All language subtitles for anne_frank_remembered_1995___5ef58581dc814

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She is perhaps Hitler's
best-known victim.

Her book has sold more
than 25 million copies...

...and has been translated
into at least 55 languages.

She's become a symbol of 10
million souls murdered by the Nazis...

...Jews and non-Jews...

...and, in particular, the one and
a half million innocent children.

She was just 15 when she died.

A miserable and lonely death
in a concentration camp in Germany.

Yet she is remembered
for her faith in humanity.

This is the story of the life
and legacy of Anne Frank.

In Amsterdam, some of the remnants
of a once-thriving Jewish community.

Every person in this congregation,
like Jews throughout Europe...

...has a story of their own...

...of persecution, murder,
fear or betrayal.

The rabbi spent the first
2 years of his life in hiding...

...sheltered by a Christian family.

But one girl reaches
beyond all those memories.

Hers is not just a Holocaust story,
for the voice of Anne Frank...

...stands as a warning to those
who discriminate on the basis...

...of color, culture or creed.

Her message is as fresh today
as it was 50 years ago.

The notorious Nazi propaganda film...

...The Eternal Jew.

Distorted images portraying
an Aryan nightmare...

...of the Jewish threat
to European civilization.

And this, the family Frank:

Prosperous, cultivated,
sophisticated...

...and integrated.

In fact, they were a German family.
German to the core.

The antithesis of ghetto Jews.

Anne's father, Otto,
was an officer in the German army...

...in the first World War.

The family had lived in and around
Frankfurt for generations.

But Otto had traveled the world, even
working in Macy's store in New York...

...where a college friend,
Nathan Straus, was the owner's son.

In 1925, the 36-year-old Otto
married Edith Hollander...

...a 25-year-old Jewish girl
from Aachen, Germany...

...near the Dutch border.

They honeymooned in Italy.

Their first daughter, Margot,
followed 9 months later...

...and their second, Annelies,
better known as Anne, in June 1929.

It was a good life in Frankfurt
in those early years.

One could almost forget the long
shadow of National Socialism.

But beneath the idyllic surface...

...far removed from the children's world,
turmoil.

DANGER JEWS

Their landlord turned out to be
a Nazi party member.

And in March 1931, they moved.

The bank owned by the family
also had serious problems...

...resulting in its complete
collapse in 1933...

...caused by Otto's brother
being the victim of a fraud...

...and the effects of the Depression,
particularly acute in Germany.

And, of course, the threat
of the gathering storm.

On the streets...

...at the rallies...

ONE RACE ONE NATION

...and finally in January 1933...

...the ballot box.

ONE LEADER

For it is often forgotten that Hitler
gained power in a democratic election.

For the Franks,
the German dream was over.

Some of the family
had moved to Switzerland.

Otto chose to try his luck in Holland...

...where he had
prior business connections.

In autumn 1933, the family settled
here in Merwedeplein...

...a modern housing development
in South Amsterdam.

They established a settled and full
existence amongst German refugees...

...and Dutch neighbors.

We moved into the same neighborhood
as the Frank family.

Many other refugees moved there.

And so there was a little bit
of a German-Jewish enclave...

...by no means a ghetto,
but just a little enclave.

Quite often parents would speak
German in the street...

...which annoyed us
children terribly, of course.

Hanneli Goslar

My father was a deputy minister
in the interior.

And he was the chief
of the press in Germany.

He had really a very high position.

And he immediately fled...

...when the whole
government stepped down.

And, okay, we went
to England before...

...but he didn't find a job where
he didn't have to work Shabbat.

And so we stopped here
in Merwedeplein.

Life for Jewish refugees...

...as I experienced it as a young
child, in a way had its charms.

What I particularly enjoyed was that
we adapted faster than our parents.

Our parents had to
turn to us and ask us...

...what's done in this country.

And I found this
tremendously democratizing.

I really enjoyed that part very much.

The Franks formed an active social life
amongst the other refugee families.

For visitors, Anne's behavior
made the Sunday gatherings...

...something of an ordeal.

She was just what
you could call naughty.

She had to sit on a table where
everything was very beautiful...

...in a beautiful dress and have
her chocolate not spoil it.

Isa Baschwitz

She just didn't want to.

She got up and she made fuss,
and she...

...drew attention.

And then she grew angry.

And that angriness...

...that was the problem
between the parents.

Mother Frank said, "You sit down. "

And Father Frank said:

"Leave the child alone.
She's so small and she's so little. "

So she was allowed to do
the things she wanted.

And that happened every time.

Every time that girl was naughty...

...was impertinent,
later on, really impertinent.

I remember very strongly
that Mr. Frank...

...was seen as an ideal daddy,
that he was the daddy...

...because he was so much involved
in his girls' education.

He fixed his wife breakfast on Sunday
morning and brought it to her bedside...

...which was unheard of in our circles.
So that news made the round:

"Mr. Frank does this for his wife!
How great. "

Otto Frank
interviewed in 1979

We left Germany in 1933...

...because I didn't want to educate
my children with blinkers.

They were not allowed to see
Christian friends anymore.

In Holland, it was different.

Upon her arrival in Amsterdam...

...the 4-year-old Anne was sent
to the Montessori school...

...where Lies Goslar
became her best friend.

Years later, in her diary,
Anne wrote this of Lies:

"Hanneli Goslar, or Lies, as she's
called at school, is a bit strange.

She's usually shy...

...outspoken at home but reserved
around other people.

She blabs whatever you tell her
to her mother.

But she says what she thinks.

And lately, I've come
to appreciate her a great deal. "

Anne and Lies' friendship had begun
on their very first day at school.

Exactly in opposite of the door...

...I saw the back of Anne, and
she was ringing these little bells.

And she turned around, and she saw me,
I saw her, and hop...

...we run each into
the arms of another.

I think my mother went away.
I didn't look at her anymore.

And this was the first day.

Since then we were together
really till the end.

Of the two sisters, I was really more
impressed with Margot than with Anne...

...for rather obvious reasons.

Margot was a year and a half older
than I am, so she was a model.

She was ladylike.
She was always composed.

She always did her homework.
She was just the ideal young lady.

I was a tomboy, so I always thought
it would be great to be like Margot.

Anne was very lively, and I didn't
need any model for that.

I was lively myself.

Besides, she was younger. You never
model yourself after a younger child.

So I know her-
All the time.

I could do that just as well.

I will start with the sentence
my mother said always.

My mother said, "God knows everything.
Anne knows everything better. "

This describes Anne, you understand?
I don't know in English...

She knew everything better.

Anne was- In America you say "spicy. "
A spicy girl.

She always was friendly with the boys.
The boys liked her.

The girls liked her. She also always
was in the center of the thing.

Then she had something I never saw,
not before and not afterwards.

She could take out the socket
out of the shoulder...

...and she would sit,
and everybody looked.

And then she made out,
and knock, knock, knock.

You have to be very careful. You can
end up with an orthopedic doctor.

She liked it, and everybody was looking
at her. And then she was happy.

When he came to Holland, Otto Frank
set up the Opekta Company...

...a Dutch subsidiary of a German
concern, selling pectin...

...a substance used in making jam.

The progressive Otto had a film
produced to promote the product.

In the early days, he had
four key colleagues, all non-Jews.

One of those employees was
an Austrian who'd grown up in Holland.

Miep Gies.

It was a very fine place to work...

...because we understand
all the people in the office.

We were very close,
was friendly together.

He was always our boss...

...but also our father.

We can go to Mr. Frank with
all our troubles and sorrow.

The office boy and general helper
from 1933 until 1939...

...was Henk van Beersekamp.

Mrs. Frank was different
from Otto Frank.

Otto Frank was a familiar,
friendly man...

...who treated me as an equal...

...and with kindness.

Mrs. Frank was a bit...

...well, maybe
she had been accustomed...

...to better things
in life in Germany.

I don't know.

Margot was a bit subdued...

...but Anne was a dear.

I had lots of fun with her...

...because we would make
funny faces...

...which she found amusing.

I remember one time I did this:

And she always split
her sides with laughter.

And when I did that, her tongue...

...would move to and fro.

But it was fun.
She was a great girl.

Dutch Nazis putting on a show
in Amsterdam in 1938.

Though Hitler had infiltrated
the police, the civil service...

...even the prime minister...

...in the years
before the war, Holland...

...was generally good to
its Jewish refugees from Germany.

Despite these scenes
of Fascist collaborators...

...the Dutch and German Jews believed
that they would be safe in Holland...

...far from the F�hrer
in their former homeland.

Few, very few,
tried to leave for safer shores.

And Otto and his family
were not amongst them.

Sometimes I said to Mr. Frank:

"You must go out of the Netherlands.
It will be danger for you. "

Miep Gies

"No," said he.

"In the first World War, the German
came not here in the Netherlands.

So they come the second time,
also not. "

And I said to him,
"You must go to America. "

"No, I stay here
because I love the Netherlands. "

The faith of Otto Frank
and thousands like him...

