After the Annex: Anne Frank, Auschwitz and Beyond

Bas von Benda-Beckmann

Translated from the Dutch by Plym Peters and Tony Langham

After the Annex

Anne Frank, Auschwitz and Beyond

5

Contents

Title Page

Introduction

CHAPTER ONE

You asked me if I could tell you anything more

A search for the people in hiding in the Annex

WHERE ANNE’S DIARY CAME TO AN END

EDITH, ANNE, MARGOT AND OTTO FRANK

AUGUSTE, HERMANN AND PETER VAN PELS

FRITZ PFEFFER

GOING INTO HIDING AND ARREST

THE SEARCH

AN INCOMPLETE PUZZLE

CHAPTER TWO

Mum, did you know that Margot was here?

Prison and Camp Westerbork

PRISON

CAMP WESTERBORK

ARRIVAL

EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE CRIMINAL BARRACKS

MEETING PEOPLE IN WESTERBORK

THAT TERRIBLE JOURNEY: THE TRANSPORT OF 3 SEPTEMBER

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPECTATIONS OF MASS MURDER

CHAPTER THREE

Being there was like living in hell

Auschwitz

AUSCHWITZ AND THE GENOCIDE OF THE EUROPEAN JEWS

A DEVELOPING CAMP

FUNKTIONSHÄFTLINGE (KAPOS)

THE ARRIVAL, SELECTION AND REGISTRATION IN AUSCHWITZ OF THE PRISONERS FROM THE ANNEX

STAMMLAGER: THE MEN IN AUSCHWITZ I

HERMANN VAN PELS MURDERED IN THE GAS CHAMBER

PARCELS

SURVIVING IN AUSCHWITZ

DEPARTURE

CHAPTER FOUR

You couldn’t raise her spirits because there weren’t any

Edith, Anne and Margot Frank, and Auguste van Pels in Auschwitz-Birkenau

LIFE IN THE CAMP: HUNGER, COLD AND SELECTIONS

GUARDS AND VIOLENCE IN THE WOMEN’S CAMP

IN THE DUTCH BARRACKS: EDITH, ANNE AND MARGOT FRANK, AND AUGUSTE VAN PELS

ANOTHER DEPARTURE: ANNE, MARGOT AND AUGUSTE LEAVE

EDITH BECAME ILL: THE DEATH OF EDITH FRANK

CHAPTER FIVE

I don’t remember seeing her standing on her feet

Anne and Margot Frank and Auguste van Pels in Bergen-Belsen

FROM AUSCHWITZ TO BERGEN-BELSEN

BERGEN-BELSEN: PRISON CAMP, TRANSIT CAMP AND CONCENTRATION CAMP

MARGOT AND ANNE FRANK AND AUGUSTE VAN PELS IN BERGEN-BELSEN

MEETINGS AT THE FENCE

THE DEATH OF MARGOT AND ANNE FRANK

CHAPTER SIX

I remember Gusta van Pels – she was of German origin

Auguste van Pels in Raguhn

THANK GOD, A SMALL CAMP

WORKING IN THE AIRCRAFT INDUSTRY

CHAPTER SEVEN

They never came back

Peter van Pels in Mauthausen and Melk

THE DEATH MARCH FROM AUSCHWITZ TO MAUTHAUSEN

A CABINETMAKER WITH AN OVAL FACE

CHAPTER EIGHT

The largest proportion of deaths was amongst the Dutch

Fritz Pfeffer in Neuengamme

NEUENGAMME

FRITZ PFEFFER IN NEUENGAMME

CHAPTER NINE

I don’t know where the children are

Otto’s search

BACK HOME

EVERY CRUMB

Chart and maps

Notes

Archives

Bibliography and other sources

Photographs

Index

Copyright

8

Introduction

In many respects, this book is the result of a joint effort. The most important basis and the thread which runs through the work consists of the research carried out by Erika Prins between 2012 and 2016, when she was working as a historical researcher for the Anne Frank House. This research resulted in Onderzoeksverslag naar het verblijf van de acht onderduikers in de kampen (Research report on life in the camps where the eight people in hiding were prisoners) (Amsterdam 2016). In the following years, there were additions to her report by Esther Göbel, who had edited an earlier version of the chapter about Auschwitz, and by Gertjan Broek and Teresien da Silva. In 2019 the research was continued by Bas van Benda-Beckman, who wrote this book on the basis of the 2016 research report and new discoveries.

