Anne Frank in the Secret Annex: Who Was Who?

Anne Frank in the Secret Annex

Who Was Who?

Contents

Foreword

A Brief History

On the Run

The Occupation and the Anti-Jewish Regulations

Opekta, Pectacon, Gies & Co.

The Hiding Period and the Arrest

Police Investigation

The Helpers Are Honored

Daily Life in the Secret Annex

Daily Routine

Food and Distribution

Contact with the Outside World

Daily Discomforts

Holidays

The Building at Prinsengracht 263

The People in Hiding

Otto Frank

Background: A Well-to-Do Family

Flight to the Netherlands: A Modern Businessman

In Hiding: Paterfamilias

After Discovery: Absorbed by the Diary

Edith Frank

Background: Happy Years

Flight to the Netherlands: Adjusting to Another Country

In Hiding: Living in Fear and Despair

After Discovery: A Well-Organized Hell

Margot Frank

Background: A Sweet, Easy-Going Girl

Flight to the Netherlands: A Hardworking and Clever Student

In Hiding: Eight Lonely People

After Discovery: Westerbork, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen

Anne Frank

Background: A Cheeky Little Toddler

Flight to the Netherlands: Miss Chatterback

In Hiding: The Dream of Being a Famous Writer

After Discovery: A Lonely Death

Hermann van Pels

Background: Dutch Nationality

Flight to the Netherlands: Specialist in Herbs and Spices

In Hiding: Shortage of Funds

After Discovery: A Fatal Injury

Auguste van Pels

Background: Coquettish and Elegant

Flight to the Netherlands: A New Start in the Netherlands

In Hiding: Keeping Things Lively

After Discovery: A Brutal Death

Peter van Pels

Background: Smaller and Smaller Classes

Flight to the Netherlands: Good with His Hands

In Hiding: Hunger and Dreaming of Freedom

After Discovery: A Death March

Fritz Pfeffer

Background: A Sports-Loving Dentist

Flight to the Netherlands: Saying Good-Bye to His Son

In Hiding: Love at a Distance

After Discovery: Worked to Death

The Helpers

Johannes Kleiman

Background: Jack-of-All-Trades

In Hiding: Auguste Van Pels’s Fur Coat

After Discovery: Intense Involvement with the Anne Frank House

Victor Kugler

Background: Friend and Business Partner

In Hiding: Mastermind of the Bookcase

After Discovery: Immigrating to Canada

Bep Voskuijl

Background: Eldest of a Large Family

In Hiding: The Youngest Helper

After Discovery: Meeting Queen Juliana

Miep Gies

Background: A Bicycle Ride That Changed Her Life

In Hiding: Pack Mule and Carrier Pigeon

After Discovery: A Woman with a Big Heart

Jan Gies

Background: An Unpretentious Amsterdammer

In Hiding: In the Resistance

After Discovery: Prince Consort

Others In and Around Prinsengracht 263

Warehouse Workers, 1942–1944

Cats

The Chemist and the Neighbors

Sales Representatives

Deliverymen: The Butcher, the Baker, and the Greengrocer

Jewish Emigration Flows, 1933–1939

Important Camps

Time Line

Lifelines

Glossary

Sources

Further Reading

Notes

Visual Credits

Foreword

During World War II, in what is now known as the Secret Annex, located in Amsterdam at Prinsengracht 263, eight Jews remained in hiding for more than two years: Otto; Edith; Margo and Anne Frank; Hermann; Auguste and Peter van Pels; and Fritz Pfeffer. Five people, for whom taking on this dangerous task felt only normal, helped them: Johannes Kleiman, Victor Kugler, Bep Voskuijl, and Miep and Jan Gies.

In her diary, Anne Frank gave faces to the eight people hiding in the Secret Annex and their five helpers. The period she lived with them—July 1942 to August 1944—was intense. Her youthful outlook and the circumstances of the war era strongly colored the portraits she created. Anne gave all of the characters pseudonyms in her diary, except for her parents and and her sister.

