•nspne
of everything,
I still believe
Anne Frank
Moment/27
Envelopes arrive daily from
obscure towns in Y u g o slavia, Iran, G r e e n l a n d , and
South Africa, as well as recognizable addresses like T o k y o and Scarsdale. In a
small flat near the h e a d w a ters of the R h i n e , Otto Frank
and his wife, Fritzi, work as
a t e a m carrying out a mission. T h e y respond to an urgent flood of inquiring
correspondence.
T h e questions people ask
O t t o Frank a r e n ' t easy.
W h a t was it like in Auschwitz? W h a t kind of relationship should parents have
with their teenage children?
W h a t w o u l d A n n e Frank be
like today if she had lived
to be a middle-aged w o m a n ?
D o you see parallels between Europe in the 1930's
and the world today? Is antiSemitism g r o w i n g ? W h y did
you survive while so m a n y
others died?
Thirty-three years a g o ,
Otto Frank w a s handed his
d a u g h t e r ' s diary. Because
he could not bear m o r e , he
read only a few pages at a
time. His wife and t w o
daughters had died at
Auschwitz and Bergen
Belsen.
N o w Japanese television
crews arrive b o w i n g , bearing small gifts, and setting
u p T V lights. A y o u n g Catholic priest drops in from a
nearby Swiss t o w n . M r s .
Petersen, w h o has never in
her 81 years risked travel by
air, m a k e s light of the sixweek sea j o u r n e y that
brought her to the Anne
Frank h o u s e .
Sixty million people have
read The Diary of a Young
R. Peter Straus is Director
of Voice of America.
This
memoir, written before his
appointment,
is based on a
family friendship which began when his father, Nathan, studied at
Heidelberg
with Otto Frank.
28/Moment
of a wealthy and attractive
bachelor, traveling to N e w
Y o r k , w h e r e he worked
briefly at M a c y ' s , returning
to Frankfurt to enter the
family banking business,
then branching off on his
o w n again, as a stockbroker.
In 1933 F r a n k decided to
leave G e r m a n y . By 1933,
he recalls, the bright fabric
of life for a Jew in Frankfurt
w a s beginning to unravel at
the e d g e s . A c q u a i n t a n c e s ,
both J e w i s h and Christian,
tried to dissuade h i m from
this stern v i e w . But there
were street g a n g s , anti-Jewish demonstrations, and
calls for a strong leader like
A d o l p h Hitler. T h e r e w a s
growing pressure to restrict
J e w i s h b u s i n e s s m e n and
P r e s u m i n g on the long
Rather than dwell on the
bankers to transactions with
friendship that linked h i m
reactions of the distinother J e w s . Corresponding
guished and r e n o w n e d , Otto with my father from their
social pressures strained the
student days at Heidelberg
F r a n k prefers to talk about
formerly easy contact beUniversity, I asked him to
Ljuba from Yugoslavia or
tween
Jewish and gentile
speak to m e not as the w i s e ,
Arlette Charrier from
families.
E v e n if the deteriempathetic Pirn ( A n n e ' s
F r a n c e , w h o first wrote to
oration
stopped
there, Otto
n i c k n a m e for her father in
h i m in 1972 requesting his
F
r
a
n
k
,
now
married
and the
permission, if and when she the diary), but rather as O t t o
father of t w o y o u n g girls,
married, to n a m e a daughter Frank. " Y o u cannot sepa" A n n e . " Last spring a brief rate m e o u t , " he said. " I t ' s k n e w that he did not want
a strange role. In the normal such a life for his children.
note reported that Arlette
family relationship, it is the
had been married for s o m e
" Y o u cannot bring u p
child of the famous parent
t i m e , and that " A n n e w a s
kids like horses with
born on 28 February, 1 9 7 4 . " w h o has the h o n o r and the
b l i n d e r s , " he s a y s , " i g n o rant of the social landscape
Barbara H a u p t m a n writes burden of continuing the
task. In m y case the role is
outside their small g r o u p . "
from Roslyn H e i g h t s , L o n g
O n January 3 0 , 1933,
Island, to ask that if " U n c l e r e v e r s e d . "
O t t o F r a n k recalls, " W e
O t t o " finds time to continue
their three year correspondW h e n Otto Frank w a s 4 3 he happened to be visiting
friends. W e were seated at
e n c e , would he please write began to worry about what
the table and listening to the
to her as M r s . H o w a r d
would happen to his family
r a d i o . First c a m e the n e w s
Goldstein. She hopes he'll
if Hitler c a m e to p o w e r . In
that Hitler h a d b e c o m e
have time to meet her y o u n g
the sophisticated—and asChancellor. T h e n c a m e an
lawyer husband soon after
similated—Jewish c o m m u the i m p e n d i n g w e d d i n g .