...was catastrophically misplaced.

By May 1940, Hitler had conquered
almost all of Europe.

Austria, Poland, Norway, Denmark...

...Yugoslavia, Greece,
Romania, Bulgaria...

...and most of France had fallen to
Germany's air force and storm troops.

Europe's low countries
remained as a tantalizing morsel...

...to be swallowed whole.

Then by the 14th of May, 1940,
it was all over.

Five days after the Germans
had finally...

...smashed through Holland's borders,
the Dutch capitulated.

In Amsterdam, Hitler's victory
was greeted with black humor.

My father made himself
look like Hitler.

It was wonderful how he did it.

Here was the hair
and the black mustache.

The Franks lived next door, and he
would ring at the door and come in.

I remember them all,
you know, the first moment.

They were very
frightened what happened.

If you could think Hitler
didn't come to their house.

But it was very funny how everybody
was frightened at the moment...

...till they...

...till they saw who it was
and what happened.

What happened to your father?

He died in Bergen-Belsen.

The German vice tightened gradually.

First they conducted a hearts-and-minds
campaign to win over the Dutch...

...their Aryan brothers.

THANK ADOLF HITLER

JEWISH QUARTER

For the Jews, it was another story...

...as their freedom
was gradually restricted...

...by a never-ending series
of anti-Jewish decrees...

...already familiar in Germany
and other conquered territories.

JEWS PROHIBlTED

By 1942...

...no area of Jewish life
was excluded from German control.

Jews Prohibited
By Law

Everything that was fun in life
was forbidden.

We were not allowed to go anymore
to a park or to a swimming pool.

We were not allowed to go to shops.

Only to Jewish shops and only
between 3 and 5.

8:00 in the evening
you had to be at home.

You had to wear the star.

You had to have something with you that
would look if you are Jewish or not...

...even if you had the star.

Then things were-
You were frightened.

You just wouldn't go out.
To school and home, and that's it, yes.

How one of the friends of Anne said:

"Everything I did, I was afraid
it is forbidden. "

Well, the effect
of these restrictions...

...was, I think, mainly...

...because it came inch by inch,
very slowly.

"If that's all, we can bear it. "

We always had a stiff upper lip,
and we tried to make the best of it.

If you can't
go to public school anymore...

...there are good Jewish teachers.

If you can't go to concerts,
which was important in my family...

...there are fine Jewish musicians,
so we make music at home.

So we always tried to put
the best spin...

...on whatever happened.

And that way, I think,
we tried to ward off...

...thinking about how we were
being more restricted...

...and what was going to be sure
to come afterwards.

Otto Frank,
always the perfect father...

...rented movies to show the girls
on the living room wall.

Rin Tin Tin was a particular
favorite with Anne.

She and her friend Jacqueline van
Maarsen created a cinema of their own.

Together we made little cards
to get in.

Of course, everybody could come in,
but we wanted to make it look real...

...by making these little tickets.

"Jacqueline van Maarsen...

...is invited on Sunday,
the 1st of March...

...with Anne Frank, Merwedeplein 37...

...11:00...

...for...

...a movie.

Without this card, no entrance.

Please inform in time. Row 2.

Seat 2."

THE LIGHTHOUSE BY THE SEA
WITH RIN TIN TIN

This film supplied the entertainment
for Anne and her friends...

...when they celebrated
her 13th birthday...

...her last in freedom.

Her prized gift that 13th birthday...

...on Friday,
the 12th of June, 1942...

...was her diary...

...a present she had bought
with her father a few days before.

From the beginning, Anne addressed
her diary as a special friend...

...with whom she would conduct
a secret correspondence.

Her first entry was this:

"I hope I will be able to confide
everything to you...

...as I have never been
able to confide in anyone.

And I hope you will be a great source
of comfort and support. "

Her early diary jottings were typical
of a 13-year-old:

Gossip about school friends, jokes...

...and a record of her
unextraordinary daily life...

...together with photos
and other scraps.

In the years that followed, she also
shared her most intimate secrets...

...including her increasing interest in
the development of her body and in sex.

What interested Anne very much
was sexual behavior...

...and she wanted to know
what it was all about.

Jacqueline "Jopie" van Maarsen

And she asked her father about it.
I knew much more than she did...

...because I had my sister,
who told me everything.

So I thought, "Well, I'm not going
to enlighten you altogether.

You just ask your father. "

At the time, Anne's body
was not changing yet.

And I think that she was curious...

...because she had some little...

She used a bra from Margot
with cotton wool in it...

...to show a bit of breast.

And I did not need
that kind of thing...

...and she was interested
to see exactly...

While Anne was innocently
absorbed with her developing body...

...Otto Frank was mindful that
if the Nazi measures against Jews...

...continued to their
inevitable conclusion...

...he and his family would need to take
precautions to protect themselves.

For a year, he had been secretly
preparing a hiding place for them all...

...together with his German business
associate Hermann van Pels...

...van Pels' wife, Auguste,
and son, Peter.

It was to be in several rooms behind
the company offices on Prinsengracht...

...in central Amsterdam.

Laboriously, and unknown to all
but the innermost circle...

...Otto accumulated furniture,
cooking implements...

...bedding and clothes.

At the Frank home, two and a half
miles away in Merwedeplein...

...Sunday, the 5th of July, 1942, was
the day that everyone had dreaded...

...had hoped against hope
would never come.

That Sunday, the Germans delivered...

...this innocuous document
by registered mail...

...to several thousand Jews, the
majority of them of German extraction...

...aged between 15 and 40.

They were to report within 9 days
to be transported to a labor camp...

...in Germany.

Margot Frank was one of them...

...throwing her family,
like so many, into crisis.

The agonies at that moment were
when you had some youngsters saying:

"Labor won't floor me. I'm strong.
I can do whatever's asked of me.

I'm going and that's it. "

And the parents would say, "No, stay.
It's going to be the end of your life. "

So you saw the family in tension.

Then you had other families
where a youngster would say:

"I don't want to go. I'm scared. What
will happen?" The parents would say:

"You must go. Remember, grandmother
lives with us and the baby.

If you don't go, we'll be punished. "
And you saw the families really...

...torn asunder by these events.

And that was terrible.

Nine years after fleeing Germany,
the Franks were on the run again.

By 7:30 on Monday,
the 6th of July, 1942...

...the whole family had disappeared...

...leaving behind
an elaborate false trail...

...indicating they
had fled to Switzerland.

We came here...

...and the kitchen was not...

The kitchen was just left
like it was...

...with everything dirty in the sink.

I went into her room,
and I saw her bed not made.

And the shoes that she loved, she'd
just received them for the summer...

...were near the bed.

I came here, you see.

I went up, and I am ringing
and ringing and ringing...

...and nobody opens.

And at the end somebody opened.
It was a tenant. Mr. Goudschmidt.

He had the room at the roof
in the Frank apartment.

He looked at me as if
he'd never seen me before.

And I didn't know what happened.

He said, "What do you want?"

"I come to play as usual. " And he said:

"Yes, but don't you know? The Frank
family left for Switzerland. "

Miep Gies had been given the
responsibility of getting Margot...

...who was now in flight from
the Germans, to the hiding place.

I took Margot by bicycle.

Monday morning, very raining.

And that was good for us
because the German...

...came not on street.

And I came with her
to the Prinsengracht 263...

...go up with her.

She was very...

-Upset?
-Yes. She was very upset.

I saw it.

And when I was standing with her
in front of the hiding place...

...I was afraid that she would...

...fall down.

And what could I do with her?

I opened the door and put her in.

Despite Otto's carefully laid plans...

...on their first day there,
the family was surrounded by chaos.

When I come there, it was terrible.

Nothing was okay.

And Mrs. Frank and Margot were
sitting down on the bed.

They could not do anything.

There was...

They couldn't accept this situation.

But Anne and Mr. Frank were busy,
very busy.

I ask Mrs. Frank,
"Can I do something for you?"

"No," said Mrs. Frank.

"For today, I have all the things. "

And then I went down.

But the next day, when I came,
all was okay.

-So Anne and Mr. Frank-?
-Were busy the whole day.

Was this typical of the family?

Yes. That was typical for the family.

Now the family was dependent
on Otto Frank's four employees...

...who had volunteered
to help them survive.

Johannes Kleiman and Viktor Kugler
supplied Anne and Margot...

...with school books
and other reading matter...

...at the same time, ensuring the Opekta
Company continued to function...

...even producing record profits that
could be used to keep everyone alive.

Miep Gies and her assistant,
the 23-year-old typist, Bep Voskuijl...

...had the dangerous task of supplying
the residents of the annex with food...

...purchased on the black market
or with forged or stolen ration books.

In one of her first diary entries
in hiding...

...Anne described her new home
to her imaginary friend:

"Thursday, July 9, 1942.

Dear Kitty:

Our secret annex is
at the back of the building.

There's just one small step in front
of the door, and then you're inside.

