The Frank Family That Survived
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Summary
'A major contribution to our understanding of the Second World War in all its complexity.' John Keegan in his Introduction.
The inspiring story of a German-Jewish family named Frank which, like Anne Frank's family and 25,000 other Dutch and other 'stateless' Jews, 'dived under' in Nazi-occupied Holland in 1942 - but miraculously survived. Told by the grandson of the head of the family, this is the gripping odyssey of the other Frank family: from childhood in an assimilated German-Jewish family at Breitenheim, through the deceptively good life of Berlin in the 1920s, to the rise of Hitler and their flight to apparently safe Holland, the nightmarish ordeal of their thousand day long 'submersion' in a small apartment in The Hague, and the joy and pain of liberation and their final journey to America, the same route Anne Frank might have taken had she not been betrayed. Based on personal testaments, records and family interviews, the book describes their life behind closed curtains in constant fear of discovery. In 1945, after many adventures and appalling vicissitudes, they finally emerged to face the uncertainties of postwar Holland and the promise of the New World.
The inspiring story of a German-Jewish family named Frank which, like Anne Frank's family and 25,000 other Dutch and other 'stateless' Jews, 'dived under' in Nazi-occupied Holland in 1942 - but miraculously survived. Told by the grandson of the head of the family, this is the gripping odyssey of the other Frank family: from childhood in an assimilated German-Jewish family at Breitenheim, through the deceptively good life of Berlin in the 1920s, to the rise of Hitler and their flight to apparently safe Holland, the nightmarish ordeal of their thousand day long 'submersion' in a small apartment in The Hague, and the joy and pain of liberation and their final journey to America, the same route Anne Frank might have taken had she not been betrayed. Based on personal testaments, records and family interviews, the book describes their life behind closed curtains in constant fear of discovery. In 1945, after many adventures and appalling vicissitudes, they finally emerged to face the uncertainties of postwar Holland and the promise of the New World.
Reviews
Impeccably researched and exhaustive in detail, this is both a moving memoir and an illuminating work of history.
Hampstead and Highgate Express, Hampstead and Highgate Express