My copy's front cover stated "A Fascinating attempt to unlock this mystery and a case study in how Holocaust trauma can ripple through the generations." - The Wall Street Journal.This is a book about a mystery that those familiar with the now classic book, The Diary of Anne Frank, has wondered about: Who revealed that that Anne Frank, her sister, her parents, family friends and son Peter, and another - a dentist she shared her little bedroom area with, were hiding in the annex? It is also a book about some things that were not quite a secret but the readership did not know - that there were others including the author Joop Van Wijk-Voskuijl's mother, Bep Voskuijl, who collaborated to hide these Jewish people. These were employees of Otto Frank. Bep chose not to be revealed when Anne's diary was edited. Central to the story is that quite possibly a family member was the person to testify to the authorities of their location, resulting in a raid, but also possible leniency for Bep, and that might've been her sister Nelly.
Nelly was not exactly a Nazi but was associated, something some young Dutch women did, which was have German soldiers as boyfriends. It was an ordeal to hide Jewish people and Bep was showing that wear. Such a person (called The Righteous Among Nations by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust database in Israel) could face arrest, deportation to camps, or being murdered on the spot. An individual helping hid Jews could also bring disaster to their family. It is not certain that this was the case as there were other possible candidates when it comes to who squealed. There is good reason why...
To pause a bit before I begin more of a book review here, I wish to let you know that The Diary of Anne Frank was required reading when I was in the fifth grade. I recall focusing on the budding romance between Anne and Peter, and that I simply could not understand why people would be so horrible to people. Anne was a hopeful person but there must have been some class discussion of a depressing nature. Torture and systematic murder, war and genocide, had not effected my young life and so there I was, ten years or so, and not quite understanding. I don't recall the diary so well, but I will say that The Last Secret of the Secret Annex, provided me information I had not come across before in all the years since, and I think that this is valuable information.
This book is also excellent in explaining the conditions that the people of the Netherlands experienced when the Nazi's came into power there, the deprivations, especially hunger and cold.
"Thousands of Jews were now hiding all across Holland. The Franks knew that there were bounties on their heads - initially 2.5 guilders for every Jew found, but the Nazi's kept raising the price as their hunt intensified until it reached 40 guiders." (page 38 of the paperback.)
First, I had not known that "The Annex" was a room within a pectin and spice factory that Otto Frank owned, called Opekta, and that he actually owned the whole building, which he had purchased in 1940. The Franks were well off. I imagined it as an attic in a house somewhere and not owned by the Franks. In fact the annex was planned, refurbished to some extent, and furnished and supplied in advance of the need to flee. Later the bookcase hiding the entrance stairway was built and installed by another employee who had to know. And as such, Bep, and eventually at least yet another employee there, the warehouse manager, actually knew that the Franks were there. However, also new to me, is that the kind of silence I imagined - the family sitting still all day until nightfall and being active at night, isn't correct. Apparently sounds they made were heard during the day. Therefor it might have been that all the employees knew or suspected.
"From the moment the Annex was occupied, the helpers fretted over its security. Sounds rattled through the walls and pipes of the old canal-side building. The rule inside the Annex was that the inhabitants had to whisper during the workday, and they had to wear slippers instead of shoes to muffle the sound of their footsteps. yet despite such measures, arguments and even loud shouting would sometimes break out and echo loudly."... (page 53)
Their benefactors were sneaky, of course, but I was surprised to learn that Bep spent hours socializing with the Franks in the annex.
I imagined food being scrounged up for those hiding, barely this and that, but apparently requests were made that their benefactors go shopping for things they needed or wanted.
I think of the Franks and the others as far more vulnerable to being found out than I had before.
Besides Nelly, it was suspected that a new warehouse manager named Willem van Maarent may have been there person who told the Nazi's where to find the Jews. He was known to go snooping around the office and suspected someone was coming into the warehouse after dark and even suspected the bookcase hid a door.
Perhaps more personal to Bep was that she was both in love with a much older colleague at the factory and probably had an affair with him while also seemingly destined to marry a nice younger man who wasn't as interesting to her during those years she was relied upon. Implied is that, seeing that Bep was under severe stress, one of these men might have thought they were saving her by ending her need to hide the Jews in the annex. Anne wrote about the young man that Bep told her about in her diary.
Last but not least, I learned that Anne was quite ambitious about being a writer, especially for a thirteen year old! She asked Bep to help her get published, as she wrote autobiographical stories as well as fantasy fiction!
If you're interested in the Holocaust - World War II era, European history, and that of the Jewish people, you'll find this book will add to your understanding, for the focus has not so much been on the Netherlands.
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