Straight ahead of you
is a steep flight of stairs.

To the left is a narrow hallway
opening onto a room...

...that serves as the Frank
family's living room and bedroom.

Next door is a smaller room:

The bedroom and study of the two
young ladies of the family.

To the right of the stairs is
a windowless washroom with a sink.

The door in the corner
leads to the toilet...

...and another one
to Margot's and my room.

If you go up the stairs
and open the door at the top...

...you're surprised to see such
a light and spacious room...

...in an old canal house
like this.

It contains a stove and a sink.

This will be the kitchen and bedroom
for Mr. and Mrs. van Pels...

...as well as the general living room,
dining room and study for us all.

A tiny side room is to be
Peter van Pels' bedroom.

Then just as in the front part
of the building...

...there's an attic and a loft. "

As they settled into their confinement,
the chimes of the Westerkerk clock...

...seemed to act as a constant reminder
of the world they had left behind them.

Before long, the entrance
to the hiding place was disguised...

...as a bookcase.

But in every respect, what lay
behind those innocuous files...

...was untypical of the shelter
provided to other Jews.

It was relatively spacious,
within a city.

There were people outside dedicated
to helping and protecting them.

Most families were torn apart...

...but here, all four of the Franks
could stay together.

A week later, they were joined
by their friends the van Pelses.

Miep Gies visited each day.

When I came here from this door...

...in the middle was standing
the table with the chairs.

All the people, seven people...

...were standing in the line here.

Did not say any word.

Did not say any word...

...but waited for me to begin.

It was always an awful moment
for me...

...because I felt the dependence...

...from these people
of us, the helpers.

Except Anne. Anne was in the front.

She asked, "Hello, Miep,
what is the news?"

In those early months,
Anne was desperately lonely...

...and always hoping
for news of her friends.

She even invented a correspondence
with one of them.

"September 25, 1942.

Dear Jacqueline:

I'm writing this letter
in order to bid you goodbye.

I can't write to everyone, and
that's why I'm just writing to you.

I'd be grateful if you'd
be really nice...

...and keep up a secret
correspondence with me.

All inquiries to Mrs. Gies.

I hope we'll meet again soon...

...but it probably won't be
before the end of the war.

Well, then, Jackie,
I hope things go well with you...

...and that I hear from you soon.

Your best friend, Anne.

P. S.:

I hope that we'll always stay
best friends until we meet again.

Bye. "

I think that she
wrote it immediately...

...after she went into hiding.

And afterwards, at that moment
in September, she wrote it down.

She invented in that
my answer to her.

And then she wrote a second letter...

...in answer to this invented letter.

And she must have been very lonely
that she invented these letters.

Anne also wrote a long fantasy in which
she imagined living with her cousin...

...in the safety of Switzerland.

When I think that when Anne wrote
about Switzerland and about me...

Bernd Elias

...it must have been a painful
thought to her...

...to realize that she was
like a bird in a cage...

...and we, over here in Switzerland...

...were free to do
anything we wanted to do.

And all her dreams...

...were caged in.

And we, the boys, her cousins...

...could fulfill everything
she was dreaming of.

It must have been a very,
very hard thing for her.

In the diary, she even designs
a skating dress...

-... so she can be your skating partner.
-Yes.

Yes, when I saw that the first time...

...it really overwhelmed me.

It made me cry, to be very honest.

Especially then that I knew she
was not alive anymore when I saw it.

I would have loved to go
skating with her.

Anne also addressed her diary entries
to a circle of imaginary friends...

...all characters from a well-known
series of books for adolescent girls.

Eventually, she settled
on one friend, Kitty...

...as her diary correspondent.

Anne was always a very curious child.

When I was upstairs and went away...

...she'd always wait till the last
to speak with me.

And then she had me.

And she asked everything
what happened outside.

And I told her the truth.

The terrible truth.

"November 19, 1942.

Dearest Kitty:

Countless friends and acquaintances
have been taken off to a dreadful fate.

Night after night, green
and gray military vehicles...

...cruise the streets.

In the evenings, when it's dark...

...I often see long lines
of good, innocent people...

...accompanied by crying children,
walking on and on.

No one is spared.

The sick, the elderly, children...

...babies and pregnant women
all are marched to their death.

I get frightened when I think of close
friends who are now at the mercy...

...of the cruelest monsters
to stalk the earth.

And all because they're Jews. "

Bloeme Evers-Emden
Margot's classmate

At the beginning of the class of '41,
we had about 50 children.

The deportations began in July '42.

And then from 50 children...

...all the time, children disappeared.

When you came in your class,
you said:

"That child's missing
and that one and that one. "

You did hope they were ill.

But you knew that they were round up...

...or maybe they were hidden.

At the end of the school year...

...in April '43...

...there were three children left...

...two boys and I.

And we did our final examination...

...together.

The second part of the final
examination, I was alone.

It was very sad.

Very difficult.

From 50 children, one remained
at the end of the year?

While the roundups of their friends
continued outside...

...in their hiding place,
Anne and the others...

...tried to establish
a kind of normality.

"Dear Kitty:

Up to now, our bedroom with
its blank walls was very bare.

Thanks to Father,
who brought my entire...

...post card and movie star
collection here beforehand...

...and to a brush and a pot of glue...

...I was able to plaster
the walls with pictures. "

We were both collecting pictures...

...from the children of the queen.

Here you see Elizabeth,
today Queen Elizabeth...

...and her sister Margaret.

And I also was collecting,
and we would change together.

We had from Belgium...

From all the queens in the world,
we would change pictures.

I liked it very much. Anne was
also collecting from film stars.

This I wasn't interested in at all.

I only remember she had
Deanna Durbin. This one.

This is the only one I remember
from then. I never saw a film.

I don't remember if Anne saw films.

We went to see Shirley Temple films.

And here in Amsterdam,
we had a cinema, Cineac.

There you could see one hour
a little film and news.

And then it started.
Over there, we would go very often.

Four months after going into hiding,
an 8th person joined the annex...

...a 54-year-old German dentist,
Fritz Pfeffer.

Margot slept on a folding bed
with her parents.

And Anne had to share her room
with the newcomer.

Look, Mr. Pfeffer was my dentist.

And Mr. Pfeffer asked me always:

"Miep, do you have a place for me?"

Then I went next day...

...in the hiding place and tell it
to Mr. Frank and the other peoples.

They listened to me.

Next day, Mr. Frank said:

"Miep, where seven people can eat...

...can eight also eat. "

Pfeffer moved
into Anne's bedroom...

...complete with his drill
and dental implements.

While no one would now
lack treatment of their cavities...

...relations between
the 54-year-old disciplinarian...

...and the free spirit
in her early teens...

...were inevitably stormy.

On this corner...

...it was the desk...

...for Anne...

...and Pfeffer.

There this...

This gave sometimes
troubles with Anne.

Anne was standing on her rights.

From so till so is her time.

But I believe Mr. Pfeffer...

...did not see the importance
of a diary...

...for a little child.

"Him and his lies.

I'll smack his ugly mug so hard,
he'll go bouncing off the wall.

Anyone who is so petty and pedantic
at the age of 54 was born that way...

...and is never going to change. "

What Anne never knew was
that Fritz Pfeffer had a son...

...whom he had raised
as a single parent in Germany...

...until sending him to England
after Kristallnacht in 1938.

A few weeks later, Pfeffer himself
fled to Amsterdam...

...with his fiancee, Charlotte.

But his 11-year-old son
never saw his father again.

Peter Pepper
Fritz Pfeffer's son

We're talking about a girl
under very difficult circumstances...

...who first of all decided that
my father was not a nice man.

Therefore, she called him Dr. Dussel,
which in English is "idiot. "

As far as my point of view...

...retrospectively to the age
of 11 and below...

...there's a very large inaccuracy.

First of all, my father,
although being a very strict man...

...was a very kind man.

What other people don't recognize...

...is his love of life,
his love of freedom.

My father was a sportsman.

He loved to row.
He loved to ride horses.

He liked to climb mountains.

So if you take a man who's always
been active all his life...

...and then in flight
he ends up here...

...it's like caging a bird.

Weekly, Mrs. Miep Gies would bring
a package containing letters...

...and other personal messages
from Charlotte Karletta.

And weekly, she would take
a letter from him to her.

What do you feel now about what
that may have meant for your father?

What it meant for my father...

...is that it is a thin lifeline.

A thin lifeline that was
the only hope of expression...

...and relationship.

Because with Charlotte's
letters to him...

...expressing her love,
her feelings...

...her news, whatever it was
in those letters...

...is the only thing where
my father would have...

...the semblance of mental health.

Because you're a prisoner
of your own mind.

For the first time, Fritz Pfeffer's
son meets his father's protector.

Mr. Pfeffer.

How do you do?

Fine.

I was a very good friend
of your father.

Do you understand German?

I came into contact
with him every day.

He was my dentist,
exceptionally good.

He asked me if I could help him...

...find a place, and so I helped him.

