The Secret Annex

At 263 Prinsengracht, Amsterdam, Holland

The Call-Up - On July 4, 1942 Anne is lying in the sun reading when the doorbell suddenly rings at 3:00 PM: It is the postman with registered mail for Margot: an official summons. Margot has to report. She is going to be sent to a Nazi work camp in Germany. This call-up is not a complete surprise. There have been rumors in the air for weeks about such a decree. Otto and Edith Frank are prepared. They have been arranging a secret hiding place and had already planned to go into hiding with their daughters on July 16, 1942. Due to Margot's call-up, the planned date is now moved much closer.


A Hectic Evening
The evening of July 5, 1942 is extremely hectic. Members of Otto’s staff, who know about the plan, drop by to take as many of the family’s personal possessions to the hiding place. Very early the next morning (July 6, 1942), Margot leaves the house first and bicycles with Miep to the hiding place. A half hour later, Otto, Edith and Anne depart. They are wearing as many layers of clothing as possible and each of them carries a bag filled with the family's things. They walk to the hiding place in the pouring rain.



The Hiding Place
The hiding place is located in the empty part of Otto Frank's office building at 263 Prinengracht. Hermann and Auguste van Pels and their son Peter have also been taken into consideration. They are going to hide there as well. While the company, located in the front part of the building, goes on with business as usual, the people at the back will stay hidden in the Secret Annex. The hiding period for the Frank family begins on Monday morning July 6, 1942. The Van Pels family arrives a week later. An eighth person will join them all in November 1942: Fritz Pfeffer. Eight people, living in extremely cramped quarters, in a stifling Secret Annex… the tension is unbearable. The people in hiding live in continual fear of being discovered.


The Frank family:
Father - Otto Frank
Mother - Edith Frank
Daughters - Anne & Margot Betti Frank ( Anne was born on June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Margot was born February 16,1926).

Otto Frank was born on May 12, 1889 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Edith Holländer was born in Aachen on January 16, 1900.

Otto Frank and Edith Holländer are married in Aachen, Germany on May 12, 1925. They (the 8 hiding in the Annex and 2 of the helpers) went into hiding on July 6, 1942 and were arrested on August 4, 1944.




4 People helped the 8 people hiding in the secret annex:

The people in hiding are helped by Otto Frank’s four employees:

Miep Gies, Johannes Kleiman, Victor Kugler and Bep Voskuijl. They arrange the food supplies, clothing, books, and all sorts of other necessities. In addition, they keep the people in hiding up-to-date with the news from Amsterdam. The reports are mainly bad, because there are razzias all over the city: Jews who do not turn up are arrested. The people in hiding are already anxious and depressed, so the helpers do not always tell them about everything going on in the outside world.




Otto Frank's business in Amsterdam, Holland in 1933 was called "Dutch Opekta Company."

Van Pels Family:

Otto’s company is still not very prosperous because the sale of Opekta is dependent on the summer season when there is a lot of fruit available to make jam. A solution to this problem presents itself in the person of Hermann van Pels. In 1937, Hermann van Pels flees Osnabrück (Germany) with his wife Auguste and their young son Peter. Just like the Frank family, the Van Pels’ family is Jewish.


Opekta and Pectacon:

Hermann van Pels, who knows a great deal about spice mixtures used in the preparation of meats, becomes Otto Frank's business partner. With Otto's help, he decides to focus on marketing these spice mixtures. First, he teaches Victor Kugler the tricks of the trade. Then in June 1938, this new company is registered in the trade registry of the Chamber of Commerce, under the name Pectacon.







The 8 people were betrayed on August 4, 1944


Discovered!

“It was around ten-thirty. I was upstairs with the Van Pelses in Peter’s room and I was helping him with his schoolwork. I was showing him the mistake in the dictation when suddenly someone came running up the stairs. The stairs were squeaking, I stood up, because it was still early in the morning and everyone was supposed to be quiet - then the door opened and a man was standing right in front of us with a gun in his hand and it was pointed at us.” - Otto Frank


Friday, August 4, 1944 (at 10:30am), is a day like any other day. The helpers are working in the office in the front part of the building. Upstairs, the people in hiding are quietly going about their business. Suddenly, out front on the Prinsengracht, a vehicle comes to a halt. Out jumps an SS-officer and three Dutch policeman. They enter the building and go directly to the office. Victor Kugler must escort them to the Secret Annex. The people in hiding have been betrayed…








On August 8, 1944 the 8 people were taken to Camp Westerbork


Westerbork Transit Camp:

More than 100,000 Jews in the Netherlands are deported to concentration camps from this camp located in the Dutch town of Westerbork, near the border with Germany.


