Amsterdam - Residents - Anne Frank, Etty Hillesum; Holocaust Memorials

Anne Frank House, Amsterdam

The Diary of Anne Frank.

Here, is Anne Frank's hidden place, behind walls and up attics from her father's business, where day to day work continued while everyone kept silent above during the day, fearing flushes. These posts began as travel-logs. Now, current events and comment move in.

An old tree, outside her window, at the top, is apparently going to be preserved, after an initial decision to cut it down because of disease.

Anne Frank was the young girl who kept a diary of the time she and her family and others hid from the Nazis in WWII. Her home is also a museum now -- perhaps too much spruced up, looks too modern from the outside (last visit was in 1961), and is more manicured and staged -- still, not to be missed. See an account of her letters at www.literarytraveler.com/articles/anne_frank_her_life.aspx.

The door to the warehouse-office is the one with the little sign to the right. See the Anne Frank Museum website at www.annefrank.org/content.asp?pid=2&lid=2.

Look up more information about the Franks.

There is a biography of Anne Frank also - by Melissa Muller, 1998 or so. The review in the New York Times, Tuesday, 11/29/90, says that the Franks nearly made it safely. Their train, to Auschwitz, was the last to leave the Netherlands. Anne and her sister died just a few weeks before the camp where they ended up, Bergen-Belsen was liberated.

Her father's efforts to save the family. 

 Recently, letters showing her father's efforts to get the family out of Holland and by any route to safety, including into the United States, have been in the news. See post-gazette.com/pg/07026/756900-44.

We turned the family away because of huge immigration waiting lists, policies restricting who could enter, anti-Semitism and other issues. See today's (2/15/07) Hartford Courant http courant.com/news/nationworld/hc-frank0215.artfeb15,0,1490308.story.

Here is a fair use quote from Richard Breitman, cited there. He is an American professor interested in intelligence issues, both German and American from the time. "The decision to try hard came too late. The Nazis made it hard to leave, and U.S. made it hard to seek refuge there, both by accident and by conscious policy."

Other young besieged diarists:

Rutka Laskier, Bedzin, Poland. See "Rutka's Notebook: A Voice From The Holocaust," 2008, see Poland Road Ways, Children of the Holocaust Diaries, Rutka Laskier.

At pages 86-89 of Rutka's Notebook are listed more -

• Dawid Sierakowiak, from Lodz, Poland;
  
• Mary Berg, from the Warsaw Ghetto;
  
• Miriam Chasczewacka, Radomsko, Poland;
  
• Julius Feldman, Krakow;
  
• Moshe Flinker, emigrated from Poland to the Netherlands, ultimately deported to Auschwitz;
  
• Tamara Lazerson, Kovno, Lithuania;
  
• Ruthka Lieblich, Andr;ychow, Silesia;
  
• Halina Nelkin, Krakow;
  
• Masha Rolnik, Vilna Ghetto (Vilnius), Lithuania;
  
• Isaac Rudashevski, Vilna Ghetto (Vilnius);
  
• David Rubinowicz, Krajno, Poland.

Zlata Filipovic - Bosnia Road Ways- the then-11 year old girl, Zlata Filipovic, in Sarajevo in 1991. There is a review of Zlata's work, comparing that to Anne Frank, at jvibe.com/popculture/zlata. Other young people have posted videos and posts from bombed areas in Lebanon since then, as well as from other countries. See searchforvideo.com/countries/lebanon/ and other countries. Or go to YouTube.

Etty Hillesum - Back in Amsterdam, Etty Hillesum is another Jewish person who wrote her diary, one less known that that of Anne Frank, and in a different age group altogether. She was a young woman in her late 20's, living and working in Amsterdam, and writing before and even while at Auschwitz, where she died. Very different life issues.

Try the diary of this 27-year old young woman, for an adult perspective and series of thoughts, on relationships, circumstances, in Etty - A Diary 1941-43 by Etty Hillesum,  She was born in 1914, and died in Auschwitz in 1943. Triad/Panther paperbacks 1985 (my copy).

She lived in Amsterdam.
Petr Ginz, Prague, the Czech Republic, see Czech Republic Road Ways, Prague at War (see excerpt from Diary of Petr Ginz about the assassination by the Polish Resistance of Nazi leader, Reynhard Heidrich). See also Places of Petr Ginz.

Here are some of her words: www.creativequotations.com/one/291.htm.

The Holocaust is also well remembered at an open-air theater, the Hollandse Schouwberg where Jews were collected and catalogued and then could go home before being "called up" to report. See www2.holland.com/us/discover/amsterdam/highlights/jewishheritage/quarter.jsp. There are names, pictures, accounts.

For the history of the Jews in the Netherlands, see www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/netherlands.