From 1933 through 1942, the Franks lived in this bright new apartment
complex on the Merweideplein in Amsterdam
In October 1944, Anne and Margot were transported from Auschwitz to the
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Thousands died from planned
starvation and epidemics at Bergen-Belsen, which was without food, heat,
medicine, or elementary sanitary conditions.
Anne and Margot, already debilitated, contracted typhus and grew even
sicker. Anne, fifteen years old, and Margot, nineteen years old, died in
February and March, 1945.
A hinged bookcase at the rear of the office wall was all that separated
the Secret Annex from the outside world
Karl Joseph Silberbauer, an Austrian Nazi, forced the residents to turn
over all valuables. When he found out that Otto Frank had been a
lieutenant in the German Army during World War I, he was a little less
hostile. The residents were taken from the house, forced into a covered
truck, taken to the Central Office for Jewish Emigration, and then to
Weteringschans Prison.
The helpers, from left to right: Mr. Kugler, Miep Gies, Bep Voskuijl,
and Mr. Kleiman.
Otto Frank was the only resident of the annex to survive the Holocaust.
He found it difficult to settle permanently in Amsterdam with its
constant reminders of his lost family.
He and his second wife, Elfried Geiringer, also an Auschwitz survivor,
moved to Basel, Switzerland, in 1953. Otto Frank died on August 19,
1980, at the age of ninety-one.
This was one of the last pictures taken by Anne and Margot before they went into hiding.
Anne Frank attended the local Montesori school, but after summer recess
in 1941, she was not allowed to attend school with non-Jews.
In May 1942, all Jews aged six and older were required to wear a yellow
Star of David on their clothes, to set them apart from non-Jews.
Anne decorated her narrow bedroom with photographs and postcards of
movie stars.
