Last 7 Months Of Anne Frank Essay

, Research Paper

The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank

Anne Frank has become the best know symbol for those Jews murdered during the Second World War. She wrote her diary while hiding in the attic from 1942 to 1944. The final chapters of Anne s life, the unwritten chapters of her diary include the arrest, deportation, and annihilation of herself along with six million Jewish victims of whom more than half were woman and children. Anne, her sister Margot, and their mother Edith met their deaths in the concentration camps. Anne s father, Otto Frank, was the only one to survive the camps.

On Tuesday, August 1,1994, Anne wrote the last letter to her diary (4). Three days later on August 4 the German Security Service, SD, raided the Annex at No. 263 Prinsengracht. Anne along with the eight others in hiding there were arrested. This is the point were Anne s own writing stops.

“The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank” traces her story through the testimony of six Jewish women who survived the hell from which Anne never returned. Hannah Elisabeth Pick-Goslar, Lies Goosens , tells her story first. Hannah speaks of how she got to know the Franks and the torture she along with the others endured.

When they moved to Amsterdam she along with her maid went to the store and this is the point where Hannah s maid began to talk to Anne s maid. The next day the two families met. Every Friday the Frank family would go and celebrate Passover with Hannah s family. Anne and Hannah became close friends and even went to school together, along with frequent visits to each other s houses. This was until the day when her mother needed a scale so she could make jam so she sent Hannah over to the Frank s house to get the scale but there was noone there. This was because Margot received a summons to report for work in the East (3). This was the time the Frank family went into hiding but Mr. Goudsmit, a tenant, told Hannah that the whole family went to Switzerland. This was to make everyone think that the Franks fled and they hoped noone would come look for them.

Hannah s family decided not to go into hiding due to her little sister and the fact her mother was about to have another baby. There was no way that they would have been able to keep quiet so therefore they chose not to hide. On June 20, 1943 the German took them to Westerbork (21). There Hannah along with her sister were put in an orphanage where there was no more to eat. There, Hannah work cleaning the toilets. Other work that they were known to perform included working on batteries along with whatever else the Germans told them to do.

On February 15,1944 they were then again deported to Bergen-Belsen (24). Here is where she spoke to Anne for the last time. Someone had told her that Anne was in the barracks on the other side of the barbed-wire fence. One night she risked going there and spoke to Anne. Hannah tells of how Anne immediately began to cry, telling of how she didn t have any more parents. She thought that her father was gassed right away. After her meeting with Anne here, she never spoke to her again for she was transferred to another section in Bergen-Belsen.

On February 25, 1945, Hannah s father died and at the end of March her grandmother died (29). She became very sick at this point but that did not change the fact that they were once again being transferred but this never completely happened. Germany was in the last phase of the war and because there was gunfire on both sides of the train they had to stop and go lie in the fields. This went on for about ten days until on e morning when they woke up and saw the Germans with white flags in their hands. The Russians had come and Hannah along with the others were allowed to go free. They traveled to two villages in the Area and were able to live in the house there. Here is where Hannah met up with Mr. Frank and she could not wait to tell him that his daughters were alive. She was so happy but Mr. Frank was reluctant to tell her the facts, Anne and Margot did not survive.

Mr. Frank helped Hannah get started with her life after the war. Hannah and Mr. Frank still keep in touch. She believes he moved on with his life and was not a broken man later (34).

The other five testimonies from Janny Brandes-Brilleslijper, Rachel Van Amerongen-Frankfoorder, Bloeme Evers-Emden, Lenie De Jong-Van Naarden, and Ronnie Goldstein-Van Cleef, all go through the same process of how they captured by the Germans, taken to camps and the hell they were put through. This was the same as Hannah or in some cases worse. Each of these women also told how they each came to know Anne.

Janny first met Anne and her family at the train station while waiting to be deported to Westerbork Detention Camp and Rachel, Lenie and Ronnie met them while in Westerbork. Bloeme is the only one who new Anne before camp. They met in the Jewish Lyceum, the Jewish Preparatory School. Janny, Rachel and Bloeme had no real contact with Anne but Lenie and Ronnie were close friends of the family right from the beginning. Each of these people mention how the Frank family were always by each other s side and when Mr. Frank was taken away Mrs. Frank tried to keep the girls alive and protected. When the death of Anne came about everyone was surprised to hear it because she was such a fighter and they thought she would survive until the end but after Margot s dea