nity of Frankfurt, the Franks account of the storm troopFourteen year old A m y Fartraced their roots to the 17th e r s ' torch parade in Berlin.
rell from Mill Valley, Calicentury. O t t o ' s father was a W e heard the shouting and
c h e e r s , and the a n n o u n c e r
fornia, holds the record for
prominent banker; his
length. H e r 60-page hand- - m o t h e r , an active, respected said that H i n d e n b u r g w a s at
the w i n d o w , w a v i n g . At the
written letter required t w o
citizen of the c o m m u n i t y .
a n s w e r s . Otto Frank replied Otto F r a n k entered the Ger- e n d , Hitler m a d e his ' G i v e
M e F o u r Y e a r s ' speech. O u r
immediately that a busy
m a n army in W o r l d W a r I
host said cheerfully, ' W e l l ,
schedule would require a de- as a private and b e c a m e a
l e t ' s see what the m a n can
layed response to the inner- lieutenant, one of few J e w d o . ' I could not reply. M y
most thoughts s h e ' d been
ish officers, before the war
wife sat as if she were
kind e n o u g h to share. T e n
e n d e d . F o r the next decade
turned to s t o n e . "
days later a m o r e typical rehe led the comfortable life
Girl by A n n e F r a n k , or attended the play or seen the
movie based on her diary.
T h e b o o k is n o w available
in 4 0 languages and dialects, including six different
tongues in the Soviet U n i o n
alone. M a r c Chagall did a
painting; J o h n K e n n e d y
spoke of A n n e ' s gift as ' 'the
greatest truth of a l l " ; Jorgi
Cervello c o m p o s e d a s y m p h o n y ; Eleanor Roosevelt
wrote a preface; the w o r l d ' s
rose growers recognize a
n e w class, the A n n e Frank
rose (yellow, with overtones
of c r e a m and red); Y e v g e n y
Y e v t u s h e n k o includes her in
a p o e m ; P o p e J o h n spoke
glowingly of the diary,
which he read in Italian.
ply touched point b y point
on the personal m u s i n g s of
a 14-year-old girl.
Yet O t t o Frank is not a
sentimental philosopher or
a crusader. In person only a
few can penetrate the sophisticated veneer and the
military bearing he acquired
as a child g r o w i n g u p in
G e r m a n y . Albert Hackett,
author of a play based on
the diary, spent a long,
emotional day with O t t o
Frank and only later revised
his first impression that
" O t t o Frank is a cold fish."
Otto F r a n k ' s responses to
his experiences and to his
correspondents e m e r g e from
the depths of a guarded
individual.
W h e n his brother-in-law
wrote from Basel describing
a business opportunity in
A m s t e r d a m , Frank welc o m e d the n e w s partly for
material reasons. T h e e m ployer w a s an established
international c o m p a n y trading in pectin, the base ingredient of j a m s and preserves.
It w a s a stable position and
o n e that would permit Frank
to learn and branch out. Beyond e c o n o m i c s , Holland
s e e m e d a good choice at the
time. F o r centuries the
country had provided refuge
for the persecuted, French
H u g u e n o t s , English Purit a n s . Holland had stayed out
of W o r l d W a r I and therefore seemed likely to resist
G e r m a n e n c r o a c h m e n t in
the future. Otto Frank settled in A m s t e r d a m in the
s u m m e r of 1933. Shortly
thereafter M r s . F r a n k and
the two y o u n g girls, w h o
had been staying with M r s .
F r a n k ' s m o t h e r in A a c h e n ,
joined him.
Before the end of tulip
t i m e , 1940, the Franks were
trapped again. T h e G e r m a n s
had invaded H o l l a n d , the
Q u e e n had fled to Britain,
and Seyss Inquart had been
installed as Reich C h a n c e l lor. T h e Nazis were launching their first r o u n d u p of
J e w s in A m s t e r d a m .
