People associated with Anne Frank
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Annelies Marie “Anne” Frank
(12 June 1929–early March 1945) was a Jewish girl who, along with her family and four other people, hid in rooms at the back of her father's Amsterdam
company during the Nazi occupation
of the Netherlands
. Helped by several trusted employees of the company, the group of eight survived in the achterhuis
(literally "back-house", usually translated as "secret annex") for more than two years before they were betrayed. Anne kept a diary from 12 June 1942 until 1 August 1944, three days before the residents of the annex were betrayed. Anne mentioned several times in her writing that her sister Margot Frank
also kept a diary, but no trace of Margot's diary has ever been found.
After spending time in both Westerbork and Auschwitz
, Anne and her older sister Margot were eventually transported to Bergen-Belsen
where they both died during a typhus
epidemic
sometime between late February and mid-March 1945.
Their father, Otto Frank
, survived the war, and upon his return to Amsterdam was given the diary
his daughter had kept during their period of confinement. The diary was first published in 1947, and by virtue of worldwide sales since then, it has become one of the most widely read books in history. It is recognized both for its historical value as a document of the Holocaust, and for the high quality of writing displayed by such a youthful author.
Anne Frank
Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank is one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films.Born in the city of Frankfurt...
(12 June 1929–early March 1945) was a Jewish girl who, along with her family and four other people, hid in rooms at the back of her father's Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
company during the Nazi occupation
The Netherlands in World War II
The history of the Netherlands from 1939 to 1945 covers the events in the Netherlands that took place under the German occupation that started on May 10, 1940 with the Battle of the Netherlands. The Netherlands hoped to stay neutral when World War II broke out in 1939 but this failed to happen when...
of the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. Helped by several trusted employees of the company, the group of eight survived in the achterhuis
Anne Frank House
The Anne Frank House on Prinsengracht canal in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, is a museum dedicated to Jewish wartime diarist Anne Frank, who hid from Nazi persecution with her family and four other people in hidden rooms at the rear of the building...
(literally "back-house", usually translated as "secret annex") for more than two years before they were betrayed. Anne kept a diary from 12 June 1942 until 1 August 1944, three days before the residents of the annex were betrayed. Anne mentioned several times in her writing that her sister Margot Frank
Margot Frank
Margot Betti Frank was the older sister of Anne Frank, whose deportation order from the Gestapo hastened the Frank family into hiding, and who subsequently perished in Bergen-Belsen...
also kept a diary, but no trace of Margot's diary has ever been found.
After spending time in both Westerbork and Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
, Anne and her older sister Margot were eventually transported to Bergen-Belsen
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle...
where they both died during a typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
epidemic
Epidemic
In epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...
sometime between late February and mid-March 1945.
Their father, Otto Frank
Otto Frank
Otto Heinrich "Pim" Frank was a German-born businessman and the father of Anne Frank and Margot Frank...
, survived the war, and upon his return to Amsterdam was given the diary
The Diary of a Young Girl
The Diary of a Young Girl is a book of the writings from the Dutch language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The family was apprehended in 1944 and Anne Frank ultimately died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen...
his daughter had kept during their period of confinement. The diary was first published in 1947, and by virtue of worldwide sales since then, it has become one of the most widely read books in history. It is recognized both for its historical value as a document of the Holocaust, and for the high quality of writing displayed by such a youthful author.
The other occupants of the Achterhuis
- Otto FrankOtto FrankOtto Heinrich "Pim" Frank was a German-born businessman and the father of Anne Frank and Margot Frank...
remained in Auschwitz with other sick prisoners and survived. In 1953 he married Elfride "Fritzi" Markovits-Geiringer, an Auschwitz survivor who lost her first husband and her son when they were sent on a death marchDeath marches (Holocaust)The death marches refer to the forcible movement between Autumn 1944 and late April 1945 by Nazi Germany of thousands of prisoners from German concentration camps near the war front to camps inside Germany.-General:...
out of Auschwitz, and whose daughter Eva, also a survivor, had been acquainted with the Frank sisters (below). Otto Frank devoted his life to spreading the message of his daughter and her diary, as well as defending it against Neo-Nazi claims that it was a forgery or fake. He died in BirsfeldenBasel-CountryBasel-Landschaft , is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland. The capital is Liestal...
, SwitzerlandSwitzerlandSwitzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
from lung cancerLung cancerLung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
on 19 August 1980 at the age of 91. His widow, Fritzi, continued his work until her death in October 1998.