However, there are other people who also contributed to this project. The authors, researchers and the Anne Frank House would like to thank the various archivists, readers and advisors who helped to make this book possible. In addition to the people working in the different archives and heritage centers, this includes Professor Wichert ten Have, former Director of the NIOD Institute for war, holocaust and genocide studies, who not only expertly supervised and commented on the project, but also insisted in 2019 that it should be published in book form.

Valuable commentary was also added by Daan de Leeuw and Guido Abuys, and by Josje Kraamer and Annette Portegies 9from Querido, the Dutch publisher, who provided feedback for the manuscript. Of course, there are also all our colleagues at the Anne Frank House who contributed to this book in a variety of ways. In addition to the people mentioned above, these include Karolien Stocking Korzen, who researched the photographs, and Liselot van Heesch, Menno Metselaar, Eugenie Martens and Tom Brink, who read the text and were involved in the publication of the Dutch edition of this book. This English edition was translated by Tony Langham and Plym Peters.

Finally, this book would never have happened without the many witnesses who were interviewed in the context of the oral history project of the Anne Frank House and by other institutions. It is thanks to them that we were able to conduct this search into the experiences in the camps of the group of eight who had been in hiding. Therefore, we would like to express our particular gratitude to all the witnesses who shared their stories.10

11

CHAPTER ONE

You asked me if I could tell you anything more

A search for the people in hiding in the Annex

Eyewitnesses are the only people who can speak on behalf of the dead.

Arnon Grunberg (speech on 4 May 2020)

WHERE ANNE’S DIARY CAME TO AN END

On 4 August 1944, the Sicherheitspolizei (security police) raided the offices of Opekta at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam. They discovered eight Jewish people who had been hiding in an annex since July 1942. One of them was a 15-year-old girl called Anne Frank. Since her thirteenth birthday, she had been recording the events of her life in detail in her diary, a document that was to become one of the most famous books in the world. Because of the diary, which has been published in more than seventy languages and filmed several times, the story of these eight people who went into hiding became one of the best-known personal histories of the Second World War. Through Anne’s eyes, the world learned about those eight people who remained hidden for two years on the Prinsengracht from an intimate description of the experiences of an adolescent growing up.

This book is about those eight people: the Franks – Otto, Edith, Margot and Anne; the Van Pels – Hermann, Auguste and Peter; and Fritz Pfeffer. They were all Jews who had fled 12Nazi Germany during the 1930s to build a new life in the Netherlands. Eight people who went into hiding together in the summer and autumn of 1942 in order to survive the Nazi’s persecution of the Jews.

The façade of the office building at Prinsengracht 263 (center), in about 1947.

This book picks up the story where Anne’s diary comes to an end. It examines, as precisely as possible, what happened to them after they were arrested and transferred to different concentration and extermination camps, where seven of them died.

No matter how famous Anne Frank and her seven fellow victims are, this book needs an introduction to them. To 13follow the history of their lives in the camps accurately, it is important to take a short look at what preceded their arrests: who they were, the circumstances under which they escaped Nazi Germany, and how they ended up in the Annex in 1942.

EDITH, ANNE, MARGOT AND OTTO FRANK

First of all, there was the Frank family. Father Otto was a businessman who had grown up in a prosperous banking family in Frankfurt am Main. He had a liberal Jewish background and had fought in the German army as an officer during the First World War.¹ In 1925, Otto married Edith Holländer, and their wedding took place in Aachen, Edith’s hometown. Like Otto, she had a liberal Jewish background, although she was considerably more religious than her husband and felt a stronger attachment to Jewish traditions. After they were married, Edith and Otto lived in Frankfurt, where they had two daughters: Margot was born in 1926, followed by Anne in 1929.

