Margot Frank

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Margot Betti Frank
Margot's school photograph from December 1941.
Born	(1926-02-16)16 February 1926 Frankfurt, Germany
Died	c. February 1945 (aged 18 or 19) Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Nazi Germany
Cause of death	Typhus
Nationality	German Dutch
Education	Ludwig Richter Schule Lyceum voor Meisjes Jewish Lyceum Municipal Grammar School Municipal Lyceum
Known for	Older Sister of Anne Frank
Parent(s)	Otto Frank Edith Holländer
Relatives	Anne Frank (sister) Buddy Elias (cousin)

Margot Betti Frank (February 16, 1926 – c. February 1945)^[1] was the elder daughter of Otto Frank and Edith Frank and the elder sister of Anne Frank. Margot's deportation order from the Gestapo hastened the Frank family into hiding. According to the diary of her younger sister, Anne, Margot kept a diary of her own, but no trace of Margot's diary has ever been found. She died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.^[2]

Jeker School in Amsterdam - The primary school of Margot Frank

Early life and education[]

Margot Betti Frank, named after her maternal aunt Bettina Holländer (1898–1914), was born in Frankfurt, Germany, to Jewish parents, Otto and Edith, and lived in the outer suburbs of the city with her parents, Otto Frank and Edith Frank-Holländer, and also her younger sister Anne Frank, during the early years of her life. ^[3] Edith and Otto were devoted parents, who were interested in scholarly pursuits and had an extensive library; both parents encouraged the children to read. At the time her sister Anne was born, the family lived in a house at Marbachweg 307 in Frankfurt-Dornbusch, where they rented two floors. Margot and Anne played almost every day in the garden with the children in the neighborhood. They all had different backgrounds; Catholic, Protestant or Jewish. They shared a curiosity about each other's religious holidays. Margot was invited to the communion celebration of one of her friends, and the neighbors' children were sometimes invited to the Frank's celebration of Hanukkah. ^[4] In 1931 the family moved to Ganghoferstrasse 24 in a fashionable liberal area of Dornbusch called the Dichterviertel (Poets' Quarter). Both houses still exist.^[5]

In the summer of 1932, the Nazis' paramilitary wing – Sturmabteilung (SA) – marched through the streets of Frankfurt am Main wearing swastika armbands. These Brownshirts, as they were called because of the color of their uniforms, loudly sang: “When Jewish blood spurts from the knife, things will go well again”. Upon hearing this, Anne's parents Edith and Otto discussed their concerns with each other. It was impossible for them to leave their homeland immediately because making a living abroad was of course an issue.^[6]

Margot attended the Ludwig-Richter School in Frankfurt until the appointment of Adolf Hitler on January 30, 1933, to the position of chancellor in Germany brought an increase of anti-Jewish measures, among which was the expulsion of Jewish schoolchildren from non-denominational schools. In response to the rising tide of anti-semitism, the family decided to follow the 63,000 other Jews who had left Germany that year and immigrate to Amsterdam in the Netherlands.^[7] Edith Frank and her daughters moved in with her mother in Aachen in the summer of 1933, while Otto Frank started his company Opekta in Amsterdam. Edith travelled back and forth between Aachen and Amsterdam in order to find accommodation in the Dutch capital. Margot moved to Amsterdam in December 1933, followed by Anne in February 1934.^[6] Margot was enrolled in an elementary school on Amsterdam's Jekerstraat, close to their new address on Merwedeplein, in the southern part of Amsterdam.^[6] Despite initial problems with the Dutch language, Margot went on to become a star pupil. She achieved excellent academic results.

German occupation[]

It was a shock when German armies invaded the Netherlands on May 10, 1940. Although the first anti-Jewish measures soon took effect, Margot and her sister were not immediately affected. But that changed in 1941,when they were no longer allowed to go to the cinema and were excluded from their sports clubs. One of the most drastic measures was that Margot and otherJewish children were no longer allowed to attend the school of their choice. After the summer of 1941, Margot and her sister had to attend a Jewish school with only Jewish students and teachers.^[8]

At the Jewish Lyceum Margot displayed the studiousness and intelligence which had made her noteworthy at her previous schools and was remembered by former pupils as virtuous, reserved, and very obedient. Margot had a large circle of friends and enjoyed rowing and playing tennis in her spare time. In her diary, Anne recounted instances of their mother suggesting she emulate Margot, and although she wrote of admiring her sister in some respects for being handsome and clever, Anne sought to define her own individuality without role models. Margot is also shown to have a much better relationship with their mother, and had a much more modest and tolerant nature as opposed to Anne, who was determined and often spoke her mind.^[9]