- Edith Frank-HolländerEdith Frank-HolländerEdith Frank was the mother of Holocaust diarist Anne Frank.-Early life:Edith was the youngest of four children, having been born into a German-Jewish family in Aachen, Germany...
,was left behind in Auschwitz-BirkenauAuschwitz concentration campConcentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
when her daughters and Auguste van Pels were transferred to Bergen-Belsen, as her health had started to deteriorate. Witnesses reported that her despair at being separated from her family led to an emotional breakdown. They described her searching for her daughters endlessly and said that she seemed to not understand that they had gone, although she had seen them board the train that took them out of the camp. They also said that she began to hoard what little food she could obtain, hiding it under her bunk to give to Anne and Margot when she saw them. They said that Edith Frank told them Anne and Margot needed the food more than she did, and therefore she refused to eat it. She died on 6 January 1945 from starvationStarvationStarvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy, nutrient and vitamin intake. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, death...
and exhaustion, ten days before her 45th birthday and 20 days before the camp was liberated.
- Margot FrankMargot FrankMargot Betti Frank was the older sister of Anne Frank, whose deportation order from the Gestapo hastened the Frank family into hiding, and who subsequently perished in Bergen-Belsen...
, Anne's older sister, died of typhusTyphusEpidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
in Belsen. According to the recollections of several eyewitnesses, this occurred "a few days" before Anne's death, though like Anne's death, the exact date is not known.
- The van Pels family joined the Franks in their hiding place in concealed rooms at the rear of Otto Frank's office building on 13 July 1942. It should be noted that Anne referred to the van Pels family as the van Daan family in her diary. The pseudonyms were dropped in later editions, and today, all main characters in published editions of the diary are referred to by their actual names, as they are in this article.
- Hermann van Pels: died in AuschwitzAuschwitz concentration campConcentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
. He was the only member of the group to be gassedGas chamberA gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been used...
, however, according to eyewitness testimony, this did not happen on the day of his arrival there. Sal de Liema, an inmate at Auschwitz who knew both Otto Frank and van Pels said that after two or three days in the camp, Herman van Pels mentally "gave up", the beginning of the end for any concentration camp inmate. He later injured his thumb on work detail, and requested to be sent to the sick barracks. Soon after that, during a sweep of the sick barracks for selection, he was sent to the gas chambers. This occurred about three weeks after his arrival at Auschwitz, and his selection was witnessed by both his son Peter, and Otto Frank.
- Auguste van Pels: both her date and place of death are unknown but witnesses testified that she was with the Frank sisters during part of their time in Bergen-Belsen, but that she was not present when they died in February/March. She is, therefore, assumed to have been transferred before March 1945 to Buchenwald, then to the Theresienstadt ghettoGhettoA ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
. She is believed to have died either en route to Theresienstadt, or shortly after her arrival there.
- Peter van Pels: died in MauthausenMauthausen-Gusen concentration campMauthausen Concentration Camp grew to become a large group of Nazi concentration camps that was built around the villages of Mauthausen and Gusen in Upper Austria, roughly east of the city of Linz.Initially a single camp at Mauthausen, it expanded over time and by the summer of 1940, the...
after a death march. Otto Frank had protected him during their period of imprisonment together, as the two men had been assigned to the same work group. Frank later stated that he had urged Peter to hide in Auschwitz and remain behind with him, rather than set out on the forced march, but Peter felt that he would have a better chance of survival if he joined the march. Mauthausen Concentration Camp records indicate that Peter van Pels was registered upon his arrival there on 25 January 1945. Four days later, he was placed in an outdoor labor group. On 11 April 1945, Peter was sent to the sick barracksBarracksBarracks are specialised buildings for permanent military accommodation; the word may apply to separate housing blocks or to complete complexes. Their main object is to separate soldiers from the civilian population and reinforce discipline, training and esprit de corps. They were sometimes called...
. His exact death date is unknown but the International Red Cross designated it as 2 May 1945. He was 18 years old. Mauthausen was liberated three days later on 5 May 1945 by men from the 11th Armored Division of the U.S. Third Army.
- Fritz PfefferFritz PfefferFriedrich "Fritz" Pfeffer was a German dentist and Jewish refugee who hid with Anne Frank during the Nazi Occupation of the Netherlands, and who perished in the Neuengamme concentration camp in Northern Germany...