Unbelievable.

Nice to meet you.

He was a lovely, lovely man.

Do you speak English?

Very bad.

Shall we try German?

Yes, if that's okay,
it would be better.

What would you like to know?

I just want to say...

...two words.

Many thanks.

Two months after this meeting,
Peter Pepper died of cancer.

If Anne reserved her special venom
for Fritz Pfeffer...

...with the claustrophobia of the months
in hiding that turned into years...

...all the adults at one time or another
were subjected to the fury of her pen.

"September 27, 1942.

Some people, like the van Pelses,
take delight not only...

...in raising their own children...

...but in helping others raise theirs.

Margot doesn't need it
since she is naturally good...

...kind and clever, perfection itself.

But I seem to have enough mischief
for the two of us.

More than once, the air's been filled
with the van Pels' admonitions...

...and my saucy replies.

They tell me I should talk less, mind
my own business and be more modest.

But I seem doomed to failure. "

Otto, the ever-indulgent father,
was frequently called in...

...to act as a peacemaker
between Anne and the others.

Her adoration of him was matched
only by her increasing problems...

...with her mother.

"I cling to Father because my contempt
of Mother is growing daily.

And it is only through him
that I'm able to retain...

...the last ounce of family
feeling I have left.

I don't know how I should act.

I can't very well confront her
with her carelessness, her sarcasm...

...and her hard-heartedness.

Yet I can't continue to take the blame
for everything.

I'm the opposite of Mother,
so of course we clash.

She's not a mother to me.
I have to mother myself.

I'm charting my own course
and will see where it leads me. "

Mrs. Frank was the most depressed
of all the people.

Sometimes when I go out
of the hiding place...

...the staircase downstairs...

...she went with me till the door.

I did not understand that.

What did she want of me?

And once again, I go with her
in her sleeping room...

...and she closed the door,
and then she said to me:

"Miep...

...I am so afraid. "

She told me all her troubles.

But what could I do?

I didn't say anything...

...because I was
in the same position as she.

While Anne and her mother feuded...

...in the second year, she developed
a strong passion for Peter van Pels...

...the 17-year-old boy with whom
she shared her caged existence.

They spent hours together
in the loft chatting...

...or simply staring out
the window at the chestnut tree.

"Sunday, March 19, 1944.

I have the feeling that Peter and I
share a secret.

When he looks at me with those eyes,
with that smile and with that wink...

...it's as if a light
goes on inside me.

I hope things stay like this...

...and we'll have many,
many more happy hours together.

Your grateful and happy Anne. "

Peter van Pels was a blue-eyed boy...

...with very little
intellectual capacity.

I didn't know him nearly as well
as I knew Anne.

But he once came to our house
when we were reading the classics...

...and he was so singularly
bewildered by it...

...that I remember thinking:

"My goodness, he doesn't know a thing!"

The relationship with Peter
waxed and then waned.

They cuddled and kissed,
but as she noted in her diary...

...Anne gradually
became dissatisfied...

...with his inability
to express his feelings.

The pressures of confinement
created and then crushed...

...their adolescent love affair.

In the secret annex,
the claustrophobia was stifling.

The radio, broadcasting
from England...

...was an essential lifeline
to news from the outside world.

Every Allied victory brought hope,
every defeat, gloom.

Arguments over food blew up
into major rows.

And then always the ever-present
threat of discovery.

The windows had to be covered
by blinds, even in the heat of summer.

The toilet could only be used
outside office hours.

No one could walk in shoes
on the lower floor...

...for fear that the workers in
the warehouse below would hear.

And always the question,
"Would they be betrayed...

...or would they betray themselves
by some inadvertent error?"

To add to everyone's fears...

...the warehouse and offices under their
hiding place were burgled a few times.

My father had the maintenance of
the building, the daily maintenance.

Hans Wijnberg

Later I recognized that he
must have been the carpenter...

...that's repairing the door...

...which is opened by the burglary
in the book, in Anne Frank's diary.

I think there were two burglaries,
weren't there?

Yeah. The other one was me.

What were you after?

I think it's a mixture
of adventure and spices.

We found some spices.
But we had to move out...

...because we recognized people
living in the house...

...because they made
a mistake upstairs.

That's what I later realized.

I didn't know it was the Frank family.

We did not know.

We were not supposed to know
who was living in a house...

...because of what I explained earlier.

You didn't speak about people
living somewhere.

So we heard them flushing the toilet...

...so we moved out because that
was a sign people were upstairs.

And well, we were not there
with an agreement of anybody.

"Wednesday, March 29, 1944.
Dearest Kitty:

Mr. Bolkestein,
the cabinet minister...

...speaking on the Dutch
broadcast from London...

...said that after the war, a collection
would be made of diaries and letters...

...dealing with the war.

Of course, everyone pounced
on my diary.

Imagine how interesting it would
be if I published a novel...

...about the secret annex.

The title alone would make people
think it was a detective story.

Seriously though,
10 years after the war...

...people would find it very amusing
to read how we lived...

...what we ate and what we
talked about as Jews in hiding. "

For 6 weeks, Anne thought constantly
about the message from London.

Then she made up her mind.

She had wanted to be a journalist,
a famous writer, to travel the world...

...see Paris and Hollywood.

This was her opportunity.

Starting in the middle of May 1944...

...she began to furiously rewrite her
whole diary from the first entry...

...with a view
to future publication...

...at the same time as keeping up
her regular diary entries.

"Tuesday, June 6, 1944.

Dearest Kitty:

'This is D-day, '
the BBC announced at 12.

'This is the day.
The invasion has begun. '

A huge commotion in the annex.

Is this really the beginning
of the long-awaited liberation?

The liberation we've all talked
so much about...

...which still seems too good, too much
of a fairy tale ever to come true?

Will this year, 1944,
bring us victory?

We don't know yet.

But where there's hope, there's life.

It fills us with fresh courage
and makes us strong again.

The best part of the invasion...

...is that I have the feeling
that friends are on the way.

Those terrible Germans have oppressed
and threatened us for so long...

...that the thought
of friends and salvation...

...means everything to us.

Maybe, Margot says...

...I can even go back to school...

...in October or September. "

With the Allies advancing,
the spirits in the annex soared.

Otto Frank kept a map...

...tracking every advance of
the British and American troops.

But the odds were stacked against
those in the hiding place.

Of the 25,000 Jews who hid from
the Nazis in Holland during WWII...

...some 8 to 9 thousand
were discovered by the Germans...

...or betrayed by their Dutch hosts.

Many of the Franks' neighbors, some of
whom were known Nazi sympathizers...

...knew there was something going on
in the back house...

...at 263 Prinsengracht.

Anyone could've called the
authorities to collect the reward...

...for betraying Jews in hiding.

Anne herself chronicled
many acts of carelessness...

...that could've led to the suspicion
that could easily lead on to betrayal.

It has never been proved
how they were betrayed...

...but on a sunny summer morning
in 1944...

...two years after they first stepped
behind their secret door...

...their world collapsed.

It was the 4th of August...

...1944.

You know, it was always my task
to go first...

...up in the hiding place.

Also this day.

I go up, took my shopping list...

...talked with the people...

...and came down.

After an hour, I was
working in the office.

Bep in front of me,
Koophuis on this side.

The door...

...goes open, but I did not look.

And it was quiet.

In a moment, I look up...

...and there was a man standing
before me with a gun to me...

...and said:

"Quiet. No words. "

Was there ever a plan...

...for this sort of situation?

No. No.

We were so...

...sure that it never would happen.

The authorities were alerted
by an anonymous phone call...

...that there were Jews
hiding in the Opekta offices.

Four Dutch policemen from
the German security service...

...led by an Austrian officer,
went straight to the secret bookcase.

I could hear the voice of the Nazi.

And I heard this man...

...speak with a...

...with a Vienna accent.

And if you know, I'm born in Vienna.
I know that accent.

I stand up and say to him...

...in a nearly friendly mien:

"You are a Vienna.
I'm a Vienna too. "

And this one sentence...

...was perhaps too much for this man.

He was standing there...

...looked at me.

And when he come to him-
He come to me...

...so near to me that I feel his...

...his adem.

His breath, I feel his breath.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself...

...helping Jewish baggage?

You deserve to receive...

...the worst punishment.

And you know what that is. "

I did not say any word.

I was...

He was going in my office from
the one wall to the other...

...as a wild...

...animal.

Animal.

After a while, he stood still...

...looked me a little friendlier.

"Out of personal sympathy,
you may stay...

...but woe betide you if you flee.

Then we'll take your husband. "

When the Germans captured
Jews in hiding...

...they looted everything of value.

Officially, this was meant to finance
the transportation of the Jews...

...to the Polish death camps.

But corruption was rife...

...and Jewish valuables often lined
the pockets of Nazi policemen.

Needing a container for his loot...

...the Austrian arresting officer, SS
Oberscharf�hrer Karl Silberbauer...

