Otto Frank

Otto Heinrich Frank ( born May 12, 1889 in Frankfurt am Main, † 19 August 1980 in Birsfelden near Basel ) was a German merchant who lived in the Netherlands from 1933 to 1944 and from 1945 until 1953. He was the father of Anne Frank, whose diary was published by him.

Life

Otto Frank's father, Michael, was born in Landau in der Pfalz, his mother Alice star of the family tree can be traced back to the 16th century in Frankfurt registers. Otto Frank attended the Lessing Gymnasium in Frankfurt, which he finished in 1908 with the High School, served in the First World War as a German officer with the rank of lieutenant and was winner of the Iron Cross.

He and his wife Edith Frank-Holländer and their two daughters Margot and Anne, he lived up to the seizure of power by the National Socialists in Frankfurt am Main. After 1933 he moved with his family to Amsterdam, fearing reprisals by the Nazis because of his Jewish faith.

Erich Elias, a friend of Robert Feix, gave his brother Otto Frank, 1933, the offer for the German Opekta build a Dutch diplomatic mission " Nederlandsche Opekta " in Amsterdam. Otto Frank was entrusted to organize the expansion of business in the Netherlands. He first went alone to Amsterdam to find a place to live for his family and to clarify requirements for the company. In February 1934, came his wife Edith Frank-Holländer after with their two daughters Margot and Anne.

Two years after the occupation of the Netherlands by the Germans on May 14, 1940, the family went into hiding. To this end, she hid on July 6, 1942 at the rear building of the building at Prinsengracht 263, where there was in the front building of the headquarters of the " Nederlandsche Opekta " before the German Gestapo. The family and other Jewish residents of the secret annex were betrayed by so far unknown and arrested by SS Master Sergeant in Security Karl Josef Silberbauer on August 4, 1944.

After the arrest of the people in hiding, Otto Frank was taken to the Westerbork transit camp and later deported to Auschwitz. There he was liberated by the Soviet army. The only one of his family, Otto Frank survived the Holocaust.

On the advice of some friends, he published the diary of his daughter Anne. On 10 November 1953, Otto Frank married in Amsterdam Elfriede Markovits, who had lost her first husband, Erich Geiringer and her son in a concentration camp Auschwitz. The two had met in a concentration camp. Together they emigrated to Switzerland in the same year. He founded in 1966 the Anne Frank -Fonds in Basel, after 1957, the Anne Frank Foundation was founded to preserve the house at Prinsengracht 263.

Movies

Otto Frank was The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 ) by Joseph Schildkraut and Anne Frank in the movie - presented the true story (2001) by Ben Kingsley. In the two BBC productions, The Diary of Anne Frank, he was by Emrys James (1987) and Ian Glen (2001 ) are shown.