their difficult circumstances and she depicted Edith as an
understanding and loyal mother who stood up for her daughters and protected them against
verbal attacks from the other inhabitants.

As Anne grew wiser, she managed to keep things
bearable and wrote in her diary: ‘I usually keep my mouth shut if I get annoyed, and so does she,
so we appear to get on much better together.

’ According to Otto, Edith suffered more
from their arguments than Anne did.

And even though he was worried about Edith
and Anne not having a good relationship, he never doubted that his wife was an excellent
mother, who put her children above all else.

Although she often complained that
Anne would oppose everything she did, Edith was comforted to know that
Anne trusted in her father Otto.

Edith had a hard time in the Secret Annex.

According to Miep Gies, one of the helpers, she suffered from feelings of despair
and although the others were counting the days until the Allies came, making games
of what they would do when it was all over, Edith confessed that she was deeply ashamed of
the fact that she felt the end would never come.

The situation became more dangerous after
September 1942, when special units were formed, made up of Dutch collaborators that began
hunting for hiding Jews.

An estimated 25,000 Jews went into hiding in the Netherlands.

Two thirds of them survived and one third was betrayed and discovered.

To this day, we do not
know the reason for the police raid, but the hiding period for the 8 people in the Secret Annex
came to an abrupt end on the 4th of August 1944.

The hiding place had been discovered
and its 8 inhabitants were arrested.

Two of the helpers were also arrested.

One of them, Victor Kugler, remembered how Margot had been weeping silently during
the arrest.

The Dutch police officers, who arrested Edith and the others in hiding, were
headed by an Austrian SS officer Karl Silberbauer.

While Silberbauer confiscated their valuables and
money, he scattered out the papers and notebooks.

After the people from the Secret Annex were then
taken to Gestapo headquarters in Amsterdam, the two helpers Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl took Anne’s
documents before the Secret Annex was emptied by order of the Nazis.

While Anne’s diary and other
manuscripts survived, Margot’s diary was lost.

From a prison in Amsterdam, they were sent to the
Westerbork transit camp.

They ended up in a prison barracks, and the men and women were separated.

As convicted offenders, Edith and her daughters had to do a dirty and unhealthy work of taking
old batteries apart for reuse.

According to fellow prisoner Rosa de Winter, in Westerbork Edith was
‘quiet and she seemed numbed all the time.

.

.

’.

On the 3rd of September 1944,
the Franks were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration
camp.

Their train was the last one to leave Westerbork for this extermination
camp located in Nazi-occupied Poland.

The train journey took three horrible days,
during which Edith and over a thousand others were packed closely together in cattle wagons.

There was very little food and water and only a barrel for a toilet.

Upon arrival at Auschwitz,
Nazi doctors checked to see who would and who would not be able to do heavy forced labor.

Around 350 people from the Frank’s transport were immediately taken to the gas chambers
and murdered.

In total, out of 1,019 Jews who were deported to Auschwitz together with
the Franks, only 45 men and 82 women survived.

While Otto ended up in a camp for men,
his wife and daughters were sent to the labor camp for women.

Margot, chosen for slave
labor, was forced to cut sods or carry stones.

At Auschwitz, Edith, Margot and Anne
stayed together and depended on each other, more than ever before.

Survivors remembered Edith
sharing her own small amount of bread with her 2 daughters.

When Margot and Anne were temporarily
isolated in a separate barracks because they suffered from scabies, Edith and two fellow
prisoners dug a hole to pass them some extra food.

When at the end of October 1944, Margot
and Anne were put on a transport to the Bergen Belsen concentration camp, Edith
stayed behind at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

In Rosa de Winter, with whom the Franks
stayed together at Westerbork camp, Edith found a companion, as she had also been separated
from her daughter.

In very cold winter of 1944, the two women were constantly thirsty as
there was no water and in the mornings, they had to themselves with snow.

In late December 1944, the temperature outside was around minus 40 degrees.

Edith,
who knew nothing of her daughter’s fate, fell ill and developed a high fever.

Rosa wanted
to take her to the infirmary barracks which was at least heated but Edith resisted as she wanted
to live and was fearing the selections for gas chambers performed by Dr.

Josef Mengele that took
place regularly among the ill prisoners.

However, Rosa took her to the infirmary anyway.

But
unfortunately, it was too late for Edith.

When Rosa saw her friend the last time, she
looked like “a shadow of herself”.

Edith did not eat anymore and was completely exhausted.

She neither spoke nor responded if spoken to.

Edith Frank was 44 years old when she died of
starvation and disease in the sick barracks a few days later on the 6th of January 1945, only three
weeks before the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Her daughters, who by then were at
Bergen-Belsen, did not survive either.

Margot, who was in a weakened state, died when she fell
from her bunk onto a cold stone floor.

Anne died shortly after Margot.

Margot and Anne both died
in February 1945 owing to the effects of typhus.

It was initially believed that the sisters died a
few weeks before the camp’s liberation on the 15th of April 1945.

However, it was later revealed
that they may have died as early as February.

Because we do not know the exact date

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