Yesterday, January 6th, was the 76th anniversary of the death of Edith Frank-Holländer, Anne Frank’s mother. Because Edith was a huge part of my dissertation, I feel as though it’s only right to do a thread on her. Excuse any typos, this is done on a phone. 1//

Edith Frank-Holländer was born Edith Holländer on January 16, 1900 in the Germany city of Aachen. As her name suggests, her family did have Dutch heritage, but they moved to Germany during the 18th century.

Edith was the youngest of 4 children; she had two older brothers and 2//

an older sister. Her sister Bettina died of appendicitis when Edith was 14. Despite this, Edith did well in school, sports and had an active social life.

The Holländer family was religious and kept kosher, but Edith and her sister attended a Protestant school for their 3//

education. Like most women of her time, Edith did not attend university.

As Edith had an active social life, she met Otto Frank briefly at the engagement party for a mutual friend, Hortense Rah Schott. But it wouldn’t be until they met again during a vacation to Italy that 4//

They realized their attraction to one another. They married on May 12, 1925. Edith was 25, and Otto, 36. Below is a photo of the wedding. 5//

The couple welcomed Margot in 1926, followed by Anneliese, better known as Anne, in 1926. Here is Edith with Anne. 6//

Edith and Otto Frank decided to emigrate to Amsterdam shortly after Hitler took power, where there would be an established community of middle class German-Jewish refugees. The family’s apartment was located on Merwedeplein in Amsterdam, an area full of German Jewish refugees 7//

Here is a photo of Edith, Margot and Anne in Amsterdam 8//

Despite being surrounded by other German, Edith had trouble assimilating to the Dutch culture. She and Otto could see the tension rising in Europe and flirted with the idea of moving to the UK.

In 1938, Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass occurred in Germany. 9//

You can read more about that here ( https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kristallnacht). One of Edith’s brothers was arrested and imprisoned in a concentration camp, but later released.

Fearing for their future, her brothers both emigrated to the United States. 10//

Edith’s mother moved in with the Frank family following Kristallnacht, and she was close with the Frank girls. She passed away of cancer in 1942.

After Germany invaded Holland in 1940, the Frank family desperately attempted to emigrate, both to South America and to join 11//

her brothers in the US.

In 1942, Margot Frank received a letter telling her to report to a German “labor camp.” Fearing the worst, the family hid in a small apartment behind Otto Frank’s business, Opteka, the next day. Edith and Otto told the girls that Otto had received 13//

the letter so as not to scare them further.

Anne and Edith had a loving relationship, though it is fair to say she was closer to Margot and Otto was closer to Anne. But like most teenagers and their mothers, the pair clashed often, as was documented in Anne’s famous diary 14//

While it is always thought that Otto removed passages that were too sexual in nature, that wasn’t always the case. Many pages were edited or redacted if he felt they were disrespectful to the dead, and Anne’s observations of her mother were edited. Otto thought that his 15//

wife’s memory should be respected. He was also uncomfortable with passages that analyzed his marriage negatively.

All 8 members of The Secret Annex, as Anne would dub their hiding place, were sent to Westerbork, a transit camp in Holland. Marked as “criminals” for failing 16//

respond to deportation notices, they were in a separate section of the camp. Their “criminal” status, no doubt, played a part in being placed on the last transport to Auschwitz from Westerbork on September 3, 1944.

Upon arrival, the men and women were separated and 17//

initially, Anne, Margot and Auguste van Pels (aka Petronella van Daan in Anne’s diary) and stayed together. The women were forced to move rocks and dig rolls of sod. It was strenuous, back breaking work, particularly without adequate nutrition. 18//

Anne’s skin became infected and she developed scabies. As a result, she was sent to the “infirmary,” which was really simply a place for the dead and dying. Eva Mozes Kor, an Auschwitz survivor, later stated that it reminded her of Psalm 23, the valley of the shadow of death 19//

Edith began to drastically cut down on her own rations and passed them to her daughters through a hole they had dug at the bottom of the barrack.

At the end of October, the SS likely conducted a selection of the hospital barrack, killing those who were too weak 20//

to work. Anne and Margot were sent to Bergen-Belsen at the end of October, and Edith was left behind. During a selection, Edith was selected for the gas chambers, but she and another woman managed to escape to another area of the camp. Convinced she would see her daughters 21//

again, she continued to save her food for them, refusing to eat most of her rations. As a result, she perished of starvation on January 6, 1945. She was 44. The Russians would liberate the camp on January 27. 22//

In a letter to his cousin, Otto would write about the portrayal of Anne and Edith’s relationship in Anne‘s diary. He wrote, “It does not grieve me what she writes (about her mother) and I know quite well that there are several things she did not see and she would have changed 23/

her ideas. In fact she was on very good terms with her mother at the camp [Westerbork] later.”

May Edith’s memory be a blessing. 24/End

Excuse typos please. This was done on my phone.