What caused Anne Frank's death just several weeks
before the end of the war?
55. What caused Anne Frank's death just several weeks before the
end of the war?
The IHR says (original):
Typhus.
The IHR says (revised):
After surviving internment in Auschwitz, she succumbed to typhus in
the Bergen-Belsen camp, just a few weeks before the end of the war. She
was not gassed.
Nizkor replies:
Anne was just one of eight Dutch Jews who had been in hiding for two
years and thirty days when they were discovered and arrested by the
Nazis and deported from Amsterdam to the death camps in Poland.
Herman Van Pels, a business associate of Anne's father, was gassed
upon the group's arrival at
Auschwitz-Birkenau,
September 6, 1944
(Netherlands Red Cross, dossier 103586). His wife died "between
April 9 and May 8, 1945, in Germany or in Czechoslovakia,"
(Netherlands Red Cross, dossier 103586). Their son Peter died on May 5,
1945, in
Mauthausen
concentration camp in Austria, after a forced march
from Auschwitz (Netherlands Red Cross, dossier 135177).
Dr. Friedrich Pfeffer, a friend of the family, died December 20,
1944, at
Neuengamme
concentration camp (Netherlands Red Cross, dossier
7500). Anne's mother died January 6, 1945, at Auschwitz-Birkenau
(Netherlands Red Cross, dossier 117265). Anne and her elder sister
Margot died of typhus sometime around March 31, 1945, at
Bergen-Belsen
concentration camp (Netherlands Red Cross, dossiers 117266 and 117267).
Of the eight, only one, Anne's father, Otto Frank, survived.
Two non-Jews, Johannes Kleiman and Victor Gustav Kugler, business
associates of Otto Frank, were arrested as well, for aiding the Frank
family. Both were sentenced to Arbeitseinsatz (labor service) in
Germany, and both survived the war.
All references to the Netherlands Red Cross were cited in Frank,
Anne, The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition, 1989, pp.
49-58
(full citation
available).
Recommended Reading:
The
Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition by Anne Frank,
Otto H. Frank (Editor), Mirjam Pressler (Editor), s Massotty, Otto M.
Frank (Paperback)
The
Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition by Anne Frank,
Otto H. Frank (Editor), Mirjam Pressler (Editor), s Massotty, Otto M.
Frank (Hardcover)
The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition by Anne
Frank, Otto H. Frank (Editor), Mirjam Pressler (Editor), s Massotty,
Otto M. Frank (Audio cassette)
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