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Into the Annex: The Day the Franks Chose to Disappear
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
When a Nazi labor summons arrived for sixteen-year-old Margot Frank, her family had twenty-four hours to vanish — and Otto Frank had been secretly preparing for exactly this moment. This is the story of the day the Frank family walked into hiding and did not come out again.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
On the morning of July fifth, nineteen forty-two, a letter arrived at the Frank family apartment on Merwedeplein in Amsterdam. It was addressed to Margot.
To understand why that letter landed with the weight it did, you have to go back a couple of years. Germany invaded the Netherlands in May nineteen forty.
On June twelfth, nineteen forty-two, Anne Frank's parents gave her a red-checkered diary for her birthday. She'd spotted it herself in a shop window and wanted it.
The call-up notice for Margot changed the timeline. Not in weeks.
The hiding place was more substantial than people sometimes imagine. It wasn't a single room.
Inside the Annex, Anne wrote. She wrote about the tensions between the eight people sharing cramped space.
On August fourth, nineteen forty-four, the Secret Annex was discovered. A car arrived at two-sixty-three Prinsengracht.
The Frank family was taken to Westerbork transit camp in the northeast of the Netherlands. In early September, they were loaded onto a train.
The decision to hide was made in a day. A letter arrived.
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