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Selection for Bergen-Belsen

On 30 October, Anne and Margot Frank, along with Auguste van Pels and one thousand other women, were selected for deportation to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They left the next day.

Event

Oct. 30, 1944

50.0337 N 19.177955 E

Auschwitz-Birkenau

Bezet Polen

On 30 October 1944, there was a selection of about a thousand women who, although sick, were considered potentially suitable for being put to work in the German war industry.[1] The transport went to Bergen-Belsen camp. Rosa de Winter-Levy wrote after the war that Anne and her sister Margot were selected for this transport while she and Edith Frank remained behind in Auschwitz-Birkenau.[2] In an interview with Ernst Schnabel, Rosa de Winter further elucidated her recollection of Anne and Margot's selection:

"And then it was the two girls' turn: Anne and Margot. And Anne stood with her face still even under the spotlight and nudged Margot. And Margot stood upright in the light and there they stood for a moment. Naked and bare. And Anne looked at us with her bright face as she stood upright, and then they went. What happened behind the spotlight could no longer be seen. And Mrs Frank screamed: 'The children! Oh God!"'[3]

Auguste van Pels was also selected for the transport to Bergen-Belsen. The group of over one thousand women was locked in a hut until the transport left in the early morning of 1 November 1944. The train arrived in Bergen-Belsen a few days later, on 3 November 1944.[4]

Footnotes

  1. ^ Het Nederlandsche Roode Kruis, Auschwitz, Deel  VI: De afvoertransporten uit Auschwitz en omgeving naar het noorden en het westen en de grote evacuatie-transporten. Uitgave van het hoofdbestuur van de vereniging het Nederlandse Roode Kruis, ’s Gravenhage, maart 1952, p. 15.
  2. ^ Rosa de Winter-Levy, Aan de gaskamer ontsnapt! Het Satanswerk van de S.S.: relaas van het lijden en de bevrijding uit het concentratiekamp “Birkenau” bij Auschwitz, Doetinchem: Misset, 1945, p. 24.
  3. ^ Origineel citaat: ‘Und dann kamen die beiden Mädchen an die Reihe. Anne und Margot. Und Anne hatte ihr Gesicht, sogar unter dem Scheinwerfer noch, und sie stieß Margot an, und Margot ging aufrecht ins Licht, und da standen sie einen Augenblick, nackt und kahl, und Anne sah zu uns herüber, mit ihrem ungetrübten Gesicht und gerade, und dann gingen sie. Was hinter dem Scheinwerfer war, war nicht mehr zu sehen. Und Frau Frank schrie: Die Kinder! O Gott…’ Ernst Schnabel, Anne Frank: Spur eines Kindes, Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Bücherei, p. 138-139.
  4. ^ Bas von Benda-Beckmann, Na het Achterhuis. Anne Frank en de andere onderduikers in de kampen, Amsterdam: Querido, 2020, p. 222.