But who were these people and where did they come from? What were their daily lives like during the occupation? What did these people in hiding eat? What did they do all day? And how did their helpers manage to feed eight extra mouths while carrying out their duties at the office, without their activities being noticed? Did they stay in contact after the war?

For the first time, this book outlines the lives of those in hiding and their helpers, both during and after their time in the Secret Annex, in thirteen personal portraits. There were also other people active in and around Prinsengracht 263, such as warehouse employees, suppliers, and representatives. To date, their roles have never been described.

The Anne Frank Foundation has spent many years researching everyone involved. This publication includes their latest discoveries, as well as many new photographs. We hope that this ebook will form a valuable addition to the existing literature about Anne Frank and the Secret Annex.

—Ronald Leopold

Executive Director, Anne Frank House

A Brief History

Germany’s defeat in World War I in 1918 brought the country to its knees. It wasn’t only the heavy war reparations imposed by the victorious countries on Germany that dealt such a crushing blow. The hyperinflation of 1923 marked a low point in Germany’s crisis. The United States responded by offering loans that were intended to help pay off the war debt, enabling Germany to enjoy relative prosperity and moderate political stability until 1929. In that year, however, a worldwide economic crisis struck, causing Germany’s problems to take a sharp turn for the worse. The American loans were withdrawn, many companies went bankrupt, and unemployment spiraled. This produced a climate in which the extreme nationalist ideas of Adolf Hitler and his Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), or the Nazi Party, found fertile soil. The Nazis blamed all the political and economic problems on the Jews.

After the appointment of Hitler as chancellor on January 30, 1933, and the subsequent victory of the National Socialists in the parliamentary and municipal elections, the curtain fell on the young German republic. The persecution of Hitler’s political opponents had already been set in motion. As the years passed, the situation became increasingly threatening for the Jews as well. Countless regulations and ordinances turned them into second-class citizens. Jews were not allowed to practice certain professions, for example. Their children had to attend separate schools, and the publication of Jewish newspapers and magazines was declared illegal. Disabled people were also persecuted, as were the Roma and the Sinti, homosexuals, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Later on, most of these regulations were also imposed in countries occupied by Germany, including the Netherlands.

On the Run

After Hitler came to power, a large number of German Jews fled their homeland. Tens of thousands went to the Netherlands. Among them were Otto and Edith Frank and their daughters, Margot and Anne, as well as Hermann and Auguste van Pels and their son, Peter. The eighth occupant of the Secret Annex, Fritz Pfeffer, first tried to emigrate from Germany to South America, but in the end, he too ended up in the Netherlands.

Letter from the American Consulate in Rotterdam to Hermann van Pels, dated April 25, 1939, with confirmation of registration of the van Pels family as immigrants. Because of the high number of applicants, the waiting time is indefinite.

For some refugees, the Netherlands was meant to be a stopover point in their search for refuge. The Frank and Van Pels families also attempted to leave the country. In 1937, Otto Frank tried to set up a business in England, but his efforts failed. In 1938, he applied for emigration to the United States but was turned down. After Edith’s unmarried brothers succeeded in getting to America, Otto made a few more frantic attempts to immigrate to America or Cuba in 1941. But due to the growing stream of refugees, the excessive red tape, and the everchanging demands, his requests came to naught. The Van Pels family had been on a waiting list to apply for a visa to the United States since 1939, and Fritz Pfeffer was hoping to go to Australia, Aruba, or Chile.

When all these attempts failed, the Franks had nowhere left to go. Finally, just a little more than two years after the German invasion of the Netherlands, they decided to go into hiding.

The Occupation and the Anti-Jewish Regulations

On May 10, 1940, Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands. After a four-day battle and the devastating bombing of Rotterdam, the country capitulated. The Dutch government and Queen Wilhelmina fled to London, where they made radio broadcasts via Radio Oranje through the BBC to raise the spirits of their countrymen. Listening had to be done in secret because the German occupiers had banned the English stations, and it wasn’t long before the Dutch were required to turn in their radios.

The Nazis also introduced more and more anti-Jewish regulation in the Netherlands. The names of the approximately 140,000