...emptied the contents of Otto
Frank's briefcase onto the floor.

And thus, he left behind
Anne's diary.

After the Franks and the other
peoples were away...

...I come here in...

...and found...

...the diary scattered on the floor.

Ellie and me, Bep and me.

Bep and me, we saw this.

"That is the diary of Anne!"

"Please take! Take it!"

We took all the things...

...but I was afraid...

...that I had not all
the paper of the diary. I knew that.

But I was so in hurry...

...because I was afraid
that this Austrian man came again.

-That the officer-
-That the officer...

Because he say,
"I come back. "

Within two weeks of Miep Gies
saving Anne's diary...

...the Dutch firm of A-Puls stripped
the hiding place of its possessions...

...to be sent to Germany to aid
bombed-out German civilians.

Silberbauer and his assistants
had taken the eight Jewish prisoners...

...to Gestapo headquarters, housed
here in a former school in Amsterdam.

Of the helpers, Johannes Kleiman
and Viktor Kugler were also arrested.

Though not the two women,
Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl.

Kleiman and Kugler were
then sent here...

...to Amersfoort labor camp
in Holland...

...shown in this film during
a Dutch Red Cross inspection.

Kleiman was released in September
due to bad health...

...and Kugler managed to
escape in 1945...

...when the train in which he...

...was being transported to Germany
was bombed by American planes.

The day after the arrest of the Franks,
the van Pelses and Pfeffer...

...Miep tried one last desperate
effort to help them.

I go to the Gestapo.

And when you dare go in...

...you did not know if you come out.

I found this Austrian man...

...and he said, "Yes, come. "
I went to him.

But when I came there, his office
was full of young people.

Secretaries and all the peoples.

But he was sitting in the corner.

And when I came in, I could not-
I think...

..."I cannot speak with
this man what I want. "

So I go to the corner to him...

...over his desk, and I did so:

"Understand me," I said to him.

"Please come back tomorrow.

I can't do anything more
for you today. "

And then I went away.

Next morning, I go to him.
He was standing in the door...

...waiting for me.
"I am sorry," he said to me.

"I can't do anything for you...

...because I am not high enough.
You understand me?"

And I said to him,
"I don't believe you. "

"Go to my boss. "
And I go upstairs.

I knocked on the door.
Nobody said anything.

Then I opened the door,
and what did I see?

A large table...

...sitting high German people.

Their caps on the table,
and in the middle...

...the radio, listening to England.

That was very, very-

Was not allowed for the German people.

And it was very dangerous for me...

...because I saw what they did.

And I said, "Who is he, the boss?"

One man came to me, pushed me
out of the door.

"You are a swine. "

And then I went down.

And this Vienna man
was standing in the door.

I said, "What did I say to you?"

And then I went down...

...and I feel...

...the curtain of this play
was fallen for me.

Afterfour days in the cellars
of the Gestapo building...

...the prisoners were taken to
the Amsterdam railway depot.

They were loaded under guard
onto an ordinary passenger train.

Janny Brilleslijper, a member
of the Dutch Resistance...

...was amongst the prisoners.

What I saw was a family.

There were a number of people...

...a very worried father
and a nervous mother...

...and two children...

...wearing sports clothes, I believe.

Of course, it is more than
fifty years ago.

They had sports clothes on...

...and backpacks with them...

...and the four of them...

...stayed together constantly.

They spoke very softly
to one another...

...and there were other people there.

It was a beautiful day...

...the sun shone to greet you...

...the houses of the city were
bathed in gold...

...and those people all had
a sort of...

...silent melancholy about them.

Nobody said anything.

I cannot say that the people
were afraid.

We went to meet the unknown.

We didn't know what was
waiting for us.

This was the first destination for
the Franks and the other prisoners.

Westerbork Transit Camp
in northern Holland.

This film was made by
the commandant...

...to show his superiors in Berlin
how successful he was...

...in keeping his
prisoners occupied...

...before sending them on to less
benign places in Poland or Germany.

104,000 people were
processed through here...

...between 1942 and 1945...

...more than 75% of the Jews
in Holland...

...before the outbreak of war.

Proudly, and without irony,
the commandant showed...

...the humiliation
of his prisoners...

...who were largely ignorant
of the fate that awaited them.

Of the 60,000 or so who were
sent to Auschwitz from here...

...only 673 were ever to return.

And of the 34,313 transported
to Sobibor death camp...

...just 19 came back.

In the meantime, Westerbork offered
ball games and calisthenics.

The Jews were encouraged to entertain
themselves with a weekly cabaret.

Three survivors of that time
in August 1944...

...returned for the first
time in 50 years.

All, like the Franks,
had been captured in hiding.

It is maybe unbelievable...

...but when we were arrested
and brought to the prison...

Sal de Liema
Westerbork Prisoner Aug/Sept 1944

...I cannot say it was
a kind of relief. No.

But there was something
that we said:

"Now this is maybe the end of the war. "

Because we knew
the invasion was going on...

...and, "The end is finally in sight.

What we have to do now
is try to survive this. "

It was overwhelming.
I knew it was Westerbork.

Rachel van Amerongen-Frankfoorder
Westerbork Prisoner June/Sept 1944

I thought, "This is the end," because
I knew what happened in Germany.

And I knew that they were
going to kill us.

We never gave up hope
that we would survive the war.

Rose de Liema
Westerbork Prisoner Aug/Sept 1944

There was not that much
Gestapo supervision in the camps.

The first ones I saw were the Franks.
I knew Margot rather well...

Bloeme Evers-Emden
Westerbork Prisoner Aug/Sept 1944

...and I knew Anne.

We said to each other,
"You too, here? You too?

Were you hidden? What happened?"

But very soon you were
taken inside the camp...

...and you had to be registered...

...and you got your wooden shoes...

...because we were punished,
because we were hidden.

For me, it was
the best time of the war.

No hunger, nice boys.

Frieda Menco
Westerbork Prisoner July/Sept 1944

We worked during the daytime.
Wasn't bad.

Then we got food...

...and we were standing around
and making jokes with each other.

Like other prisoners, the eight...

...were given make-work jobs
by their captors.

The Franks had the task of breaking
up old batteries for recycling.

Otto Frank wanted something
better for his Anne.

I was cleaning a table...

...and then at once,
somebody came to me...

...with a girl-

That was Otto Frank.
Later on, I knew it.

He was with Anne, and he asked me:

"Here's Anne, my daughter.
Do you have work for her?"

Because he wanted, of course,
her to be inside with us.

Then she said to me, "I can help you.
I'm very handy. I can do everything. "

This was the end, actually.

This was it.

It all started here.

My grandparents...

...all my uncles, my aunts,
my nieces, my nephews...

...all my friends.

They came here, and it was
the beginning of the end.

And I really...

...feel like this is...

...a big cemetery.

In the end, you start to believe
that it won't happen.

You know that there are transports
going each Tuesday.

But when two months have passed...

...and your own name wasn't on
the list, you start to believe:

"We can stay here until
the end of the war. "

Because by then of course, we knew
that there would be an end.

Although it was incredible,
but we knew...

...that the English and the Americans
were already in Europe.

And then it came, and you
became very factual.

You took your things, everything-

You got back what belonged to you...

...because they had taken
that away from you...

...because they gave you that outfit.

It was like what happened so many
times later. It was like having-

I don't know how you call it. You
don't quite realize what's going on...

...and what will happen
with you and to you.

Eighty-three trains left Westerbork
during the second World War...

...for the Polish death camps
of Auschwitz and Sobibor.

On September 3, 1944, they loaded
many of the Jews in Westerbork...

...onto the very last
transport to Auschwitz.

1019 men, women and children...

...amongst them, the group
of eight from the secret annex.

For most, it was to be their
last sight of Holland.

Darkness...

...is the first thing I think about.

Being cramped in.

Too many people.

No room enough.

Luggage.

No possibility to lie.

Sitting for three days.

Now and then standing.

You were like in a trance.

You didn't realize.

You realized that very bad
things were to happen...

...and to be completely powerless.

Sometimes we stood up. We got up...

...and looked through cracks...

...when we were at a station
when the train stopped.

Because we still had no idea how we
went and where it would end...

...and how long it would take.

People cried, and on the other side,
they told stories to each other...

...to try to sleep,
to sleep standing.

There was not enough food and drink.

We were, I think,
about 40 or 50 people...

...in that cattle car.

We were standing.

Sometimes we got to our knees
to rest a little bit.

Urinating and other things.

I don't remember what we did, but
there was nothing there, nothing.

I think we just let it go.

And it was like an endless journey.

And even that was better than that
there would have come an end to it.

Because the end was not good.
That, we felt.

Your imagination stops...

...at certain moments.

You refuse to imagine the worst.

On September 5, the train from
Holland reached its final destination:

Auschwitz death camp
in southwest Poland.

All those lamps.

Terrible, terrible hard.

The color was so terrible.
It was yellowish.

And we came there,
men, women, children alike...