T w e n t y thousand J e w s
went into hiding in Amsterd a m . Half of them survived.
Otto Frank survived A u s c h witz, as did his present wife
Fritzi, although they did not
k n o w each other while they
were fugitives with their
families in A m s t e r d a m , hiding only a few thousand
yards apart. They did not
meet until after A u s c h w i t z .
H o w e v e r , Fritzi's daughter
and Otto F r a n k ' s daughter
A n n e had walked to school
together, both before and
after they had to wear threeinch yellow patches with the
Dutch word 'Jood' at the
center of a six-pointed star.
F o r sixteen m o n t h s O t t o
F r a n k had planned and provisioned a hiding place
a b o v e the spice warehouse
on the Prince C a n a l . F o r
twenty-five m o n t h s he presided over life for eight fugitives in this pressurecooker. H e had given A n n e
a notebook for her 13th
birthday, but took n o special
note of how she used it.
In a general way he was
aware that she frequently
went to write at the desk
which she s h a r e d — a m i d
m u c h bickering—with the
dentist Diissel. She s h o w e d
her father n o m o r e than a
few descriptive p h r a s e s , and
he did not pry. T h e diary
attests that their relationship
w a s close and loving, but
m u c h of his time with her
w a s spent tutoring her in her
studies, mediating between
her and her mother w h e n the
two strong wills collided
within their narrow attic,
and supervising her e m e r g ing w o m a n h o o d , particularly with respect to 17year-old Peter Van D a a n .
T h e n Sergeant Karl Silberbauer, w h o today is a p o lice inspector in his native
Austria, led a raid that
hauled eight J e w s , s o m e
nondescript furniture and
c h i n a , and a silver C h a n u kah m e n o r a h out of an attic
a b o v e a spice w a r e h o u s e .
H e flung an a d o l e s c e n t ' s diary on the floor as he left.
Elfrieda Frank has a l w a y s
been called Fritzi. A hands o m e , c h a r m i n g w o m a n , her
conversational ease in half
a dozen languages m a k e s it
unnecessary for her to say
that she c o m e s from Vienna.
She tells with clear eyes
about the hours standing naked under searchlights with
her daughter, waiting for the
decision of the infamous D r .
M e n g e l e , back to slave labor, or to the gas c h a m b e r .
T h e last time this happened
she and her daughter were
sent to the d o o r of the c h a m ber before being reprieved.
Fritzi recalls an earlier
scene from a more carefree
time. She w a s visiting a favorite dressmaker in a small
s h o p in d o w n t o w n Amsterd a m . A girl about the age
of her o w n eleven-year-old
daughter was having a dress
fitted and was directing the
seamstress with great
confidence—a bit tighter
here, the waist is fine, the
skirt needs shortening. Fritzi
r e m e m b e r s asking aloud that
evening whether her o w n
daughter would ever bec o m e as mature and selfconfident. T h a t w a s the only
time Fritzi ever saw A n n e
Frank.
Fritzi and her daughter
found themselves on a train
of cattle cars riding back
from A u s c h w i t z after the
liberation of the c a m p by the
Russians. Fritzi k n e w that
her husband and her son
were dead. On the s a m e
train Otto Frank had been
told of his wife's death at
B i r k e n a u . T h e cars kept jolting to a stop to give rightof-way to trainloads of S o viet troops traveling in the
opposite direction.
At o n e of these stops
Fritzi's daughter took advantage of her new freedom
and climbed d o w n from the
cattle car to mingle with the
other survivors. She spotted
Otto Frank and ran back to
her mother. " M o m m a ,
Momma, remember Anne
F r a n k ? I just saw her
f a t h e r ! " S o m e years later
Fritzi and Otto were married
by a clerk in A m s t e r d a m ' s
City H a l l .
In August 1945, Otto
F r a n k , A m s t e r d a m busin e s s m a n , survivor of
A u s c h w i t z , b e c a m e , in c a p ital letters, T h e Father of
A n n e Frank. H e had returned to A m s t e r d a m in
June with thousands of other
returnees, searching desperately for word that s o m e
remnant of their families
had survived. Otto went to
M i e p , A n n e F r a n k ' s nickn a m e for Hermine Santrushitz G e i s s , O t t o ' s secretary
w h o b e c a m e the family's
link to the outside world
when they went into hiding.