Batteries - Prisoners in the Westerbork camp are forced to break up batteries.


Punishment Barracks:

After a few hours of traveling, the train arrives at Westerbork in the northeast of the Netherlands. The prisoners are registered and divided among the different punishment barracks. Prisoners who did not voluntarily report to the German authorities when they received their call-ups, but went into hiding instead, end up in these barracks once they are arrested and sent to Westerbork.



Breaking Open Batteries:

The prisoners have to work during the day. The women have to break up batteries. It is filthy and unhealthy work. Janny Brilleslijper: "We had to chop open the batteries with a hammer and a chisel and then throw the tar in one basket and the carbon bars, which we had to remove, into another basket; we had to take off the metal caps with a screwdriver, and they went into a third basket. In addtion to getting terribly dirty from the work, we all began to cough because it gave off a certain kind of dust. The agreeable part of working on the batteries was that you could talk with each other."


To Westerbork:

“Of course, all of us had to work in the camp, but in the evenings we were free and we could be together. For the children especially, there was a certain relief; to no longer be cooped up and to be able to talk to other people. However, we adults feared being deported to the notorious camps in Poland.”- Otto Frank

On August 8, 1944, the eight people in hiding are taken to Westerbork by passenger train. Because they did not report voluntarily, but have been arrested instead, they are assigned to barracks in the punishment block. They have to work all day breaking up old batteries. Even though it is grimy and unhealthy work, the prisoners can still talk to each other.


Deportations:
Freight trains filled with prisoners leave regularly for
unspecified destinations in the East.

A long list of prisoners names is read aloud on September 2, 1944. These people must depart the next day. The names of the eight people in hiding are also on this list.








On the morning of September 3, 1944, the 8 went to concentration Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau:

Never Forget-

“I will never forget that moment when the 17-year-old Peter van Pels and I saw a group of selected men. Peter’s father was among them. They were marched away. Two hours later a cart with their clothes on it went by.” - Otto Frank

On the morning of September 3, 1944, a very long train comprised of freight cars leaves Westerbork. There are more than 70 prisoners packed into each wagon. Among the 1019 Jewish prisoners are also the eight people from the Secret Annex. After a dreadful train trip, lasting three days, they arrive at Auschwitz-Birkenau.


Two Groups:

On the platform at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the men and women are separated.

Nazi doctors divide the prisoners into two groups: prisoners who they consider fit enough to work and prisoners who will be killed immediately in the the gas chamber.

The eight people in hiding are spared. They are expected to perform heavy labor. After a short while, Hermann van Pels can no longer do this kind of work. He is murdered in the gas chamber.


Platform at Auschwitz-Birkenau:

On the train platform, men and women are forcibly separated from each other.



The Look in Margot's Eyes:

The train comes to a sudden halt on the third night, In the middle of the night, around 2:00 AM. The doors of the train are then flung open. Men in striped clothing are screaming in German Aussteigen, schnell, schneller (Get out, hurry, hurry). The new arrivals have to leave their baggage behind on the train. The prisioners at Auschwitz are the ones responsible for getting people off the train. There are German soldiers, from the SS, parading up and down the platform with dogs. They have whips in their hands. Harsh spotlights glare down on the platform. The men must line up on one side, the women on the other side. This is the last time that Otto Frank sees his wife and daughters. He later says about that moment: "I shall remember the look in Margot's eyes all my life.."




“I can no longer talk about how I felt when my family arrived on the train platform in Auschwitz and we were forcibly seperated from each other.” - Otto Frank, 1979




Every man and woman receives a number, which is tatooed on their arm. All their heads are shaven bald. They receive prison-camp clothes, because they are not allowed to keep their own clothes. The men are placed in one part of the camp, the women in another. Otto Frank, Fritz Pfeffer and Hermann and Peter van Pels manage to stay together. Most prisoners have to perform heavy labor digging trenches. Peter is luckier: he is assigned to the camp post office. Guards and non-Jews may receive mail. Because Peter handles the packages that arrive, he is sometimes able to “arrange” a bit of extra food.