...on the platform here.
Don't know where exactly.

Yeah, I see there, the rail.

We were astonished.

I really thought I passed away,
and this was hell.

Really, I thought, "I'm already dead. "

We were driven one way or another way.

After all, was the one way
to the death...

...and this was to a kind of life.

I remember very well too...

...that you were naked before men...

...and I was educated chastely...

...in the values of my people.

And I got a shock.

I knew that from this moment on...

...all your norms and values...

...were of no importance anymore.

And that there was a quite new...

...set of values to be learned.

And if you didn't learn it,
you would be dead.

I remember that I realized
it in one second.

And I was only 18 years old.

According to Auschwitz records, more
than half the people on that train...

...were gassed on the day after
their arrival, September 6.

549 Jews, among them...

...every child under the age of 15.

They told us right away what was
waiting for us: death.

"All of your people, they're going to
the chimneys. Maybe tonight already. "

It was just a death factory.

We knew.
We saw that terrible pipe...

...burning day and night.

The smell. I thought that
when it should come here...

...that I should have had
a penetrant smell. But no.

I was sure that I should smell it
because sometimes I smell it.

The smell of the disinfection,
the smell of the burning flesh...

...and the smoke.

Anne, Margot and Edith Frank,
and Mrs. van Pels...

...were among the 212
women from the Dutch train...

...who were granted entry into that
hell they called Auschwitz-Birkenau.

They were placed in Women's Block 29.

It was no life.
It was no life at all.

We were degraded...

...to even less than beasts.

Less than animals.

We were standing outside,
and I saw a wagon on the first day.

"What's he throwing on there?"

Dead bodies. Oh, my God!
I could hardly look.

The next couple of days
later, I saw it.

"Oh, there's that wagon again
who picks up the dead bodies. "

The next time, I didn't pay
any attention to that wagon.

So your brain starts
functioning differently...

...because if you didn't-
You didn't do it on purpose...

...but then you couldn't
go on living.

In Auschwitz-Birkenau, Edith Frank
and her daughters...

...were drawn together
as never before.

A very important survival...

...for all the people
in concentration camps...

...were the forming of groups.
Support groups.

And of course, as mother
and children and daughters...

...you were a natural support group.

And I think everything
from the past was faded away...

...against this scene of Auschwitz.

It was of no importance
anymore, I suppose.

Was there any sign
of the previous antagonism...

...between Anne and her mother?

I think it was all forgotten.

They were always together.

You can have the luxury...

...of a struggle with your mother
in normal circumstances.

These circumstances were so...

...bad. Not only bad...

...but like a ghost writing...

...that everything fell away.

I'm quite sure about that.

The last time I saw Anne
and Margot and Mrs. Frank...

...was when there
had been a selection...

...for a working camp.

But you never knew for
what the selection was.

But Anne and her mother were told...

...that Anne was not allowed
to go with our group...

...because she had scabies.

Her mother and Margot
decided to stay with Anne.

We went to a labor camp where we...

...didn't get food and worked hard...

...but most of us survived.

There were few deaths,
and there were no gas chambers.

Had she not had the scabies...

...and had they gone
with our transport...

...they had had a better
chance to survive.

So because Anne suffered
from scabies...

...and her mother and sister
stayed with her...

...they lost their chance to leave
Auschwitz for the work camp...

...where many of the Dutch women
saw out the remainder of the war.

As for the men, when they had first
arrived at Auschwitz, September 5...

...Otto Frank, Hermann and
Peter van Pels, and Fritz Pfeffer...

...together with the other 254 males
who had not immediately been gassed...

...had been separated from their women
and taken to the nearby Auschwitz I.

This, the original death camp created
from an old Polish army barracks...

...may have been smaller than
Auschwitz-Birkenau...

...where the women had remained
within sight of the gas chambers...

...and three crematoria, but life
here for the men was no easier.

Mr. van Pels was the first to wither.

We told him, "Don't give up. "

He did, and it was just like
he melted away. It was two weeks-

Two days, he was gone.
He gave up.

That was it.

No one knows exactly when they took
Hermann van Pels to the gas chamber...

...but it was only a few weeks
after his arrival at Auschwitz.

Otto Frank and Sal de Liema resolved...

...to keep up their morale
by whatever means.

People around us...

...like we all were,
of course very nervous.

Talking about food all the time.
Talking about clothes...

...that we didn't have any,
practically no clothes.

Only the striped clothes that we had.

The food was just a piece of bread that
they'd give you. It was really bad.

So Mr. Frank and I-

We knew each other from Westerbork.

He said, "We should get
away from those people...

...because if you start talking
about food and everything...

...your brain is gonna go. "

And we said, "We understand
that physically...

...we maybe will not survive this. "

We should try to...

...survive mentally...

...and talk about things that had
nothing to do with the camp, like:

"Do you remember the melody from
the 9th Symphony from Beethoven?"

And then we start singing
to each other...

...just to get away from this fear.
Just to get our brain...

...thinking about other things.
We talked about van Gogh, Rembrandt.

"Ever go to the Van Gogh Museum?
Ever go to the Rijk Museum?"

And all those things, just not to-

To get out of our minds.
To get out of this here.

And it really helped, I think.

He was older, much older than I was.

He said, "You know, why don't
you call me Papa Frank...

...because I have to have
something in my life...

...that I can be a papa to. "

I didn't know
what he was talking about.

I said, "What do you mean?
I have a father...

...and he is hidden in
the Netherlands, in Holland.

If you do it for me, you don't have
to, because I have already a father...

...and he's alive.
I know he's hidden. "

"No," he said, "you do it for me.
I'm the type of a man, I need this.

I need somebody to be a papa for. "

So I told him, "If it will
help you, I'll do that. "

He said, "Call me Papa Frank. " Until
he died, when he wrote his letters...

...he always signed his letters,
"Papa Frank. "

I was standing one time
in the snow...

...naked...

...after we came back from our work.

We stand appell here,
outside here...

...and a German soldier came...

...and he had his fur coat on
and he looked at me and said:

"Cold, huh? It is cold?"

I didn't even answer.
I just looked at him.

And he said, "You know you
will not survive this, you know that.

But in case you will survive-

But I'll take care of it
that it's not gonna happen.

Nobody, but nobody will believe you...

...what we did to you people. Nobody. "

Otto Frank
interviewed in 1979

One day in Auschwitz,
I was very depressed.

I had been beaten the day before...

...and that had really affected me...

...also in terms of my morale.

It was a Sunday morning...

...and I said, "I can't get up. "

And then my comrades...

...all Dutchmen of course...

...because I was the only German...

...among Dutchmen...

...but I was totally accepted
by the others...

...they said to me,
"That's not possible...

...you must get up, otherwise
you are lost. "

And then they went to
a Dutch doctor...

...who worked with a German doctor...

...and this Dutch doctor...

...came to me in my barracks.

He said, "Get up and come...

...tomorrow morning
to the sick barracks...

...and I'll speak to
the German doctor...

...so that you will be accepted. "

And that is what happened...

...and through that I was saved.

While Otto languished
in a sick barracks...

...his daughters were transported away.

On October 28, 1944, they were
separated from their mother...

...and together with 1308
other women, they were sent here...

...to Bergen-Belsen concentration
camp in Germany.

Rachel van Amerongen-Frankfoorder
was with them.

You see with your own eyes how
beautiful it is. It is beautiful.

And there were birds here.
And I wanted to be a bird.

Freedom, freedom, freedom.

I thought, "Oh, how nice to be a bird.
You can fly wherever you go. "

I was simply jealous of birds.

When Anne, Margot, Rachel and
the others arrived at Bergen-Belsen...

...the camp was overflowing...

...with new inmates
brought from throughout Europe.

The barracks being built to
accommodate them were not ready...

...and they were crammed into
the makeshift shelter of tents.

On November 7, a violent storm
raged through the camp...

...destroying many of these.

Seeking shelter from the rain...

...Anne and Margot encountered
Lientje and Janny Brilleslijper...

...the two Dutch sisters whom they
knew from Auschwitz and Westerbork.

It stormed, it hailed.

We had walked four kilometers...

...and we sat together...

...the two of us...

...with only our two little faces...

...sticking out of two blankets.

Those dark horse blankets...

...with our heads together...

...and only our two little faces...

...like two heaps on a little hill...

...up against a tree...

...to stay as dry as possible.

And four legs came walking up...

...also with blankets around them...

...and over their heads.

And at the same time
as we saw them...

...we all threw off our blankets
with a shout...

"Oh, how wonderful
that you are here. "

How can you find
something wonderful...

...in the middle
of a concentration camp?

Deliberately starved, frozen
and racked with disease...

...Bergen-Belsen was no place to be
in those last months of World War II.

A wooden barracks was found for
the unfortunate women from Auschwitz.

But Anne and Margot Frank came to be
in the worst position of all:

In the lower bunk next to the door.
Incapable of protecting themselves...

...from the vicious wind that swept
through Bergen-Belsen's barren acres.