T h r o u g h c o u r a g e , luck, intelligence (and not being
J e w i s h ) , M i e p had survived
in A m s t e r d a m despite her
involvement in helping
Jews.
Only after Otto Frank
learned that both his daughters had died of typhoid at
Belsen that spring did M i e p
give him the plaid-covered
notebook in which A n n e had
written on 312 c r a m p e d
p a g e s . M i e p had planned to
hand the diary, which she
had not opened herself, directly to A n n e .
Otto crept slowly into the
legacy of his daughter.
M e r e l y amazed at A n n e ' s
accurate and evocative o b servation, Otto was utterly
astounded at the depth of
A n n e ' s sincerity and the serenity of her m e s s a g e .
L o o k i n g back n o w , Otto
recognizes that he paid m o r e
attention to his first-born,
M a r g o t . " A n n e was not particularly good at her studies.
Terrible at arithmetic. M a r got w a s the bright one.
E v e r y b o d y admired her. She
got along with e v e r y b o d y .
A n n e w a s ebullient—and
difficult."
In possession of his
y o u n g e r d a u g h t e r ' s diary,
O t t o ' s spiritual relationship
with her b e g a n . " B e c a u s e I
was privileged to read
A n n e ' s diary, I perhaps
k n o w m y daughter better
than most fathers can k n o w
their d a u g h t e r s . " In fact,
A n n e ' s diary has helped
m a k e Otto Frank a sensitive
surrogate father to m a n y
Moment/29
thousands around the world.
" Y o u have the task and you
must do i t , " he says.
Fritzi and Otto Frank
work as a t e a m . They each
read and discuss every letter. Otto dictates and Fritzi
transcribes the replies on an
old typewriter, significantly
improving the g r a m m a r if
it's an English letter. T h e
traditional burl walnut sideboard sits across from t h e m
in the d i n i n g r o o m . Hidden
with non-Jewish friends
while A n n e ' s family was in
hiding, the sideboard
survived.
The Franks never duplicate the answers they send
out, but certain t h e m e s ,
s t e m m i n g from the diary,
run through these personal
letters. D o something to
p r o m o t e p e a c e , to r e d u c e
prejudice. Begin with your
o w n circle, your o w n family. Big plans are fine, but
prejudice begins within the
individual. Build peace with
small blocks. The philosophy is not original. The intensity and authenticity of
feeling m a y be extraordinary, but A n n e ' s diary is not
the only writing, squeezed
onto precious pages when
paper was a scarce c o m m o d ity, that survived its author.
On April 3 , 1946, the Dutch
n e w s p a p e r Het Parool reported, " T h e G o v e r n m e n t
Institute for W a r D o c u m e n tation is in possession of
about t w o hundred similar
d i a r i e s . " That is in Holland
alone.
Diaries of introspective
teenaged girls are not rare
items. But because of the
extreme circumstances under which it w a s written,
A n n e F r a n k ' s is a m o n g the
finest c o m m u n i c a t i o n s of
the special feelings of y o u n g
w o m a n h o o d . In a passage
deleted from the Dutch version, A n n e reports: " E a c h
time I have a p e r i o d — a n d
that has been only three
30/Moment
t i m e s — I have the feeling
that in spite of all the pain,
unpleasantness, and nastiness, I have a sweet secret,
and that is w h y , although it
is nothing but a nuisance to
m e in a w a y , I always long
for the time that I shall feel
that secret within m e a g a i n . ' '
In her diary A n n e Frank
speaks with such intimacy
that the reader is transported
to a shared m o m e n t in t i m e ,
a m o m e n t moreover that
epitomized the ultimate human contradictions. O n c e
s o m e o n e asked Justice Felix
Frankfurter, " H o w do you
k n o w that the h u m a n race is
worth s a v i n g ? " He answered, " B e c a u s e I have
read A n n e F r a n k ' s d i a r y . "
W h i c h characteristics of
the diary m e a n most to Otto
F r a n k ' s correspondents is a
matter of conjecture. The
letters and visitors from Japan d o n ' t mention the b o m b
very often, but it is a fair
guess that J a p a n ' s nuclear
catastrophe suggests a connection in some Japanese
minds b e t w e e n themselves
and a y o u n g victim of the
Holocaust. Letters and visitors have mentioned the
anti-Semitic remarks of
General B r o w n , at D u k e
University. They ask
whether A n n e F r a n k ' s father
can generalize about the
telltale signs of rising antiSemitism. Otto F r a n k is uncomfortable with generalizations. H e prefers the
specific, the practical, and
the positive. H e refuses to
c o n d e m n G e r m a n y or Germans in general. H e is concerned but optimistic about
the future of Israel. H e
thinks it would be better if
Fritzi's grandchildren in
London had more Jewish
playmates.