: died on 20 December 1944 in Neuengamme concentration camp. His cause of death was listed in the camp records as "enterocolitis", a catch-all term that covered, among other things, dysenteryDysenteryDysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...
and choleraCholeraCholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
, both of which were common causes of death in the camps. Of all the stressful relationships precipitated by living in such close proximity with each other for two years, the relationship between Anne and Pfeffer was one of the most difficult for both, as her diary shows.
The helpers
- Miep GiesMiep GiesMiep Gies was one of the Dutch citizens who hid Anne Frank, her family and several family friends in an attic annex above Anne's father's place of business from the Nazis during World War II...
, saved Anne Frank's diary without reading it. She later said that if she had read it, she would have needed to destroy it, as it contained a great deal of incriminating information. She and her husband, Jan, took Otto Frank into their home where he lived from 1945 until 1952. In 1994, she received the "Order of Merit" of the Federal Republic of GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, and in 1995 received the highest honour from the Yad VashemYad VashemYad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
, the Righteous Among the NationsRighteous Among the NationsRighteous among the Nations of the world's nations"), also translated as Righteous Gentiles is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis....
. She was appointed a "Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau" by Queen Beatrix of the NetherlandsBeatrix of the NetherlandsBeatrix is the Queen regnant of the Kingdom of the Netherlands comprising the Netherlands, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, and Aruba. She is the first daughter of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands and Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld. She studied law at Leiden University...
. In 1996, she shared an Academy AwardAcademy AwardsAn Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
with Jon BlairJon BlairJon Blair is a South African born writer, producer and director of documentary films, drama and comedy who has lived in England and the United States ever since he was drafted into the South African army in the late 1960s...
for their documentary Anne Frank Remembered, based largely on her book of the same title. She also wrote the afterword for the Melissa MüllerMelissa MüllerMelissa Müller is an Austrian journalist and author.After working as an au pair for some time in London, Müller decided first for a study of the management economics and German Studies, afterwards she worked for different restaurant editorships and magazines.In the mid-1990s she decided to write...
biography of Anne Frank. She stated that every year she continued to spend the entire day of 4 August in mourning, the date those in the Annex were arrested. Miep Gies died on 11 January 2010, following a short illness, at the age of 100.
- Jan Gies, husband of Miep, was a social worker, and was also, for part of the war, a member of the Dutch UndergroundDutch resistanceDutch resistance to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II can be mainly characterized by its prominent non-violence, summitting in over 300,000 people in hiding in the autumn of 1944, tended to by some 60,000 to 200,000 illegal landlords and caretakers and tolerated knowingly...
and thus was able to procure things for the people in the annex that would have been almost impossible to obtain any other way. Jan died of complications from diabetes on 26 January 1993 in Amsterdam. He and Miep had been married for 51 years.
- Johannes KleimanJohannes KleimanJohannes Kleiman was one of the Dutch citizens who helped hide Anne Frank and her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. In the published version of Anne's diary, The Diary of a Young Girl, he is given the pseudonym Mr. Koophuis...
spent about six weeks in a work camp after his arrest, and was released after intervention from the Red Cross because of his fragile health. He returned to Opekta and took over the firm when Otto Frank moved to BaselBaselBasel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
in 1952. He died at his office desk of a stroke in 1959, aged sixty-three.
- Victor KuglerVictor KuglerVictor Kugler was one of the people who helped hide Anne Frank and her family and friends during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. In Anne Frank's posthumously published diary, The Diary of a Young Girl, he was referred to under the name Mr...
spent seven months in various work camps, and escaped in March 1945 when the prisoner march he was on that day was strafed by BritishUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
SpitfiresSupermarine SpitfireThe Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft that was used by the Royal Air Force and many other Allied countries throughout the Second World War. The Spitfire continued to be used as a front line fighter and in secondary roles into the 1950s...
. Working his way back to his hometown of HilversumHilversumis a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Located in the region called "'t Gooi", it is the largest town in that area. It is surrounded by heathland, woods, meadows, lakes, and smaller villages...
on foot and by bicycle, he remained in hiding there until liberated by CanadianCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
troops a few weeks later. After his wife died, he emigrated to Canada in 1955 (where several of his relatives already lived) and resided in TorontoTorontoToronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
. He received the "Medal of the Righteous" from Yad Vashem MemorialYad VashemYad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
, with a tree planted in his honour on the Boulevard of the Righteous Among the NationsRighteous Among the NationsRighteous among the Nations of the world's nations"), also translated as Righteous Gentiles is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis....
in 1973. He died on 16 December 1981 in Toronto, after a long illness, at the age of eighty-one.