In Frankfurt, the family were aware of the threat of the growing Nazi movement and, following a period of rising fear and insecurity, they made the decision to finally leave for the Netherlands. After the war, Otto Frank remembered how the menacing atmosphere in Germany in the early 1930s increasingly made him and Edith think about the possibility of emigration:

I remember SA groups marching by as early as 1932, singing: When the blood of Jews splashes off my knife. Everyone could see what was happening. I immediately asked my wife: How can we leave here? But of course, the question is how can you continue to make a living when you leave and more or less give up everything?² 14

The bridal couple Otto and Edith Frank-Holländer with their wedding guests, 12 May 1925. Otto celebrated his thirty-sixth birthday on the same day.

The impetus for the Frank family to actually leave Germany arrived when Adolf Hitler came into power with his National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) in January 1933. The effects of the new regime immediately became noticeable in their hometown of Frankfurt. As soon as Hitler was appointed Chancellor, the Nazis wanted to show the Jews that there was no room for them anymore. In March of that year, the Nazis announced a national boycott that was enforced throughout the country on 1 April. Following this, antisemitic terror took on increasingly violent forms.

Edith Frank, May 1935.

Otto Frank, May 1936.

Margot and Anne in Aachen, October 1933.

Jewish shops, businesses and doctors were boycotted throughout Germany. With its Jewish community of approximately 31,000 people (roughly 6 per cent of the city’s inhabitants), the consequences were enormous in Frankfurt.³ On 13 March 1933, the Sturmabteilung (SA) – the paramilitary 15thugs of the National Socialists – stormed the town hall, raised swastika flags and replaced the liberal Oberbürgermeister Ludwig Landmann with the National Socialist lawyer Friedrich Krebs. That afternoon, the SA blocked the entrances of the shops and department stores of Jewish owners in different places in the city and intimidated the shoppers and customers. In the following days, the threats increased, and on 1 April 1933, there was a national boycott of Jewish businesses that was 16often enforced with a great deal of violence and intimidation. By 21 March, during a large demonstration by the NSDAP, the new police commissioner in Frankfurt indicated that the boycott of Jewish business was particularly necessary in his 17city: Frankfurt must become German. You Jews don’t have to be afraid. We’ll follow the law. We’ll obey the law so much that you’ll feel quite uncomfortable about it.⁴

Nazis hanging the swastika flag at the town hall in Frankfurt am Main, 13 March 1933.

It was thinly veiled threats such as these that convinced Otto and Edith Frank that there was no longer any future for them in Germany. Financial problems also played a role in the decision. Otto Frank’s family banking business was declining quickly, along with his other business activities. In the spring of 1933, the family finally decided to move to the Netherlands, where Otto Frank wanted to establish a Dutch branch of the Opekta business, helped by his brother-in-law Erich Elias. Opekta dealt in pectin, a gelling agent for making jam.

Advertisements for Opekta.

In mid-August 1933, Otto left for Amsterdam to start his new company and prepare for the arrival of his wife and children, who had been staying with Edith’s mother in Aachen for a few months.⁵ In December that year the family moved into a large family home on the Merwedeplein in the new Rivierenbuurt district in Amsterdam. Otto Frank initially rented a number of rooms in the Candida premises on the Nieuwezijds 18Voorburgwal for his company, before relocating to the Singel from 1934. In 1938 he also bought the Pectacon company, a business dealing in spices and conserving agents, from its founder Johannes Kleiman, who continued as one of Otto’s closest colleagues. From December 1940 he established both businesses at the Prinsengracht 263, a seventeenth-century building with a front office and an annex, a sufficient number of offices, warehouses and storage room for the two companies. There was also a mill for the spices.

A postcard of the Merwedeplein in Amsterdam dating from the 1930s. The Frank family lived at number 37.

The Frank family on the Merwedeplein, May 1941. This is the last known photograph of the whole family.

19The Frank family built a new life in Amsterdam. The girls went to school, where they quickly settled in and soon managed to master the Dutch language, and Otto and Edith also made many new friends and acquaintances. These were predominantly Jews living in the area who had also fled from Germany, but there were also Dutch neighbors, business connections and colleagues from Otto Frank’s company, Opekta-Pectacon. Otto Frank had a particularly close relationship with his colleagues Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman, his secretaries Miep Santrouschitz (who subsequently married Jan Gies) and Bep Voskuijl, and Bep’s father Johannes. These were the people who were responsible for looking after the group of eight people who went into hiding in the Annex from the summer of 1942 to August 1944. They brought food, new clothes, company and news from the outside world to the isolated life of the Frank family and the others in hiding.