A n d he continues to overc o m m i t himself to travel and
m e e t i n g s , especially with
y o u n g people. H e feels that
the y o u n g w h o are m o v e d
by A n n e ' s diary and want to
meet or have contact with
him are unlikely to be those
filled with cynicism and
hate. " S o I see the good
y o u n g p e o p l e , " he concludes. " D e p r i v e d though
w e are, our lives have been
enriched by this w o r k . "
Otto F r a n k ' s mission
might have been to tell
y o u n g people about what
happened. H e might be retelling how B u c h e n w a l d
arose near G o e t h e ' s W e i mar; how t w o million died
at A u s c h w i t z alone; how the
K i n g of the Danes chose to
w e a r the Star of David w h e n
that b a d g e was decreed for
Denmark's Jews.
H e might have recounted
these things in response to
G e o r g e S a n t a y a n a ' s famous
dictum: " T h o s e w h o cannot
r e m e m b e r the past are
d o o m e d to repeat i t . " Otto
F r a n k does ask, " W h o can
say w h e r e it might happen
a g a i n ? " But the m e s s a g e of
A n n e F r a n k ' s diary transcends the history and politics of terror. H e r father sees
it as his mission to help that
m e s s a g e reach as far as it
can.
Otto Frank has only twice
turned d o w n requests that
w o u l d have meant further
exposure for A n n e ' s
thoughts. The Japanese have
asked to exhibit the original
diary, which is locked in a
Swiss bank vault. T h e y have
stressed their willingness to
insure it and care for it
throughout the j o u r n e y , as
they did w h e n they exhibited the M o n a Lisa. Otto
Frank felt he had to refuse
to take the risk. T h e other
refusal was closer to h o m e .
Ernst Schnabel, a G e r m a n
scholar, interviewed fifty
persons w h o had had s o m e
connection with A n n e , and
then wrote Anne Frank: A
Portrait in Courage.
The
book has been translated
into m a n y languages, but
Otto Frank will not let it appear in Dutch so that M i e p
and the others w h o helped
the Franks can continue to
live peacefully and inconspicuously in A m s t e r d a m
It is only in G e r m a n y that
Otto Frank himself has
w o r k e d to have the diary
published. It w a s n ' t easy.
After m a n y rejections he
went to a small publisher of
such erudite materials as the
writings of Martin Buber.
Although he believed it
w o u l d n ' t sell, the publisher
printed the diary because he
felt it should be published.
T h e publisher was right.
The diary was ignored for
years until the play based on
it o p e n e d simultaneously in
seven G e r m a n cities. It
shook the country from end
to end.
O n e of the most m o v i n g
elements of the diary is the
growth of A n n e ' s faith. In
one of her last entries Anne
uses a technique of questioning that is characteristic
of Jewish study and writing:
" W h o inflicted this upon
us? W h o has m a d e us J e w s
different from other people?
W h o has allowed us to suffer so terribly up till n o w ?
It is G o d that has m a d e us
as w e are, but it will be
G o d , t o o , w h o will raise us
u p again. If w e bear all this
suffering and if there are
still J e w s left, w h e n it is
over, then J e w s , instead of
being d o o m e d , will be held
u p as an e x a m p l e . W h o
k n o w s , it might even be our
religion from which the
world and all peoples learn
good, and for that reason
and that reason only do w e
have to suffer n o w . "
This entry, like others exp o u n d i n g A n n e ' s philosop h y , took her father by surprise. T o this day he cannot
understand " w h e r e A n n e
got some of her i d e a s . "
•