Anne Frank Web Log Blog of assorted current news and findings related to Anne and WWII Diaries

Anne's beloved chestnut tree has long been struggling with a fungus that could not be cured by humans. Experts could tell the tree would not survive. Two years ago, a structure was built around it to minimize the damage it would do when it did fall.
    The tree collapsed on the afternoon of 23 August 2010. It was a windy day. The structure built around it reportedly did it's job: no one was harmed and the buildings around still stand.
    The photo here seems to show some small damage to a roof of a brick structure. A picture on on Twitter shows that the Annexe (left building) was not touched.

Deep thanks to my NL contact for the links and wind and time information.

I have too slow a connection to check these out. (Come to think of it, I don't even know what language they are in.)

• Virtual Tour of the Anne Frank House (this is probably in English)
• Documentary about Otto Frank's Life
• Fifty Years of the Anne Frank House Celebration
• Remembrance Train (I'm afraid I'm not at all clear what this is, they seemed to paint a train)

A Dutch cooking writer's autobiography is coming out, in Dutch. (news link) Berthe Meijer was much younger than Anne, survived deportation because her family was shipped directly to Bergen-Belsen. (If they had been shipped to Auschwitz, like the Franks, she would have been killed on arrival, being only just-about-to-turn six years old). Their two families had known each other in Amsterdam, so she recognized Anne in the barracks. Apparently, Anne tried to cheer the younger children up with stories, one day, on Margot's suggestion.
    Trying to find out more information about Berthe Meijer, I found this couple in the Joodsmonument who must have been her parents: a bank teller and a saleslady. The wife was from Germany, as the news article implied. I guess they met somehow and settled in Germany, then fled (like the Franks) to Amsterdam, the husband's hometown. There, sooner or later, they met the Franks during the several years before the hidings and deportations.
    The news link above includes a skeptical comment from Anne's good friend, Hannah (who survived Bergen-Belsen, like Meijer). There are some things I feel skeptical of myself. Because Anne and Margot went into hiding in 1942, Berthe must have been just four years old the last time she'd seen them. Then she recognized them in the barracks, when they were older and starving? Maybe they recognized her (or her name) and spurred her memory with their own remembrances. A Las Vegas Sun article about this includes a filmmaker's statement that he didn't include Berthe's account because it was very vague, that the memory had no convincing elements suggesting the older girl telling stories was Anne Frank.
    Also, the article sort of implied that Anne died in the Bergen-Belsen infirmary. I don't remember any account saying Anne died in an infirmary. Hannah's biography talked about her father in the Belsen hospital, so there was such a place there. Yet Janny Brandes-Brilleslijper said in The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank, "... in Bergen-Belsen, the infirmaries were so full that those who were ill stayed in their own barracks." Who knows? Maybe it was in a temporary visit that Berthe last met Anne. I also found it strange that Berthe said nothing about her brother or sister who also survived (according to Joodsmonument).
    It's one of those frustrating articles that zero in on some tiny connection to Anne because they're trying to sell a book. I guess we'll have to wait until the book comes out in English to learn more about this woman's life.
    I tend to believe the children's story-telling went on. Another part of Janny Brandes-Brilleslijper's account said that, in her barracks, they tried to care for the children, including telling them "a few simple children's stories." She went on to say,

"I know that Anne and Margot [Frank] also involved themselves with the children... Not only Anne and Margot, but also the other girls we knew went regularly to provide them with a little balance and sometimes culture." (page 71)

Thanks to my NL contact for telling me about this.

very nice obituary from The Guardian
Women's Connection to Miep and Anne

Thanks to my Netherlands contact for finding and sending these.

Also,
    sign the Anne Frank House's condolence book

I have not been updating this blog, but of course I must mention the passing of wonderful Miep Gies. The world has lost someone special. She is the last of the helpers to the secret annexe people, a key helper, and the person who saved Anne's diaries and other papers and the family photos. The news is all over the web:
    New York Times article (the best article)
    BBC News article (this made the Firefox Latest Headlines list)
    CNN article
    Photo of Miep Gies from last July.
    Miep's official web site
   

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