- Bep VoskuijlBep VoskuijlElisabeth "Bep" Voskuijl helped conceal Anne Frank and her family from Nazi persecution during the occupation of the Netherlands.Bep was born in :Amsterdam...
left Opekta shortly after the war and married in 1946. While she did grant an interview to a Dutch magazine some years after the war, she mostly shunned publicity. However, Bep did keep her own scrapbook of Anne-related articles throughout her life, and she named her own daughter "Anne Marie", in honor of Anne. She died in Amsterdam on 6 May 1983.
- Johannes Hendrik VoskuijlJohannes Hendrik VoskuijlJohannes Hendrik Voskuijl was one of the people who helped to hide :Anne Frank and her family and friends. He is known as "Mr Vossen" in the earliest editions of Anne's posthumously published :diary, but all people in the diary have their real names restored in all versions printed since...
(father of Bep) was lauded constantly by the eight in hiding as a tremendous help with all matters during their early days in the achterhuis. However, his ill health was often mentioned by Anne in her diary, and he became incapacitated after a diagnosis of cancerCancerCancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
. He died of the disease in late November, 1945.
Friends and extended family
- Hannah GoslarHanneli GoslarHannah 'Hanneli' Elisabeth Goslar is best known for her friendship with diarist Anne Frank. Both Hannah and Anne attended the Sixth Public Montessori School in Amsterdam and then the Jewish Lyceum....
- Known to her childhood friends as "Hanneli" or "Lies", Hannah was Anne's oldest friend, along with Sanne Ledermann. While Hannah was in Bergen-Belsen, she met Auguste van Pels by asking through a hay-filled barbed wire fence if anyone who could hear her voice spoke Dutch. Auguste van Pels answered her and remembered Hannah from peacetime in Amsterdam. Mrs. van Pels then told her that Anne was a prisoner in the section of the camp she, herself was in. Hannah was astonished, as she, like most people back in Amsterdam, believed the Franks had escaped to SwitzerlandSwitzerlandSwitzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. Hannah was able to talk to Anne several times through the barrier, and to toss some essentials over it for her. Anne had told Hannah at this point that she believed both of her parents were dead, and in later years Hannah reflected that if Anne had known her father was still alive, she might have found the strength to survive until the liberation of the camp. Shortly after Hannah threw the bundle over the fence for Anne, Anne's contingent of prisoners was moved, and Hannah never heard from her again. Hannah and her little sister Gabi were the only members of their family to survive the war, and Hannah was near death from typhusTyphusEpidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
and tuberculosisTuberculosisTuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
when the :Russians liberated the train in which she and Gabi were being transported, reportedly to Theresienstadt. After recovering, Hannah emigrated to :Israel, became a :nurse, and ultimately a :grandmother of ten.
- Susanne Sanne Ledermann was Anne's constant :companion from the time of her arrival in Amsterdam, and is mentioned several times at the beginning of the diary. She was considered the "quiet" one of the trio of "Anne, Hanne and Sanne". She was very intelligent, and according to Anne, very facile with poetry. Sanne's full first name is variously listed in different sources as both "Susanne" and "Susanna". Only her friends called her "Sanne", her family using the more Germanic "Susi". After his return to Amsterdam, Otto Frank learned that Sanne and her parents Franz and Ilse were arrested on 20 June 1943. Sanne and her parents were sent first to Westerbork, then on 16 November to Auschwitz, where all three were gassed upon arrival. Sanne's sister Barbara Ledermann, who was a friend of Margot, had, through contacts in the Dutch UndergroundDutch resistanceDutch resistance to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II can be mainly characterized by its prominent non-violence, summitting in over 300,000 people in hiding in the autumn of 1944, tended to by some 60,000 to 200,000 illegal landlords and caretakers and tolerated knowingly...
, acquired an AryanAryanAryan is an English language loanword derived from Sanskrit ārya and denoting variously*In scholarly usage:**Indo-Iranian languages *in dated usage:**the Indo-European languages more generally and their speakers...
ID card (becoming "Barbara Waarts") and worked as a courier for the Underground. She survived the war and later married the Nobel prize winning biochemist Martin RodbellMartin RodbellMartin Rodbell was an American biochemist and molecular endocrinologist who is best known for his discovery of G-proteins. He shared the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Alfred G...
.