Otto and the helpers, October 1945. From left to right: Miep Gies, Johannes Kleiman, Otto Frank, Victor Kugler and Bep Voskuijl.

Jan Gies, early 1940s.

Johannes Voskuijl, December 1940.

After the Frank family came to the Netherlands in 1933, they continued to closely follow the developments in Germany. They heard the reports from family and friends about the continuing violence raging there and the increasingly aggressive persecution of Jews in their home country, but they also saw what was happening with their own eyes. Up to 1938 – the year 20in which anti-Jewish violence increased radically – Otto and Edith regularly visited their family in Germany, with Anne and Margot staying with their grandmother in Aachen every year, usually around Christmas.⁶ In this predominantly Catholic city close to the Dutch border, the NSDAP had a clearly discernible influence on the daily life of the small Jewish community. Edith’s mother Rosa and her two brothers, Walter and Julius, who together ran a successful metal recycling company, were regularly confronted with the new regime.⁷ 21

Edith and her brother, Walter, 1920s.22

Rosa Holländer, Edith’s mother, at the end of the 1930s.

In June 1933, the Gestapo arrested a good friend of Edith’s older brother Julius, the lawyer Karl Löwenstein.⁸ Löwenstein was the president of the board of the synagogue on which Julius Holländer also had a seat. Together with his brother, and without any provocation, Löwenstein was taken into Schutzhaft (preventive custody) for several weeks.⁹ Walter and Julius Holländer’s metal recycling company also ran into increasingly serious financial problems as a result of the anti-Jewish measures that had been introduced.¹⁰ It also became increasingly difficult for Walter, Julius and their mother Rosa Holländer-Stern to visit the synagogue for the Sabbath service in the Neue Synagoge in Aachen, which they regularly attended each week, with SA officers often stood outside the entrance in order to prevent people from entering. Additionally, Jews were increasingly expelled from public life.23

The synagogue of Aachen was set on fire and destroyed, 10 November 1938.

24After the massive eruption of anti-Jewish violence on 9 and 10 November 1938, Anne and Margot’s annual visits to Aachen came to an end. That night came to be known as the Kristallnacht or the Reichskristallnacht. The origins of this term are not completely clear. As far as we know, it was first used in 1939 by a Nazi official and was meant to be a cynical reference to the broken glass of all the shop windows that had been smashed. Although it never became an official term of propaganda in Nazi Germany, its use remained controversial, particularly in the German literature, which has recently opted instead for terms such as the November Pogrom or the Night of the Pogrom. (This is partly because any reference to broken glass does not do justice to the large-scale violence that took place on that night.)¹¹

A shop with a smashed window in Berlin, 10 November 1938.

25In a nationally coordinated campaign of terror, groups of National Socialists set fire to synagogues and destroyed Jewish shops throughout the German Reich, which by now also included Austria. They kicked in the doors of Jewish homes and abused the people living there, trashing their possessions. About 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and temporarily incarcerated in the concentration camps of Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen and Dachau, camps which had been set up by the Nazis in 1933 to imprison their political opponents.

Walter and Julius Holländer were arrested in November 1938. Julius was soon released because he had been wounded during the First World War and had a special status as a veteran, but Walter was imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp for three weeks and was only released when he was admitted to a Dutch refugee camp with Otto Frank’s help. Whilst there, he waited for his application for a visa to the United States to be processed, and both brothers eventually managed to escape to the United States via the Netherlands. Rosa Holländer-Stern, Anne’s grandmother, also left Aachen and moved in with the Frank family on the Merwedeplein. The campaign of terror during the night of 9–10 November 1938 was the writing on the wall: a clear sign that Jews no longer had any legal rights in Nazi Germany.¹²

A year and a half later, on 10 May 1940, it became clear that it was no longer safe in the Netherlands either. The German army had forced the Netherlands to surrender in only five days. From the late summer of 1940, the occupying regime introduced increasingly far-reaching antisemitic measures under the leadership of the Reich Commissioner, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, an Austrian lawyer and Nazi politician. It was one of the first things Anne described in her diary, which she had started in June 1942: 26

Dr. Arthur Seyss-Inquart. Seyss-Inquart was an Austrian official, appointed by Hitler as Reich Commissioner in the Netherlands.

