NEW YORK, Feb. 14, 2007
Father Tried To Get Anne Frank To U.S.
Documents, Desperate Letters Written By Otto Frank Are Made Public
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Play CBS Video Video Otto Frank's Letters Released Only On The Web: A Jewish research institute in New York has released letters showing how Anne Frank's father tried to obtain U.S. visas for his family. Richard Schlesinger reports.
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A photograph of Otto Frank, right, with his daughters Anne, center, and Margaret is displayed alongside yellow stars worn by Dutch Jews at an exhibit of letters and documents, Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2007 in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
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Interactive Lessons Of Auschwitz A look back at the notorious Nazi death camp where some 1.5 million people perished.
Otto Frank also sent desperate letters to friends and family in the U.S. pleading for help with immigration costs as the family tried to escape the Nazi-occupied Netherlands.
I would not ask if conditions here would not force me to do all I can in time to be able to avoid worse, Otto Frank wrote to his college friend Nathan Straus in April 1941. It is for the sake of the children mainly that we have to care for. Our own fate is of less importance.
The letters, along with documents and records from various agencies that helped people emigrate from Europe, were released by the
The documents show how Frank tried to arrange for his family wife Edith, daughters Margo and Anne and mother-in-law Rosa Hollander to go to the U.S. or Cuba. He wrote to relatives, friends and officials between April 30, 1941, and Dec. 11, 1941, when Germany declared war on the U.S.
But immigration rules were changing under the Nazi regime and in the U.S. There were nearly 300,000 people on a waiting list for a U.S. immigration visa. Besides, since Frank had living relatives in Germany, he would have been unable to immigrate under U.S. policy at the time.
I know that it will be impossible for us all to leave even if most of the money is refundable, but Edith urges me to leave alone or with the children, he said in another letter to Straus.
He managed to secure one visa to Cuba, but it was canceled in December 1941 after the Germans declared war on the U.S. The family went into hiding in July 1942.
Otto Frank's attempt to move his family mirrors thousands of German Jews, said Richard Breitman, an American University professor who focuses on German and American intelligence history.
Frank's case was unusual only in that he tried hard very late and enjoyed particularly good or fortunate American connections. Still, he failed, Breitman said.
The family was in hiding for more than two years before being arrested. Anne Frank described the family's life in hiding in a diary that has sold an estimated 75 million copies. The family's hiding place in a secret annex in an Amsterdam canal-side warehouse has been turned into a museum.
Anne Frank died of typhus at age 15 in a concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen, Germany, in 1945. Her father returned to the Netherlands to collect his daughter's notes and published them in the Netherlands in 1947.
© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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- we have atoned for the the japanese American issue...however....there were some Japanese American's involved in direct spying...do we use a hammmer when a scalpel was necessary...yes...but again atonement..remember we cracked their codes right around the start of the war...
Ahhh I see...we are the great oppressor...and we have every race and country striving to get here...I won't even indulge the Indian...jewish comment...it's absurd... - Reply to this comment
- "excuse me, but between late 41-early 44...the war's outcome was still undecided....they became fully aware of the Holocaust in early to mid 44...from what I gather..and have read...but not fully and completely until the came upon the camps....that was April 45....
Posted by golfkt at 12:44 PM : Feb 15, 2007"
Excuse me, but the Japanese American citizens kept in American concentration camps were the responsibility of American government leaders. It didn't matter what was happening in Europe.
And what about the Native American Indians who are still being oppressed this very minute by our American government? Indian reservation is just a politically correct term for concentration camp. And the American government killed Native Americans on the same scale as Hitler killed Jews. Never heard the epithet "The only good injun is a dead injun?" People took that seriously a few generations ago.
And we haven't even mentioned African slavery yet...
Yes, I think I can do quite a good job of spinning a yarn. Like I said, America needs to clean up our hypocritical act. - Reply to this comment
- Hindsight is always 20/20. Only the people who were in charge of immigration back then can tell us what happened and they're probably dead. No one wanted the responsiblity.
What we need to do now is make sure that this never happens again - instead of letting in all the lowlifes - let's allow hardworking intelligent people come into the country instead of making them wait 5-10 yrs. - Reply to this comment
- Well..... nice try...
I figured one of you would spin this somehow....and of course we were complicit in Mao's reign of terror...and of course we were complicit in Stalin's reign of terror...
now we are complicit in this...
excuse me, but between late 41-early 44...the war's outcome was still undecided....they became fully aware of the Holocaust in early to mid 44...from what I gather..and have read...but not fully and completely until the came upon the camps....that was April 45.... - Reply to this comment
- Well..... nice try...
I figured one of you would spin this somehow....and of course we were complicit in Mao's reign of terror...and of course we were complicit in Stalin's reign of terror...
now we are complicit in this...
excuse me, but between late 41-early 44...the war's outcome was still undecided....they became fully aware of the Holocaust in early to mid 44...from what I gather..and have read...but not fully and completely until the came upon the camps....that was April 45.... - Reply to this comment
- "spin this into an anti American yarn...
Posted by golfkt at 08:42 AM : Feb 15, 2007"
Let me give it a shot if you are curious...
The article says:
"There were nearly 300,000 people on a waiting list for a U.S. immigration visa."
That's 5% of the total number of Jews killed in the Holocaust waiting to get into the United States. But the government didn't want them, despite the well known persecutions already going on in Germany.
Anne Franks father tried desperately to escape to America, but America didn't care about them. Instead, we prefer to celebrate Anne's suffering and death in the Holocaust. We like to talk about how we defeated Hitler, but we ignore our own complicity in allowing the Holocaust.
Indians, Japanese, Jews, Muslims--America is willing to persecute and destroy any group that doesn't meet with public approval. As a nation, we are a whited sepulchre that appears outwardly beautiful but is filled with purtrid death.
Those bumper stickers saying "Bless America!" are begging for trouble. We need to clean up our civilization. - Reply to this comment
- BS dad : be careful who you threaten..you will have bitten off much more than you can chew..
because you served, it gives you no more right than others to articulate your position.. again, it's interesting that you resort to name calling and threats...
for one who states that they are intellectually superior...you are a one trick pony...
I come from a family who has given significant sacrifice...the Chosin reservior...the Bataan Death march...the European Campaign in WW2...
so please, eliminate the threats...you wouldn't be able to back them up.... - Reply to this comment
- bigwhtpony, why don't you just do an image search on google for the word "Holocaust" I love how some people would rather pretend horrible things never happened instead of learning from them.
- Reply to this comment
- golfkt; Let me know when you go over to Iraq, or haven't you paid your price of military service to America enabling you to troll out your neocon chicken hawk puke. Or are you speaking your free speech rights bought by the blood and sacrifice of those of us who have served? Just want to know! Shove that gaunletupyourasssideways or i would be glad to do it for you!
- Reply to this comment
- golfkt; Let me know when you go over to Iraq, or haven't you paid your price of military service to America enabling you to troll out your neocon chicken hawk puke. Or are you speaking your free speech rights bought by the blood and sacrifice of those of us who have served? Just want to know! Shove that gaunletupyourasssideways or i would be glad to do it for you!
- Reply to this comment
- nope..not at all...you laid down the gauntlet previously....
- Reply to this comment
- This is unforgiveable!
- Reply to this comment
- I am curious to see how the likes of BS Dad and dallyson and that ilk spin this into an anti American yarn...
- Reply to this comment
- I have it from "reliable sources" in Iran that this never happened!
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