- :Jacqueline van Maarsen "Jacque", as she was known to everyone, was Anne's "best" friend at the time the Frank family went into hiding. Jacque sincerely liked Anne, but found her at times too demanding in her friendship. Anne, in her diary later, was remorseful for her own attitude toward Jacque, regarding with better understanding Jacque's desire to have other close girlfriends as well - "I just want to apologize and explain things", Anne wrote. After two and a half months in hiding, Anne composed a farewell letter to Jacque in her diary, vowing her lifelong friendship. Jacque read this passage much later, after the publication of the diary. Jacque's French-born mother was a Christian, and that, along with several other extenuating circumstances, combined to get the "J" (for "Jew") removed from the family's identification cards. The van Maarsens were thus able to live out the war years in Amsterdam. Jacque later married her childhood sweetheartChildhood sweetheartChildhood sweetheart is a reciprocating phrase for a relationship between young persons, traditionally of the opposite sex occurring in their formative years...
Ruud Sanders, and still lives in Amsterdam, where she is an award-winning bookbinder and has written four books on their notable friendship: Anne and Jopie (1990), My Friend, Anne Frank (1996), My Name Is Anne, She Said, Anne FrankMy Name Is Anne, She Said, Anne FrankMy Name Is Anne, She Said, Anne Frank is a 2003 memoir-book written by :Jacqueline van Maarsen. The book was about the friendship of the author with the famous diarist, Anne Frank. Van Maarsen, who had previously written two books about Anne, had been giving lectures about her childhood friend...
(2003), and Inheriting Anne Frank (2009).
- Nanette "Nanny" Blitz was another schoolmate of Anne's. Nannette, by her own admission, was the girl given the made-up initials "G. S." in the early pages of Anne's diary. While they were not always on the best of terms during school days (their personalities were much too similar), Nanny had been invited to Anne's 13th birthday party, and when they met in Bergen-Belsen, their reunion was enthusiastic. With prisoners constantly being shifted around in the huge camp, Nanny later lost track of Anne. Nannette was the only member of her family to survive the war. While she was recovering from tuberculosis in a hospital immediately after the war, Otto Frank got in touch with her and she was able to write and give him some information about Anne and Margot's final weeks. Nanny and her family, as of 1998, resided in São PauloSão PauloSão Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
, BrazilBrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
.
- Ilse Wagner, whom Jacque van Maarsen called "a sweet and sensible girl", is mentioned several times in the early part of the diary. Her family had a table tennisTable tennisTable tennis, also known as ping-pong, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight, hollow ball back and forth using table tennis rackets. The game takes place on a hard table divided by a net...
set, and Anne and Margot frequently went to their house to play. Wagner was the first of Anne's circle of friends to be deported. Along with her mother and grandmother, she was sent to Westerbork in January 1943, then to Sobibór extermination campSobibór extermination campSobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp located on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor...
, where all three were gassed upon arrival on 2 April 1943.
- Lutz Peter Schiff: For all the admiring boys Anne was surrounded with during her school days, she said repeatedly in her diary that the only one she deeply cared about was Peter Schiff, whom she called "Petel". He was three years older than Anne and they had, according to Anne, been "inseparable" during the summer of 1940, when Anne turned 11. Then, Peter changed addresses and a new acquaintance slightly older than Peter convinced him Anne was "just a child". Anne had several vivid dreams of Peter while in hiding, writing about them in her diary, and realized, herself that she saw Peter van Pels, at least partially, as a surrogate for Peter Schiff. Anne implies in her diary (12 January 1944) that Peter Schiff gave her a pendantPendantA pendant is a loose-hanging piece of jewellery, generally attached by a small loop to a necklace, when the ensemble may be known as a "pendant necklace". A pendant earring is an earring with a piece hanging down. In modern French "pendant" is the gerund form of “hanging”...
as a gift, which she cherished from then on. Peter was also a prisoner at Bergen-Belsen, though he was transported from there to Auschwitz before Anne and Margot arrived at Belsen. It is known for certain that he died in Auschwitz, although the exact date of his death is unclear. In 2009, the Anne Frank HouseAnne Frank HouseThe Anne Frank House on Prinsengracht canal in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, is a museum dedicated to Jewish wartime diarist Anne Frank, who hid from Nazi persecution with her family and four other people in hidden rooms at the rear of the building...
