Meeting Rachel Frankfoorder in Westerbork

The eight people in hiding met all sorts of familiar and new people in Westerbork who testified after the war about their encounters with Anne, Margot, Edith, Otto, Peter, Hermann, Auguste or Fritz. One of them was the then 30-year-old Rachel Frankfoorder (1914-2012).

Rachel Frankfoorder had been caught on the train in the summer of 1944 with a false identity card and ended up in Westerbork.^[1] She remembered also meeting the Frank family in the camp's punishment barrack.

In Westerbork, Rachel Frankfoorder worked in 'internal services', scrubbing, cleaning the toilets and when a transport arrived, distributing clogs and overalls to newly arrived prisoners. It was a sought-after job and she remembered Otto Frank asking her to arrange a place in the cleaning team for Anne:

"Otto Frank came to me with Anne and asked if Anne could help me. Anne was very kind and also asked me if she could help. She said: 'I can do anything, I'm so handy,' she was really lovely, a bit older than in the photo we know of her, cheerful and upbeat. Unfortunately, I had no say in that and told her she would have to talk to the barracks management. That was the limit of the attention I could give to that, of course."^[2]

Anne eventually continued to work in the battery department.^[3]

Rachel Frankfoorder, like Anne, Margot and Auguste van Pels, would end up in Bergen Belsen from Westerbork via Auschwitz and would also remain close to them in those camps.