Selections:

Everyday there are selections: prisoners who are too sick or weak to work are sent directly to the gas chamber to be killed. It is a few weeks after their arrival and Hermann van Pels, exhausted, is no longer capable of working. He is then gassed as well. Otto Frank and Peter van Pels witness this: “I will never forget that moment when the 17-year-old Peter van Pels and I saw a group of selected men. Peter’s father was among the group. They were marched away. Two hours later a cart with their clothes on it went by.”


No Matter the Weather Conditions:

After the selection, Edith, Margot and Anne are assigned to the same barrack. Auguste van Pels is most likely sent to a different part of the camp. During the day, the women have to work very hard hauling heavy stones or grass mats.

They often have to stand outside for hours on end to be counted
for roll-call, no matter how awful the weather conditions might be.


Neuengamme:

Fritz Pfeffer is deported to the Neuengamme concentration camp in October 1944. Thousands of prisoners die there from a combination of heavy labor, lack of food, and poor sanitary conditions. Fritz Pfeffer is among them. He dies in the sick-bay barracks on December 20, 1944, at the age of fifty-five.





At the end of October 1944, Anne, Margot and Auguste Van Pels go to Bergen-Belsen:

In the winter of 1944, the Russian Army is on the advance. The Nazis decide to take as many prisoners as possible, who are still capable of working, back to Germany. The health of the women prisoners is a primary factor. Edith may not go along. Margot and Anne are then considered. Rosa de Winter-Levy witnesses this: “Then it was the turn of both girls...and there they stood for that moment, naked and bald. Anne looked straight at us with her innocent eyes, and then they were gone. We weren’t able to see what happened to them next. We heard Mrs. Frank cry out: 'The children! Oh God..."' Margot and Anne Frank are crammed into a crowded freight train bound for the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen.

Edith Frank is left behind at Auschwitz. She falls ill and dies on January 6, 1945.




Overcrowded Barracks:

After an awful train journey lasting three days, Margot and Anne arrive at Bergen-Belsen. More and more prisoners are being sent to Bergen-Belsen from the other concentration camps. The camp is already much too full when their transport gets there, so the new women are placed in tents. A few days later the tents are destroyed in a heavy storm. These prisoners must then find a space in one of the already overcrowded barracks.



Auguste van Pels:

At the end of November 1944 , another train load of prisoners from Auschwitz reaches Bergen-Belsen. Auguste van Pels is among these prisoners. She is reunited with Margot and Anne. Though after a few months she must leave Bergen-Belsen again and is moved to Raguhn, which is part of the concentration camp at Buchenwald. From Raguhn she is sent to the camp at Theresienstadt. Auguste van Pels dies somewhere in Germany or Czechoslovakia, probably between April 9 and May 8, 1945.



At the BERGEN-BELSEN concentration camp......


Typhus:

In the winter of 1944-1945, the situation at Bergen-Belsen deteriorates. There is little or no food and the sanitary conditions are dreadful. Many of the prisoners become ill. Margot and Anne Frank come down with typhus. They both die just a few weeks before the camp is liberated. Janny Brilleslijper witnesses their deaths: “First Margot had fallen out of bed onto the stone floor. She couldn’t get up anymore. Anne died a day later.”




Typhus:

“First, Margot had fallen out of bed onto the stone floor. She couldn’t get up anymore. Anne died a day later.” Janny Brilleslijper provided an eyewitness account of the deaths of Margot and Anne Frank in Bergen-Belsen.

At the end of October 1944, Anne and Margot are transported from Auschwitz-Birkenau to Bergen-Belsen. Their mother remains behind in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Edith falls ill and dies of exhaustion in January 1945.

Auguste van Pels arrives at Bergen-Belsen with another transport of prisoners in November 1944. There she meets Anne and Margot again. Auguste van Pels is only at Bergen-Belsen for a short while and probably dies during a transport of prisoners to Theresienstadt.

Anne and Margot succumb to typhus in March 1945, a few weeks before the camp is liberated by the British Army.