Posted on 12/29/2005 9:52:55 PM PST by doug from upland
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The NEW YORK TIMES has learned exclusively of an amazing story about a Jewish family that has been hiding from the Nazis in an annex of rooms above a business in Amsterdam.
Otto Frank, a German businessman, became fearful for his family when Adolph Hitler came to power in 1933. In the summer of 1933, Frank left Frankfurt for Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, to set up a business called the Dutch Opekta Company. Less than a year later, he was joined by his wife Edith and their daughters, Margot and Anne.
By the mid-1930s, the Franks had settled into a normal routine. They developed a circle of friends who were both Jewish and non-Jewish, the girls attended school, and they took family vacations. Otto expanded his business in 1938, going into partnership with a merchant, Hermann van Pels, who was also a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany.
The belief that Amsterdam was a safe haven from the Nazis was shattered when the Germans invaded the Netherlands in May of 1940. For a short time, Anne and Margot continued to attend school and socialize with their friends. In May 1942, all Jews aged six and older were required to wear a yellow Star of David on their clothes to set them apart from non-Jews. After summer recess in 1941, the girls were no longer allowed to attend schools with non-Jews.
Under the Nazi administration, Jews were required to register their businesses, and later they were forced to surrender them to non-Jews. Otto Frank had anticipated the decree and had already turned his business over to non-Jewish colleagues Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman.
By 1942, Jews were being arrested and forced into German labor camps. The Frank family was fearful for their lives and planned to go into hiding. They had already chosen the place -- an annex of rooms above Otto Frank's office at 263 Prinsengracht in Amsterdam. People on the office staff had agreed to help them.
Margo received a call-up notice on July 5, 1942. That meant that she would soon be deported to a Nazi work camp, so the family knew they had to go into hiding immediately. They left notes indicating that they had left the country.
The family entered the hiding place on July 6. On July 13, the van Pels family joins the Franks. Then on November 16, 1942, the seven residents of the Secret Annex were joined by an eighth and final resident, Fritz Pfeffer.
The group has been extremely careful not to be seen or heard, knowing that the Nazis would arrest them if they are discovered. They have been hiding for two years. Anne has been keeping a diary of the family's struggle to stay together and not be taken by the Nazis.
We at the TIMES hope that the Franks, the van Pels, and Pfeffer are not discovered in their hiding place at 263 Prinsengracht in Amsterdam. It must be a terrifying existence. After the war, perhaps we can turn Anne's diary into a book. It certainly is a wonderful human interest story of a teenage girl.
We expect to have further reports from the Amsterdam hiding place over the next several months and to bring you an exclusive interview with the courageous young Anne Frank.
Count on the NEW YORK TIMES for all your war coverage. If it's news, we will have it first.
Doh. The author is Jonathon Risen.
Wow...that was your best one yet. Good job!
Thanks. I am actually learning quite a lot doing the research.
At approximately 10 am, August 4, 1944, the Frank family's greatest fear comes true. A Nazi policeman and several Dutch collaborators appear at 263 Prinsengracht, having received an anonymous phone call informing them that Jews are hiding there. The police head straight for the bookcase that leads to the Secret Annex.
Karl Joseph Silberbauer, an Austrian Nazi, forces the residents to turn over all their valuables. When he finds out that Otto Frank had been a lieutenant in the German Army during World War I, he is a little less hostile. The residents are taken from the house, forced into a covered truck, taken to the Central Office for Jewish Emigration, and then sent to Weteringschans Prison. Miep Gies gathers and saves Anne's scattered diary pages.
Two of the helpers, Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman, are imprisoned for their role in hiding the family. Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl are not arrested, although Miep is brought in for questioning by the police.
Pinging the list. I guess I'll keep writing these. Anyone else who wants on the list, let me know.
Awesome work. Please add me to the list.
Ping
bttt
The NY Slime and their allies in the ACLU will croak all day about freedom of the press and their right to publish government secrets! Frank Family lost? Too bad.
They wouldn't have done it in 1944, but who knows what the SLIMES will do today.
Crikey. Good effort, Mate! Because that is almost *exactly* like the NYT, both in writing style and the sort of sordid detail they would go into. They might just go for some more "man-in-the-street" filler than you have done, but you were being succint, in the finest tradition of good journalism.
You have a gift with workds.
Thanks for the ping, I look forward to your next installment.
New York Times motto: "All the Liberal Propaganda, That's Unfit to Print."
You're on the ping list.
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