They shouted, "Close the door!
Close the door!

It is cold! It is cold!
It is cold!"

And it was terrible for them, of course.

What did the Frank girls look like
when you saw them in the barracks?

Very terrible. Terrible. Sick.

Thin. No hair.

Their eyes, very big. Very big eyes
because they were so thin.

Almost impossible to imagine...

...but there was a time when
the name Bergen-Belsen...

...brought hope to the eyes of Jews
due to be transported here.

In the early years, the Nazis
planned it as a camp for Jews...

...who might be used for exchange
for German prisoners of war.

In those long ago days, Anne's friend
Lies Goslar had been sent here...

...with her sister and father, the former
German government minister.

In 1945, Lies discovered
she was in the compound...

...next to the Dutch women
from Auschwitz.

One day, a friend of mine tells me:

"You know, between all these women,
there is your friend, Anne Frank. "

I don't know, I felt very crazy...

...because I was thinking
the whole time:

"Anne is safe in Switzerland. "

I was sure of this. This was what
the tenant said to me.

And so I had no choice to go
also near this barbed wire.

This was not allowed, and the German
in the watchtower was watching us.

And you know he would have shot
if he would have caught us.

So we couldn't see. I told you
there were barbed wire with straw...

...and we couldn't see the other side.
So I just went near at dark...

...and I start to call,
"Hello? Hello?" Something like this.

And who answered me
was Mrs. van Pels.

Maybe the Dutch women went
near the barbed wire...

...because the others didn't
know anybody. I don't know.

I didn't even ask her, "How are you?"
I knew her, but not very good.

But immediately she said to me,
"You want Anne?" And I said, "Yes. "

And she says, "You know,
I will call her for you.

Margot I can't call for you.
She's very sick already.

But Anne I will call for you. "

And so I was standing there
in the cold, and I was waiting.

And then suddenly, I heard
somebody calling me...

...and it was Anne.
And this was awful.

The first thing, we both
started to cry. Then I said:

"What are you doing here?
You are in Switzerland. "

And she answered me, "We wanted
this rumor to go around...

...because we hoped then the Germans
will not look after us. "

And then she said
she had nobody anymore.

And this was not right, and I am
so very sorry because she said:

"My mother is dead. " And her mother
really was dead at that moment...

...but she couldn't know. She was sure
her mother was killed when she left.

But her mother came out later,
was not killed...

...she just died of exhaustion
in the beginning of January.

Her sister, she knew, was
very, very sick already.

But now her father.

Look, if it was Mengele
or somebody else...

...they wouldn't know how old you are.
They would see only naked bodies.

And Mr. Frank was 55 years old...

...but he was only one month
in the Dutch camp...

...so he looked still very good.

And the Germans just looked and saw
somebody that still can walk...

...so they sent him
to the right, to live.

But Anne thought they go by the age,
and she was sure of it.

"My father is dead. He is an old man. "

And I always think, if she had known
her father is still alive-

After her sister died,
she just was without any hope.

Then maybe she had-
You know, it was only...

...one month she died before
the liberation.

But she didn't know, and so she
had really nothing to live for.

At this time, as a special prisoner
being kept for possible exchange...

...Lies Goslar received
a parcel from the Red Cross.

My friends, everybody gave me a glove
or a little sock and a little bread.

So I came back at night
with such a small package.

And then I hear her again,
and we were speaking.

I told her about my little sister.

I told her my mother wasn't
alive anymore. She didn't know.

Miep only told her that my-
That the baby died.

And my father was then
already in hospital.

He died 25 of February,
and this was before.

And I throw the package over...

...and then I heard her
crying or shouting.

And I couldn't understand.
"What happened?"

"The lady next to me caught the
package, and she run away with it. "

And she didn't give her anything.

I said, "I will try for another time. "
And really, I tried another time.

And this time she caught the package.

And it was the last time I saw her.

More than 50,000 of Bergen-Belsen's
inmates died in 1945...

...as disease and starvation
ravaged the camp.

Typhus, carried by lice, was
a particularly horrible killer.

It is terrible when you
are covered in lice.

Anne had thrown away her clothes...

...and she came to us crying...

...wrapped only in her gray blanket.

Lientje (my sister) lay sick...

...and I couldn't do anything...

...except give Anne
some clothes to wear...

...and give her some
delousing material.

And I promised to come
to her the next day...

...to come to both of them...

...because she said,
"You have to come.

Margot is so ill. "

At that time...

...Margot was already mortally sick.

I suppose she also had typhus.

I'm not sure.

But the next day,
I couldn't get away...

...and it took at least four
or five days...

...before I went to her...

...and then they were already dead.

Both dead.

And all of a sudden...

...I didn't see them anymore.

But you would not pay attention.

The place was empty.
We were sick.

And when I was ill,
to speak about myself...

...is why I couldn't pay more
attention than I did.

They're not there anymore.
They are dead.

That was that.
Outside in the entry guard...

...all of them were swept away.
Boom. They are outside.

I don't know whether I can
talk about it.

Meat was traded...

...bodies.

It's very difficult...

Leave it.

I can't say any more.

The bodies from our barracks...

...we almost couldn't lift
them anymore.

They were thrown onto a pile...

...between the barracks...

...and inscribed on my eyes...

...are these people...

...in every possible position...

...in every possible form...

...covered in snow...

...completely naked...

...because they would
always be undressed.

On a pile with wide open eyes.

We tried to close as many
eyes as possible.

It didn't always work.

Bergen-Belsen, as filmed
by British liberators:

A place where humanity had been
reduced to the worst indignities.

Cannibalism became
part of a desperate struggle...

...to quench the most
appalling hunger.

Only a few hundred yards away...

...the Germans kept supplies
of food and medicine...

...while their prisoners died
by the tens of thousands.

In November 1943, a year
and a half before her death...

...in the safety of her
Amsterdam hiding place...

...Anne Frank had a nightmare in which
Hanneli Goslar appeared before her.

Hanneli Goslar in
a concentration camp.

"I saw her there, dressed in rags...

...her face thin and worn.

She looked at me with such sadness
and reproach in her enormous eyes...

...that I could read
the message in them:

'Oh, Anne, why have you deserted me?

Help me, help me.
Rescue me from this hell. '

And I can't help her.
I can only stand by and watch...

...while other people suffer and die.

All I can do is pray to God
to bring her back to us.

If only I could help her.

Dear God, I have everything
I could wish for...

...while fate has her in
its deadly clutches.

Hanneli, Hanneli. If only
I could take you away.

If only I could share
everything I have with you.

It's too late, but I'll never
forget her again...

...and I'll always pray for her.
Yours, Anne. "

She didn't do so much wrong,
you know, if you are in this age.

But this is one of the reasons
that I tell the story now...

...because it is the other way around.

Yes, today I am standing here,
and she is dead.

And so I am quite obliged
to tell about her.

And she wanted to be so very famous.

I can't help a lot of this
but a little bit.

I think, "What a waste,
such a young life should end...

...and without any reason. "

She could really have given
something to the world.

The whole thing is crazy.

My father died there one week
after I saw her.

I don't know.
I cannot judge this whole period.

Nobody can understand it, I think.
I don't know.

Auschwitz had been liberated two and
a half months before Bergen-Belsen.

On a freezing January 27, 1945...

...a Ukrainian division of the Soviet
army, accompanied by a film crew...

...arrived at the site of the most
successful mass murder...

...in mankind's history.

The last SS guards had already fled...

...leaving behind only those
too young or infirm...

...to be led away on the
now-notorious death marches.

The gassings at Auschwitz had already
stopped the previous November.

The gas chambers dynamited.

But in a wild attempt
to cover their tracks...

...the SS dragged thousands
away with them in desperate flight...

...in the biting cold.

Those of the prisoners
who could not keep up...

...were shot at the side of the road
by their German escort.

Tens of thousands perished
"somewhere in Europe" of hunger...

...thirst or exhaustion,
or from an SS bullet.

Fritz Pfeffer had been amongst those
taken away before the Russians came...

...to die on December 20, 1944...

...in Neuengamme
concentration camp in Germany.

Anne's boyfriend from the days
in the annex, Peter van Pels...

...was marched out of Auschwitz
by the Germans on January 16...

...and taken to Mauthausen
death camp in Austria...

...where he died on May 5, 1945...

...just three days before
the Americans liberated that camp.

His mother, Auguste van Pels,
was sent on a crazy journey...

...across Germany and Czechoslovakia.

First to Bergen-Belsen,
then to Theresienstadt.

And in the last days of the Reich...

...to an unknown camp,
where she too died.

One of the millions of
anonymous bodies left...

...by Hitler's failed vision
of a thousand-year empire.

Otto Frank, weighing less
than 115 pounds...

...was amongst the lucky few that
the Russians found alive in Auschwitz.

When he was recovered, Otto wrote
to his mother in Switzerland...

...where she had lived
since before the war.

His letters then remained forgotten...

