Anne Frank by Francine Prose Read Free Book Online Page A

months before Germany invaded Holland, the Opekta company had relocated to a new home, at 263 Prinsengracht, where, Otto told his employees, there would be room for the company to grow. The business was doing well, especially after Hermann van Pels—a friend of Otto’s who had run a meat-seasoning company before he too left Germany for Holland—was brought in to oversee the subbranch, Pectacon, trading in spices used in sausage making and pickling. This enabled Opekta, whose jam-making products were in demand only in the summer and autumn, to turn a profit year-round. Otto Frank and Hermann van Pels worked together, lived near each other, and as the Nazis’ plans for the Jews emerged, made plans to go into hiding, with their families, in the annex behind the office. Van Pels introduced Miep Gies to a friendly butcher who would later provide meat for the hidden Jews.
    In January 1942, fifteen senior Nazi officials, including Adolf Eichmann and Reynhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Security Office, met in the Berlin lakeshore suburb of Wannsee to draft “the final solution to the Jewish question.” Over half a million German and Austrian Jews had already emigrated since 1933, and, at the Wannsee Conference, Heydrich offered this ingenious and ambitious plan for disposing of those who remained in Europe:

    Under proper guidance, in the course of the final solution the Jews are to be allocated for appropriate labor in the East. Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in the course of which action doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes. The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly, because it is the product of natural selection and would, if released, act as the seed of a new Jewish revival.
    The Wannsee meeting was challenging but productive, and afterward, Eichmann, who would be responsible for implementing the new protocols, described his colleagues enjoying a much-deserved opportunity to relax. “At the end, Heydrich was smoking and drinking brandy in a corner near a stove. We all sat together like comrades…not to talk shop, but to rest after long hours of work.” During this leisurely chat, Eichmann and Heydrich hashed out the details of how “the final solution” would be put into practice.
    As early as 1938, Otto had applied in Rotterdam for a visa that would allow his family to emigrate to the United States. But by the next year, 300,000 applicants were on the waiting list for visas. According to the letters discovered at YIVO in 2007, Otto began writing, in April 1941, to his college friend Nathan Straus, the Macy’s department store heir who was then serving as head of the U.S. Housing Authority, a New Deal agency.
    Dignified and polite, remarkably restrained in view of the increasing desperation of his situation, Otto asked for the financial and political help that would allow the Franks to leave Holland. He apologized for imposing and assured his former schoolmate that he would not be bothering him if not for the sake of his children. Written between April and December 1941, these letters failed despite the support of Edith’s two brothers, who lived in Massachusetts and were willing to sponsor the family and underwrite their passage.
    In the end, U.S. immigration policy proved too inflexible to bend even under pressure from Straus. When Otto explored the possibility of emigrating to Cuba, he was granted a visa on December 1, 1941. But the visa was canceled when, a few days later, the United States declared war on the Axis powers. In January 1942, Otto again applied for permission to leave Holland. But by then, such applications could only be submitted to theJewish Council, which was unable to arrange for emigration to anywhere except Westerbork—and Poland.
    On June 20, 1942—the date Anne put on the entry in which she