received a photograph of Peter Schiff as a boy, donated by one of his former classmates
- Helmuth "Hello" Silberberg was the boy Anne was closest to at the time her family went into hiding, though they had only known each other about two weeks at that time. His grandfather, who disliked the name Helmuth, dubbed him "Hello". He was 16, and adored Anne, but she wrote in her diary that she was "not in love with Hello, he is just a friend, or as mummy would say, one of my 'beaux'." Hello had been living in Amsterdam with his grandparents, but by a very convoluted series of events, including several narrow escapes from the Nazis, he was able eventually to reunite with his parents in BelgiumBelgiumBelgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
. Belgium was also an occupied country, however, and he and his family were still "in hiding", though not under circumstances as difficult as the Franks. The town where the Silberbergs were hiding was liberated by American forces on 3 September 1944, and Hello was free — tragically on the same day that Anne and her family left on the last transport from Westerbork to Auschwitz. Hello emigrated to the United States after the war, and is today known as Ed Silverberg.
- Eva Geiringer shared a remarkably similar history with Anne. The Geiringers lived on the opposite side of Merwedeplein, the square where the Frank's apartment was located, and Eva and Anne were almost exactly the same age. Eva was also a close friend of Sanne Ledermann, and she knew both Anne and Margot. Eva described herself as an out-and-out tomboyTomboyA tomboy is a girl who exhibits characteristics or behaviors considered typical of the gender role of a boy, including the wearing of typically masculine-oriented clothes and engaging in games and activities that are often physical in nature, and which are considered in many cultures to be the...
, and hence she was in awe of Anne's fashion sense and worldliness, but she was somewhat puzzled by Anne's fascination with boys. "I had a brother, so boys were no big thing to me" Eva wrote. But Anne had introduced Eva to her father when the Geiringers first came to Amsterdam "so you can speak German with someone" as Anne had said, and Eva never forgot Otto's kindness to her. Though they did know each other on a first-name basis, Eva and Anne were not especially close, as they had different groups of friends aside from their mutual close friendship with Sanne Ledermann. Eva's brother Heinz was called up for deportation to labor camp on the same day as Margot Frank, and the Geiringers went into hiding at the same time the Franks did, though the Geiringer family split into two groups to do so - Eva and her mother, and Heinz and his father. Though hiding in two separate locations, all four of the Geiringers were betrayed on the same day, about three months before the Frank family. Eva survived Auschwitz, and when the Russians liberated Birkenau, the women's sector of the camp, she walked the mile-and-a-half distance to the men's camp to look for her father and brother, finding out much later that they had not survived the prisoner march out of Auschwitz. But when she entered the sick barracks of the men's camp, she recognized Otto Frank, and had a warm reunion with him. Eight years later, Otto married Eva's widowed mother Fritzi, thereby making Eva a stepsister of Anne. Eva later wrote her autobiography Eva's Story: A Survivor's Tale by the Stepsister of Anne Frank, which served as the inspiration for the development of a popular multimedia stage presentation about the Holocaust called And Then They Came for MeAnd Then They Came for MeAnd Then They Came for Me is a play by American author James Still. It is a multimedia production, which combines tapes of interviews with Holocaust survivors Ed Silverberg and Eva Schloss with live actors recreating the scenes from their lives. It is part oral history, part drama, part...
.
- Mary Bos was a schoolmate from the Montessori school. She was an invited guest at Anne's tenth birthday party, and in the well-known photo of that gathering, she is the very slender girl third from the right. Mary was a gifted artist, whose drawings and paintings were much admired by her peers. She is mentioned in passing in Anne's diary, when Anne writes of dreaming about Peter Schiff. She and Peter are looking "at a book of drawings by Mary Bos". Mary and her parents had emigrated to the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in February 1940. When they left, Anne wrote Mary a little poem as a goodbye note. Mary almost forgot about Anne, but after the war, when Anne's diary was published, she recalled about Anne, that they were friends at Montessori. After the war, Mary married Bob Schneider. They still live in the United States.
- Käthe "Kitty" Egyedi: Kitty was another lifelong friend of Anne's, and was, like Mary Bos, a fine artist (Kitty remained lifelong friends with Mary Bos, communicating regularly by letter, even after Mary moved permanently to the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1940). Schoolmates at Montessori, Anne and Kitty attended different schools after sixth grade, and hence they had drifted apart somewhat. But shortly before the Franks went into hiding, Kitty visited Anne one day when Anne was in bed with a slight fever. They chatted the whole afternoon, and Kitty was impressed and pleased that the shrill, blunt, and boy-crazy friend she remembered from Montessori school had begun to mature into a somewhat more introspective and thoughtful girl. This drew them closer together again. In the picture of Anne's 10th birthday referenced above under "Mary Bos", Kitty is the girl in the center with the dark pleated skirt. Kitty never felt that Anne was specifically thinking of her when she addressed her diary passages to "Kitty", and most Anne scholars and biographers believe Anne borrowed the name from the Joop ter HeulJoop ter HeulJoop ter Heul was a fictional character in a series of five books written for teenage girls by Dutch novelist Setske de Haan , who wrote under the pen name Cissy van Marxveldt. Joop was high-spirited, headstrong and stubborn. The first four books, published over a six-year period deal with her...