Although her sister Anne also took Hebrew classes at a later point, Anne was, like her father, not as much interested in the Jewish tradition as Margot. Margot followed the example of her mother, who became involved in Amsterdam's Liberal Jewish community. She took Hebrew classes, attended synagogue, and in 1941 joined a Dutch Zionist club for young people who wanted to immigrate to Palestine to found a Jewish state, where, as Anne Frank described in her diary, she wished to become a midwife.^[10]

In the summer of 1942 the systematic deportation of Jews from the Netherlands started. On July 5, 1942, Margot received a notice to report to a labor camp in Germany and the next day went into hiding with her family in the secret annex of her fathers company on Prinsengracht, in the city center of Amsterdam. They were later joined by four other Jewish refugees (Hermann, Auguste and Peter van Pels and Fritz Pfeffer) and remained hidden for two years until they were betrayed on August 4, 1944.^{[11] [12]}

Life in hiding[]

Stolperstein for Margot Frank at the Pastorplatz in Aachen, Germany

Margot was sixteen years old when she went into hiding. At first she shared a bedroom with Anne, but when Fritz Pfeffer moved in to the Secret Annex in November 1942, Margot slept in her parents’ bedroom. ^[13]Margot Frank and her family were only able to go into hiding because four office workers from her fathers company were willing to take care of them at the risk of their own lives. The helpers were Miep Gies, Bep Voskuijl, Johannes Kleiman and Victor Kugler. There were strict rules because the employees in the warehouse, visitors to the company and neighbours could not notice the eight people in hiding in the Secret Annex. Margot and the other people in hiding had to be completely silent during working hours and were not able to use any water.^[14] During the day Margot read a lot and like Anne and Peter she spent a lot of time studying. Margot also took a correspondence course in Latin, not under her own name, but under the name of Bep Voskuijl, one of the helpers.^[15]

Arrest and death[]

Along with the other occupants of the hiding place, Margot Frank was arrested by the Gestapo on 4 August 1944, and detained in their headquarters overnight before being taken to a cell in a nearby prison for three days. From here they were taken by train, on 8 August, to the Dutch Westerbork concentration camp. As the Frank family had failed to respond to Margot's call-up notice in 1942 and had been discovered in hiding, they (along with Fritz Pfeffer and the Van Pels family) were declared criminals by the camp's officials and detained in its punishment block to be sentenced to hard labor in the battery dismantling plant. They remained there until they were selected for Westerbork's last deportation to Auschwitz on September 3, 1944.^[16] Bloeme Evers-Emden, an Amsterdam native who had known Margot and Anne from the Jewish Lyceum, recalled that Margot and Edith were selected for a transport to the Libeau labor camp in Upper Silesia, while Anne was prohibited from joining because she had developed scabies; Margot and Edith decided to stay with Anne, and Bloeme went on without them.^[17] While Edith was left behind, Margot and Anne were transferred to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on October 30, where both contracted typhus in the winter of 1944.^[18]

Margot Frank died in February or March 1945 at the age of 18 or 19 due to typhus. A few days later, Anne died due to the same illness.^[19] Janny Brandes-Brilleslijper and her sister Lientje buried them together in one of the camp's mass graves; in Juli 1945, once she came back to the Netherlands and recovered from typhus, Janny wrote to Otto Frank and informed him that both of his daughters had died.^[20][21]

Otto Frank was the only one to survive out of the eight people who went into hiding. When he returned to Amsterdam in June 1945 he was given Anne's diary by Miep Gies, which he published in 1947 as a remembrance to her. Along with Anne, Margot Frank also wrote a diary during their time in hiding (Anne mentioned her sister's diary in her own) but Margot's diary was never found.^[22] However, many authors wrote fan-based diaries of Margot such as the novel The Silent Sister by Mazal Alouf-Mizrahi. Letters written by both Frank sisters to American pen pals were published in 2003.^[23] Buddy Elias (1925–2015) was Anne's first cousin and last surviving close relative.^[24]

References[]

Further reading[]

• Anne Frank. The Diary of Anne Frank: The Revised Critical Edition, edited by David Barnouw and Gerrold Van der Stroom, translated by Arnold J. Pomerans, compiled by H. J. J. Hardy, second edition, Doubleday, 2001.
• Willy Lindwer. The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank, Pan Macmillan, 1989.
• Jeroen De Bruyn and Joop van Wijk. Anne Frank: The Untold Story. The hidden truth about Elli Vossen, the youngest helper of the Secret Annex, Bep Voskuijl Producties, 2018.
• Rubin, Susan Goldman. Searching for Anne Frank: Letters from Amsterdam to Iowa, Abrams, 2003.
• Miep Gies and Alison Leslie Gold. Anne Frank Remembered, Simon and Schuster, 1988.

External links[]

• Portrait of Margot Frank told by her school friends (English Captions)
• Tour at the Frank family's residential neighborhood in Amsterdam
• Information Margot Frank, website Anne Frank Foundation Basel