Now that the Germans are in charge here, things are getting really bad for us. First, there was the distribution of food and everything had to be bought with coupons, and in the two years that they’ve been here, there’ve been all sorts of Jewish laws. […] Jews have to wear a Star of David; Jews have to hand over their bicycles, Jews are not allowed on the trams; Jews are not allowed in cars, not even in a private car; Jews can only do their shopping between 3 and 5 o’clock, except in Jewish shops which have to state that they are Jewish premises; Jews can only go to a Jewish hairdresser, Jews are not allowed outside from 8 in the evening to 6 o’clock in the morning, Jews are not allowed to go to theatres, cinemas and other places of entertainment; Jews are not allowed to go to a swimming pool or a tennis court, hockey pitch or other sports venues; Jews are not allowed to row or take part in any other sports; Jews can no longer sit in their gardens after 8 o’clock in the evening or visit their friends; Jews may not go to the houses of Christians; Jews must go to Jewish schools and so on. That’s how our lives were 27and we couldn’t do this and we couldn’t do that. Jacque [one of Anne’s friends] always said to me: I don’t dare do anything anymore because I’m afraid that it won’t be allowed.¹³

These signs appeared in the streets from September 1941.

Forbidden for Jews. The beach in Zandvoort, spring 1941.

Open-air swimming pool in Krimpen aan de Lek with the sign Forbidden for Jews.]28

A notice stating Forbidden for Jews at the City cinema in Amsterdam, 2 January 1941.

On 3 May 1942, Jews over the age of six were obliged to wear a Star of David that was clearly visible on their clothes.

In this way, the German occupation completely overturned the lives of the Frank family that they had taken so much effort to build up. In addition to the measures listed by Anne, there were other consequences. First, the financial appropriation: the Opekta and Pectacon companies had to be Aryanized, and it was only with a clever financial arrangement that Otto Frank managed to have his companies taken over by employees who were also friends, namely Johannes Kleiman, Victor Kugler and Jan Gies, the husband of his secretary Miep. In this way, he 29succeeded in preventing a manager appointed by the Germans from taking over the company.

Meanwhile, Otto Frank made two further attempts to emigrate. By 1937 the Frank family had been making serious plans to establish a company in England. When this failed, Otto Frank submitted an application to emigrate to the United States, probably in 1938 or 1939.¹⁴ During the bombing of Rotterdam on 14 May 1940, the American consulate there was hit and the records of applications for visas to the United States were completely destroyed. When the consulate reopened a few weeks later, everyone who had applied and was on the waiting list had to hand in their receipts, so that a new waiting list could be created. Although none of Otto Frank’s documentation showing that he submitted this proof has survived, his file does show that his application for a visa continued after 1940. Emigrating to the United States had now become extremely difficult, but with the help of his American friend Nathan Straus and Edith’s two brothers, who had left for Boston in the United States in 1938, he tried again. On 14 April 1941 he wrote to his friend Nathan Straus in New York: I can only hope we can emigrate and as far as I can see, the USA is the only country we can go to.¹⁵

On 28 May 1941, Nathan Straus and his wife contacted the Migration Department of the National Refugee Service (NRS) and it started a new application, File A-23007, in the name of Otto Frank, the following day. Together with the Holländer brothers and the Boston Committee for Refugees, which had also been contacted, Straus and his wife wrote a letter of recommendation and provided a guarantee to support the application for a visa for Otto Frank and his family.¹⁶ 30

Letter from the Boston Committee for Refugees dated 17 November 1941 about the Frank family’s attempts to emigrate.