books (these were a great favorite of Anne's, and Joop's best friend was a character named "Kitty Francken"). Kitty's entire family survived internment at Theresienstadt, and, following her father's profession, she became a dentistDentistA dentist, also known as a 'dental surgeon', is a doctor that specializes in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of diseases and conditions of the oral cavity. The dentist's supporting team aides in providing oral health services...
after the war.
- Lucia "Lucie" van Dijk was a Christian friend from Montessori school. Lucie's mother was an adamant member of the NSBNational Socialist Movement in the NetherlandsThe National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands was a Dutch fascist and later national socialist political party. As a parliamentary party participating in legislative elections, the NSB had some success during the 1930s...
until the end of the war, but Lucie's disillusioned father left the party in 1942. Anne was shocked when the van Dijks became party members, but Otto Frank patiently explained to her that they could still be good people even if they had distasteful politics. Lucie herself was briefly a rather conflicted and nervous member of the "Jeugdstorm" (Nazi youth group) but between her father's later abandonment of the party, and her grandmother's absolute abhorrence of anything connected with National Socialism, Lucie dropped out of the Jeugdstorm in late 1942. She married after the war and has lived her whole life in Amsterdam. In the group picture of Anne's tenth birthday, Lucie is the girl on the extreme left.
- Rie "Ietje" Swillens was another good friend of Anne's all the way through Montessori school. Ietje was the girl whom Anne breathlessly shared the news with concerning one of her maternal uncles, who had been arrested by the Nazis and sent to labor camp (he later was released and emigrated to the United States). Being Christian, Ietje's family was able to live out the war in Amsterdam. She became a teacher in later years and today lives in AmstelveenAmstelveen' is a suburban municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is part of the metropolitan area of Amsterdam. The municipality of Amstelveen consists of the following villages and/or districts: Amstelveen, Bovenkerk, Westwijk, Bankras-Kostverloren, Groenelaan, Waardhuizen,...
, outside of Amsterdam. She is the girl second from right in the "tenth birthday" picture.
- Juultje Ketellaper and Martha van den Berg are two other childhood friends of Anne's who appear in the picture of Anne's tenth birthday party. Very little is known about either girl. Juultje, the very tall girl near the center, was gassed by the Nazis in Sobibór. She may have been a Montessori schoolmate of Anne's, or merely a neighborhood friend. Martha, on the far right in the photograph, survived the war. Martha was a Montessori schoolmate, and is seen in another picture with Anne taken during Anne's last term at Montessori.
- Hannelore "Hansi" Klein (Laureen Nussbaum) was exactly midway in age between Anne and Margot. Hansi was an exception among those who knew Anne - she was rather indifferent about Anne, idolizing her sister Margot instead. But Anne, Hansi, and Hansi's two sisters performed in a holiday play about a vain princess who is punished with a long nose for her vanity, until she sees the error of her ways. Anne played the princess, and Hansi noted that she played the role to perfection, and had "natural charisma". Most people felt that Margot was the more beautiful of the Frank sisters, but Hansi observed that Anne, in her opinion, was prettier than Margot because "she was always smiling". Aside from those anecdotes, however, Hansi thought of Anne primarily as a noisy chatterboxChatterbox- In music :* "Chatterbox", a song by composer Jerome Brainin for the musical film That’s Right You’re Wrong * Chatterbox , a 1990 album by Toadies frontman Todd Lewis and guitarist Darrel Herbert...
, and "a shrimp", and she was surprised and impressed with Anne's inner depth upon reading the diary much later. Hansi married a young physicianPhysicianA physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
after the war and, upon emigrating to America, changed her first name to "Laureen", and ultimately became a professor of foreign literature and languages at Portland State UniversityPortland State UniversityPortland State University is a public state urban university located in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1946, it has the largest overall enrollment of any university in the state of Oregon, including undergraduate and graduate students. It is also the only public university in...
.
