Death of Anne and Margot Frank

​The exact date of death of Anne and Margot Frank has not been established, but is believed to be in the month of February 1945.^[1]

After the war, the Information Bureau of the Netherlands Red Cross (NRK) had the statutory task of establishing the place and date of death of the many missing persons. This was not done on the basis of research, but by approximation.^[2]

Camp inmate Lientje Rebling-Brilleslijper stated in 1952 that "Anne Frank died around March 1945", from which the NRK concluded that Anne Frank's date of death must have been somewhere between 1 and 31 March 1945 .^[3] The Dutch Ministry of Justice's Committee to Report the Death of Missing Persons adopted this conclusion and fixed the date at 31 March 1945. This date was then published in the Government Gazette.^[4] The official death certificate was finally drawn up ten years later on 29 July 1954 in Amsterdam.^[5]

On the basis of testimonies, documents and an analysis of the disease progression of typhus, it can be deduced that Anne and her sister Margot presumably died as early as February 1945:

Hanneli Goslar and sisters Martha and Ilse van Collem stated that they had met Anne in February 1945 at the fence separating the Frauenkamp from the Sternlager.^[6] As this meeting came about through the mediation of Auguste van Pels, who, according to a transport list, was transported to Raguhn (a subcamp of Buchenwald) on 7 February 1945, this meeting must have taken place in late January or early February 1945.^[7] Margot, according to witness statements, was by then too ill to get up.^[6] The parcel the girls threw over the fence to Anne contained items from a Red Cross parcel. Hanneli's grandmother had received a Red Cross parcel around 23 January 1945.^[8]

Like Auguste van Pels, Rachel van Amerongen and Annelore Daniel, who were staying in the same hut as Anne and Margot Frank, left on a transport to Raguhn on 7 February 1945.^[9] Both Rachel and Annelore stated that Anne was ill and showed the symptoms of typhus.^[10] Rachel van Amerongen said in a 1988 interview: "(...) that they had typhus was obvious (...). They got those drawn away faces, that skin and bone. (...) The symptoms of typhus clearly revealed themselves in them: that slow fading away, a kind of apathy, mixed with revivals, until they too became so sick that there was no hope (...)."^[11] Nanette Blitz, who last met Anne in January 1945, also said in a 2012 interview that Anne and Margot were ill.^[12]

Typhus is a disease that is often fatal after about two weeks. After an incubation period of about a week, the first symptoms appear: severe headache, chills, fever and muscle aches. Followed five days later by skin rash and reduced consciousness.^[13] Given this course of illness, it is likely that Anne and Margot died as early as February 1945.

Otto Frank
Otto Frank heard on 18 July 1945 that both his daughters had died in Bergen-Belsen.^[14] He later recounted: "Eventually I found two sisters who had been in Bergen-Belsen at the same time as them and who then told me about my children's final, fatal illness. Both had been so weakened by hardship that they had fallen prey to the typhus prevalent there."^[15] He was referring to sisters Jannie and Lientje Brilleslijper.

The Rectification Department of the Population Register wanted to know from Otto Frank whether there were any witnesses to the death of his daughters in Bergen-Belsen. On 4 October 1945, Otto Frank wrote to Lien Rebling-Brilleslijper asking if she could send him a 'relevant letter'.^[16] Lientje Brilleslijper stated on 11 November 1945 that Margot and Anne Frank died around late February, early March 1945.^[17] This contradicts statements she and her sister made later in which the date ranges from late February to very shortly before the liberation of Bergen-Belsen on 15 April 1945.^[18]