31All hope of emigrating to the United States came to a definite end by the summer of 1941: in June, the American consulates had closed and all the pending applications for emigration now had to be resubmitted to the Jewish Council. Once again, Otto Frank appealed to Straus and his brothers-in-law for help, this time with an application for a visa for Cuba, for which he also needed a transit visa for the neutral country of Spain. Because of the complicated procedure, the great financial risk and the small chance of success, Otto Frank asked for a Cuban visa only for himself, just to see whether it would be possible to obtain one. Over the course of October and November 1941, it became clear that despite all his efforts, his attempts to emigrate would not be successful because no further visas were being granted for travel. From 7 December 1941, the United States was at war with Germany, and four days later the application procedure for Otto Frank’s Cuban visa finally came to an end. According to a brief note in his immigration file from 19 December 1941, Application for Cuban visas for Otto Frank has been cancelled. […] In view of present international situation.¹⁷

Meanwhile, the persecution of the Jews was increasing in the Netherlands, although now it was no longer limited to appropriation and theft, but changed to genocide. The first group of Jews were summonsed on 5 July 1942 to register for work expansion under police supervision. Margot Frank was one of the people in this first group.¹⁸ This was the moment they had feared the most. Although no one knew exactly what was meant by work expansion, the phrase terrified the Franks, and the day after they received the call to register, they went into hiding in the Annex of the offices on the Prinsengracht. 32

The summons received by several Jews in June 1942. It stated exactly what you could take, such as work clothes and food for three days.

33In the previous months, Otto Frank had made careful preparations for this operation. He approached his colleagues, Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman, Bep Voskuijl and Miep Gies, and asked them whether they would help him if it became necessary to go into hiding.¹⁹ He also made significant modifications to the building. He had an extra staircase built from the landing in front of the private office on the first floor to the corridor leading to the entrance of the Annex. In August 1942, this entrance was concealed behind a rotating bookcase. It was not clear whether the new staircase was built deliberately for the purpose of going into hiding or for more mundane business reasons, but it did prove to be of great importance. Initially, there was a staircase to the second floor that could only be reached by a separate outside door. However, with the new staircase, there was to be a direct connection between the offices on the first floor and the entrance to the Annex on the second floor. The helpers could get into the Annex using this new staircase without being seen by the staff in the warehouse and without having to walk outside the office entrance to the other front door. During the same period, the kitchen that had initially been on the landing by the bookcase was moved to the Annex. As for the staircase, it is uncertain whether moving the kitchen was a deliberate preparatory step for going into hiding, but it did prove to be an important change which made the whole arrangement possible.²⁰ 34

The stairs for the helpers from the office floor to the space with the bookcase, 1954.

In the weeks leading up to the move to Prinsengracht, Otto and Edith took clothes and supplies to the premises as unobtrusively as possible, and Johannes Kleiman and his brother took bedding, blankets and towels.²¹

AUGUSTE, HERMANN AND PETER VAN PELS

In addition to their own family, Otto and Edith also involved the family of the other Jewish colleague at Opekta-Pectacon in the plan. Hermann van Pels joined the Franks in the Annex, together with his wife Auguste and his son Peter. On 8 July 1942, Anne described what her parents had told her about the plans for going into hiding, just before their sudden departure:

Mother and father told me a lot. We were going to father’s office and above it a floor had been cleared for us. Van Pels would come as well, so there would be seven of us and the Van Pels cat was also coming, so that would be a distraction. We arrived at the office without a problem and went straight upstairs where there was a toilet and a small bathroom, with a new washbasin next to a small room with two single beds, the room for Margot and me. There were three built-in wardrobes and it bordered on a room for mother and father where there were also two single beds and two small tables, as well as a smoking table, a bookcase and a cupboard containing 150 tins of vegetables and all sorts of other foodstuffs. Then there was a small corridor and another two doors, one to the 35corridor to go down to dad’s office and one back to our bathroom. There was a very steep staircase upstairs with a large kitchen and living room for the Van Pels and a small room for Peter with an attic and loft above it.²²

Hermann van Pels had a Dutch father and therefore had Dutch nationality, but had grown up in Germany and had lived there all his life. He worked for his father’s company in Osnabrück, which dealt in herbs and spices for the meat processing industry. In 1925 he married Auguste Röttgen.

Auguste and Hermann van Pels, July 1941.