Carol Ann Lee - Roses from the Earth: The Biography of Anne Frank

PENGUIN BOOKS

ROSES FROM THE EARTH

Carol Ann Lee was born in Yorkshire in 1969 and is a world authority on Anne Frank. She now lives in Amsterdam.

Carol Ann Lee

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL , England
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India
Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL , England

www.penguin.com

First published by Viking 1999
Published in Penguin Books 2000

Copyright Carol Ann Lee, 1999
All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN: 978-0-14-192604-9

A person is worth more than a book Miep Gies

Part One
We Were Still Part of Ordinary, Everyday Life 192940

Part Two
When the Sufferings of Us Jews Really Began 194042

Part Three
A Deadly Sultry Silence Hangs Everywhere 19424

Part Four
Who Has Inflicted This Upon Us? 19445

Part Five
I Dont Want to Have Lived for Nothing 1945

My interest in Anne Frank began at a very early age. I discovered a re-telling of her story when I was about six or seven years old, and read the diary when I was eight. The question I have been asked most frequently by people over the years, and particularly during the course of writing this book, is: what drew you so strongly to Anne Frank? I dont think I knew myself until someone asked me another question: having written the book, has anything you discovered led you to change your opinion of Anne Frank and the person you perceived her to be? I answered instinctively, No, not at all. I liked her very much at the beginning; I like her still. It really is that simple.

There is no doubt, however, that since I first read the diary, my interest has grown into a fixation which has its culmination in this book. Without the aid of many people, writing it would have been a far more difficult task. The list is too long to be indulged here, but it includes all those who were kind enough to share their time and memories with me. Among them are Eddy Fraifeld, Jetteke Frijda, Dr Trude K. Hollander, Bernard Kops, Herbert Levy, Jacqueline van Maarsen, Edmond Silverberg, Eva Schloss, Alice Schulmann, Lotte Thyes, and Betty C. Wallerstein. To Hanneli Pick-Goslar, with whom I corresponded, but was unable to meet due to circumstance, Id also like to offer my thanks. I apologize to those whose testimonies I have not been able to include.

I received inestimable help from a number of archivists, librarians and individuals, particularly: Horst Hoffman of the Frank-Loebsches House in Landau, Dr Appel of the Landau town archives, Joan Adler, Wolf von Wolzogen of the Frankfurt Historical Museum, the staff of the exhibition Anne Aus Frankfurt, Gillian Walnes and Barry van Driel of the Anne Frank Educational Trust, Jan Erik Dubbelman of the Anne Frank Stichting, Fama Mor of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, the Shoah Foundation and Michael Engel, the staff of the Wiener Library in London, David Barnouw and Manon Wilbrink of the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation, the staff of Yad Vashem in Israel, Aaron T. Kornblum of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the staff of the Belsen and Westerbork museums and remembrance centres.

For source material and advice on research I would like to single out Jon Blair, Gerrold van der Stroom, Dick Plotz and John Francken. I must also thank Christoph Knoch for his assistance with the photographs.

I am grateful to Rosalba Venturi, Liz Kim and Anthony Tisbury of K. International for translations from Dutch into English, and to David Nuth for translations from German into English.

There are a handful of people whose patience I have tried more than most. In England, my agent, Jane Judd, and my editor at Penguin, Andrew Kidd, have provided guidance, enthusiasm and staunch support. In the Netherlands, Franoise Gaarlandt-Kist and Jan Geurt Gaarlandt of Balans have done likewise. I would like to thank Jan Michael for all of the above, and for her hospitality in Amsterdam. For reminding me that I live in the present as well as the past, I must thank my family and friends, all of whom have been there for me when I needed them.

Finally, there are four people without whom, for various reasons, this book truly could not have been written. They are: my mother, Buddy and Gerti Elias, and, of course, Anne Frank. To these four, I dedicate Roses from the Earth.

I have drawn on a wide range of literary sources in my attempt to understand the past and the central figures of this book. Grateful acknowledgement is made to those authors and publishers who have granted permission to quote copyright material. While every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders, I apologize for any oversights. Anyone believing they are entitled to exercise rights over these omissions are requested to contact the author.

All photographs, and quotations from Annes diary, are under copyright of the Anne Frank-Fonds, Basel, Switzerland. The letters of the Frank family, and Otto Franks memoir, are used by the kind permission of Buddy Elias.

On 10 September 1997 the office of the Anne Frank-Fonds forwarded Carol Ann Lees first letter to me. I am Anne Franks last living direct relative, the cousin she called Bernd in her diary, and I am president of the Foundation. I read the first line: Dear Sirs, I am writing to ask whether you would consider giving your approval to a book I am writing about the life of Anne Frank. My first thought was: another writer trying to make money out of Anne Frank. But I kept on reading and, line by line, my first impression changed. I saw that this was different, this was promising, interesting: a dedicated young lady whose life since early childhood was affected by Anne Frank, her diary, her short life, her destiny. I was moved.

I was even more moved by her first letter to me personally, telling me that her planned biography of Anne was of such importance to her that, should she not succeed, she would consider her career as having failed. Melodramatic? No, credible to me especially after having received and read her first two chapters: remarkable evidence of meticulous research, of visible talent.

And then I met Carol when she came for an interview to answer a few questions. It turned into a conversation that lasted almost three hours as we exchanged questions and answers and discussed Anne, her family, her life, my life, my family. In short, Carol knew so much already that it was clear to me she was more than capable of telling the world about the phenomenon of Anne Frank. Not only was her knowledge astonishing, but her love and dedication to this cause warmed my heart.