- Gertrud Naumann was a friend and companion of Anne and Margot in GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Although nine years older than Margot, this friendly girl always played with both of the Frank sisters, and was a neighborhood favorite of both Mr. and Mrs. Frank. After the Franks moved to AmsterdamAmsterdamAmsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, Gertrud kept contact with them through letters. Being ChristianChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
, Gertrud was able to stay out of the war. Gertrud was one of the first friends in Germany with whom Otto FrankOtto FrankOtto Heinrich "Pim" Frank was a German-born businessman and the father of Anne Frank and Margot Frank...
got in touch after the war. In 1949, Gertrud married Karl Trenz. Gertrud died in 2002 at the age of eighty-five.
- Bernhard (Bernd) "Buddy" Elias was a cousin of Anne's who lived in Switzerland, and a great favorite of hers. Four years older than Anne (and hence, even older than Margot) his rollicking sense of fun matched Anne's temperament perfectly, and he much preferred Anne as a playmate to the staid and proper Margot. Everyone called him "Buddy" except Anne, who always called him "Bernd". He was a very talented ice skater, which Anne hugely admired. She even wrote an imaginary movie plot in her diary, wherein she would skate with Bernd, including a sketch of the costume she would wear. After a long career as a professional skater and actor, he eventually became the head of the Anne Frank Fund in BaselBaselBasel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
(a separate organization from the Anne Frank FoundationAnne Frank FoundationThe Anne Frank Foundation or Anne Frank Stichting is a foundation in The Netherlands originally established to maintain the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam...
in Amsterdam).
- Charlotta Kaletta, the common lawCommon lawCommon law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
wife of Fritz PfefferFritz PfefferFriedrich "Fritz" Pfeffer was a German dentist and Jewish refugee who hid with Anne Frank during the Nazi Occupation of the Netherlands, and who perished in the Neuengamme concentration camp in Northern Germany...
, was not Jewish and therefore was able to remain in her Amsterdam apartment during the occupation. Miep Gies was especially touched by the devotion Pfeffer and Kaletta displayed to each other, and frequently passed letters from one to the other, an act which the other members of the household viewed as imprudent, but which she felt was important. Kaletta's Jewish husband and their son both died in Auschwitz, but she held hope for some time after the war's end that Pfeffer had survived. When she learned of his death, she married him posthumously, Otto Frank making the arrangements for her. Frank was always sympathetic to her and continued to offer her assistance, but in the mid-1950s she severed all contact with him and with Miep and Jan Gies, because she was offended by the unflattering depiction of Pfeffer in Anne's diary. Charlotta died in Amsterdam on 13 June 1985.
- Several members of the Frank and Holländer families, including Otto's mother and sister and Edith's two brothers, fled from GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
to SwitzerlandSwitzerlandSwitzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
or the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in the 1930s, and all who did so survived the war. In his later years, Otto Frank lamented his decision to take his family to the Netherlands.
Arresting officer
- Karl SilberbauerKarl SilberbauerKarl Josef Silberbauer was an Austrian SD officer holding the rank of SS-Oberscharführer , when, serving in the occupied Netherlands, he arrested Anne Frank and her family in their hiding place in 1944....
was the SicherheitsdienstSicherheitsdienstSicherheitsdienst , full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often considered a "sister organization" with the...
(Nazi Security Service) officer who arrested Anne FrankAnne FrankAnnelies Marie "Anne" Frank is one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films.Born in the city of Frankfurt...
and her family in their hiding place in 1944. He was tracked down and identified as the arresting officer in October 1963 by the Nazi-hunter Simon WiesenthalSimon WiesenthalSimon Wiesenthal KBE was an Austrian Holocaust survivor who became famous after World War II for his work as a Nazi hunter....
. Although his memories of the arrest were notably vivid, Silberbauer had not been told by his superior officer, Julius DettmannJulius DettmannJulius Dettmann was a German officer of the SD of the SS.Dettman belonged to the SS with the card number 414,783, and to the Nazi Party with card number 722,240, member of Section IVB4 of the Gestapo. He was stationed in Amsterdam, Holland, during the German occupation of that country...
, who had made the tip-off, only that it came from a "reliable source", and was unable to provide any information that would further a police investigation. Silberbauer's confession helped discredit claims that The Diary of Anne Frank was a forgery. Given Otto Frank's crucial declaration that Silberbauer had obviously acted on orders and behaved correctly and without cruelty during the arrest, judicial investigation of Silberbauer was dropped, and he was able to continue in his career as a police officer. Silberbauer died in 1972.