The day Anne Frank fell into the hellish clutches of Nazism

Anne Frank was 15 years old when her life ended in a German concentration camp, after two years spent in hiding from the Nazis, leaving behind the famous newspaper in which she recounted her fears, her hopes and her dreams.

Born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in June 1929, Anne was the second daughter of Otto Frank and Edith Frank-Hollander, both descendants of Jewish families who had lived in Germany for centuries. With the coming to power of Adolf Hitler in 1933, Otto moved his family to Amsterdam to escape growing Nazi persecution. In the Netherlands he successfully ran a spice and jam business.

In principle, Ana went to school with other Dutch middle-class children without distinction of creed, but with the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940, she had to move to a Jewish school. The Nazi siege was in a crescendo and in 1942 Otto began to organize a hideout in an annex of his warehouse on the Prinsengracht canal in Amsterdam.

At the age of 13, in June 1942, Ana received a gift diary and began to recount in it her daily experiences, her relationship with family and friends, and her observations of the increasingly dangerous world that looms. ‘surrounded. Less than a month later, Ana’s older sister, Margot, received a notice of appeal to report to a Nazi “labor camp”. Fearing to be deported to a concentration camp, the Franks took refuge the next day in the secret annex. A week later, they were joined by Hermann Van Pels, Otto Frank’s business partner, his wife Auguste and their son Peter. In November, dentist Fritz Pfeffer, the eighth occupant of the hideout, also joined the group.

The entrance to the secret annex was hidden by a hinged bookcase (which made it spin), and former Otto employees and other Dutch friends were distributing food and buying them supplies, s’ thus exposing them to a high risk of being discovered by Hitler’s forces. Ana and the others lived in rooms with dark windows and never flushed the toilet during the day for fear their presence would be detected. In June 1944, the Allied landing in Normandy encouraged Anne, hoping that Holland’s long-awaited liberation would begin soon.

THE MOST FEARED DAY

August 1 was the last time the girl wrote in her diary. Three days later, on August 4, 1944, the eight illegals were captured by SS agents. This Friday, which turns 77 today, was a hot and sunny day in Amsterdam. The people in hiding spent 760 days in the “back house,” more than two years after Ana entered the hiding place with her family on July 6, 1942.

Between 10:30 am and 11:00 am, Gestapo agents appeared in the building on Prinsengracht 263 Street. Some theories claim that someone betrayed them and betrayed them, and others that the Nazis accidentally arrived in one of the many raids they have carried out. On the ground floor of the warehouse, they spoke to an employee who told them where the office staff were. There was nothing to indicate that this employee, like his colleagues, was aware of the existence of people hiding in the building.

The Gestapo didn’t care about Ana’s diary papers and let them lie

On the first floor, the office staff were working when the door swung open. One of the employees was the protector Miep Gies. She later recounted: “A little man came in with a gun in his hand pointed at me. The other executives went to the office of Victor Kugler who, as company director, was responsible for business operations. They interrogated him and took him to visit the building.

During the search, they also entered the room with the revolving bookcase. On a fleeting inspection, it was not possible to see that there was an entire house hidden behind this library, but Nazi officers found the secret entrance to the “back house”.

Those in hiding were stunned. They had lived for over two years in constant fear of being discovered. And that moment had come. Years later, Otto recounted the experience: he was in the Van Pels part helping Peter with his homework. Suddenly there were leaks, “and when the door opened, a man was standing right in front of us with a gun in his hand. They were all gathered downstairs. My wife, daughters and the Van Pels stood with their hands in the air. “

ANA’S ROLES

Dentist Fritz Pfeffer was then brought into the room as well. The people in hiding had to hand over all their valuables. A Gestapo agent took Otto’s briefcase, containing Ana’s diary papers, and shook it until it was empty, to store valuables. Ana’s diary papers fell to the ground as the people in hiding prepared to leave.

Protectors Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman were arrested along with the eight illegals. It was already 1:00 p.m. The raid had lasted more than two hours.

Jan Gies, the husband of the protector Miep, arrived that day to have lunch with the illegals, as he often did. Miep alerted him to the presence of the SS and Jan immediately left, returning to his job, although he could see the moment when all those arrested were taken away.

The eight people in hiding were taken with the two protectors to a police building where they were questioned. The Gestapo was looking for information from other hiding places. But the protectors remained silent. Otto Frank replied that during the 25 months spent in the “secret house” they had lost all contact with their friends and acquaintances and therefore knew nothing. Then the Nazis secretly and protectively separated into two different places of detention.

The eight people in hiding lived for more than two years in constant fear of being discovered

After some time after the capture was completed, protectors Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl as well as Willem van Maaren made their way to the “back house”, where Ana’s diary papers were still on the floor. Miep later recalled this moment: “Bep and I went up later to Frank’s apartments. And there we saw, scattered on the floor, Ana’s diary papers.” Miep and Bep retrieved the papers and took them to the office.

There, Miep put the papers in a drawer. Of those in hiding, only Otto survived the war. Back in Amsterdam, after the liberation of Holland, Miep gave him the papers which would later become, once published, in the “Diary of Anne Frank”, the best-selling book in the world after the Bible and also translated. of 70 languages.

Transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Ana died of typhus in February 1945, shortly before the Allies liberated the camp on April 15 of the same year. Only 38,000 of the 140,000 Jews living in the Netherlands survived the Holocaust.