...in the attic of her home
in Basle for nearly 50 years...

...until they were discovered
by his nephew in May 1994.

"Auschwitz, 23 February 1945.

Dearest Mother: Hopefully these
lines will reach you...

...bringing you and all
my loved ones the news...

...that I have been liberated
by the Russians...

...that I am healthy
and in good spirits...

...and that I am being
well taken care of.

I do not know where Edith
and the children are.

We have been separated
since September 5, 1944.

I just hope to see them
back in good health.

I'm longing to see you all again and
hope that this will be possible soon.

All my love, greetings and kisses.

Your son, Otto. "

So it was that Otto Frank,
the only survivor...

...of the eight who had been
in hiding in Amsterdam...

...took the long journey back
to his Dutch adopted homeland.

By May, with the war
in Europe ended...

...his Russian liberators
had sent him...

...to the Black Sea port of Odessa.

There, he was placed on
a New Zealand merchant ship...

...bound for France.

"May 26, 1945.

The steamer Monowai.

Dearest Mother and all you loved ones:

Tomorrow we arrive in Marseilles,
and this letter can hopefully be mailed.

I imagine I will be able
to telegraph you...

...so that you will get the news
of my return in good health.

All my hope is the children.

I cling to the conviction
that they are alive...

...and that we will be together again.

Unfortunately, Edith did not survive.

She died on January 6, 1945...

...in the hospital, of starvation.

Her body could not withstand
attack of influenza.

The closer we get to home,
the more impatient we get...

...to hear news of our loved ones.

What happened in all these years!

We own nothing anymore.
We won't find a pin when we get back.

Bernd Elias
Otto Frank's nephew

The Germans stole everything.

No photograph, letter
or document will remain there.

Financially, we had no worries
during the last years.

I earned good money and saved.

Now all is gone.

But I don't worry about this.

We have gone through too much
to worry about things like that.

Only the children.
The children are what count.

I hope to get news from you
straightaway.

Maybe you already have news
of the girls.

I cannot write about everything
that I am thinking of.

I have to stay in Holland as...

...with the exception of a tattooed
number on my arm...

...I have no papers and therefore
must think of seeing you later.

The main thing is
that we have contact.

We hope to see each other soon.

With innermost greetings
and kisses and love, your Otto. "

My husband worked on the station...

Miep Gies

...registering all the people
who are coming down from...

...the concentration camps.

And he ask everyone:

"Have you seen Mr. Frank?
Have you heard about Mr. Frank?"

And one day, one evening,
he came home and he said:

"I have good news for you.
Otto Frank is coming home. "

And when he said this,
we lived downstairs.

Mr. Frank came...

...along the window.

I ran to the door.

At first what I ask was:

"Where's Edith?"

Otto Frank said to me,
"Edith never come...

...but I have hope for the children. "

And he came to us.

Because he had no house, no nothing...

...he lived seven years
in our house.

But the life go on.
We go every day...

...to the office.

But I do not give him
the diary of Anne Frank.

You may not know this...

...but when he was on the ship...

...from Odessa to Marseilles...

...Otto wrote a letter to his mother.

In that letter he said this:

"Kugler and Kleiman,
and especially Miep...

...her husband and Bep Voskuijl
cared for us for two years...

...with everything we needed...

...in spite of the dangers...

...and unprecedented sacrifices
they made.

One cannot describe it.

I will never be able to repay
what all these people have done. "

I never know about this. No.

That is the first time...

...I heard it. Thank you.

While Miep kept the diary secret from
Otto in case Anne should return...

...he was desperate to find
his daughters.

He advertised in newspapers
and visited the Dutch Red Cross...

...asking, always asking
for news of Anne and Margot.

At the end of July, he was told
that someone knew of their fate.

In August, he had
the tragic news confirmed.

He stood on the porch
and rang the bell...

...and remained standing
on the porch.

He said, "Are you Janny Brandes?"

And I said, "Yes. "

"Can I come in?"

Because he was
a very polite gentleman.

He came into the hallway...

...and remained standing there
and said:

"What happened to my daughters?

I am Otto. "

I could hardly speak...

...because it was very difficult...

...to tell someone...

...that his children were
not alive anymore.

I said, "They are no more. "

He turned deathly pale...

...and slumped down into a chair.

I just put my arm around him.

When the girls' death
had been confirmed...

...Miep gave up the secret
she kept hidden from Otto...

...since the day of the family's
capture more than a year before.

From her top drawer, she handed him...

...three books
and a sheaf of loose papers:

Anne's diary, which she herself
had never read.

I took the diary...

...out of my desk...

...and gave him it with the words:

"That is a testament for
your daughter Anne. "

Can you look?

Can you see how this man
looked at me?

Lost his wife.
Lost his two children.

He had the diary.

Otto transcribed sections of the diary
for his mother in Switzerland.

He also started
showing it to friends...

...seeking their views on what to do
with his daughter's unique legacy.

They all advised him
to have it published...

...but his efforts met with no success.

Then this article, written
by a friend of a friend...

...appeared in an Amsterdam
paper in April 1946...

...and finally, a publisher
stepped forward.

Het Achterhuis, "The Back House, "
appeared in June 1947.

Initially, it made little impact.
Then in the 1950s...

...German, French, English and
other translations began to appear.

In 1955, a stage adaptation opened on
Broadway to a rapturous reception.

The transformation of the 15-year-old
German-Jewish refugee...

...into an emblem of the Holocaust
gathered pace.

A 1959 feature film based on the play
added further to this process.

To some, she had become
little short of a saint.

But her diary, at the very least,
had become a publishing phenomenon.

In 1953, Otto had remarried
and moved to Switzerland.

In the absence of Anne, he became
the focus for his daughter's celebrity.

He, in turn, came to symbolize the
perfect father so many children crave.

Thousands wrote to him
from around the world...

...and he replied to each
individually.

If young people are writing to me
after reading the diary...

Otto Frank
interviewed in 1976

...I start to think:

"That is, for me, one of
the most precious. "

Though Otto developed relationships,
sometimes close ones...

...with many of the children
who wrote to him...

...he admitted he never understood
his own daughter in her lifetime.

Was she in fact the optimist and
cheerful person that he saw as a child?

She showed herself like that.

But in fact, I only learned
to know her really...

...through her diary.

Throughout these years, one persistent
problem refused to go away:

Citing differences between different
language versions of the diary...

...which were never
explained in the various editions...

...together with further fictional
scenes in the play and film...

...neo-Nazis around the world...

...wanting to throw doubt on
the very existence of the Holocaust...

...alleged that the diary was a hoax.

Painful and inconclusive
lawsuits followed...

...but it was only in 1980,
after Otto's death...

...that the authenticity of the diary
was finally tested scientifically.

The extensive report by the Netherlands
State Institute for War Documentation...

...took five years to complete
and was eventually published...

...with a study of all
the versions of Anne's diary.

It categorically stated that the diary
was genuine in every respect.

In 1960, one of Holland's most secret
places became one of its most public.

The Franks' annex
was opened as a museum...

...and is now visited by over
600,000 tourists a year.

Otto also created
charitable foundations...

...to perpetuate Anne's
message to the world.

Anne was not simply
to be commemorated...

...but her short life was to become
a more general force for good.

To fight against prejudice
and discrimination...

...and hatred against people
of different race and religion.

Since 1985, a touring exhibition...

...telling Anne's life story and its
relevance to current world affairs...

...has traveled from country to
country, from Moscow to Minneapolis...

...South America to South Africa.

It has also shown that the diary
has had some surprising readers...

...in surprising places.

During the many years my comrades
and I spent in prison...

Nelson Mandela
President of South Africa

Political Prisoner 1964-1990

...we derived inspiration
from the courage and tenacity...

...of those who challenge injustice...

...even under the most
difficult circumstances.

Some of us read Anne Frank's diary
on Robben Island...

...and derived much
encouragement from it.

It's very interesting...

...the letters of the German children.

They always ask me everything...

...because they wrote me:
"My father or grandfather...

...didn't tell me
anything about the war.

They say always, 'That is the past.
That is over. "'

But that is not true.

The past goes always with you...

...in your whole life,
and we can learn from the past.

In 1941, there was a wedding
at Merwedeplein in Amsterdam.

After filming the street...

...the cameraman pointed
at the onlookers above.

There at the window was Anne Frank.

This is the only known
moving footage of her.

When she stood at the window
that sunny day in June...

...it's not surprising that
the 12-year-old Anne Frank...

...was yet to find her life's purpose.

But less than three years later,
as she sat caged...

...in the fragile security
of her hiding place...

...she had discovered her destiny.

"Wednesday, April 5, 1944.

My dearest Kitty:

I don't want to have lived
in vain like most people.

I want to be useful or bring
enjoyment to people...

...even those I've never met.

I want to go on living,
even after my death.

And that's why I'm grateful to God
for having given me this gift...

...which I can use
to develop and to express...

...all that's inside me.
Yours, Anne M. Frank. "

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