Return Otto Frank: Chernivtsi

On 1 April 1945, Otto left at 3am by train from Katowice for Czernowitz (now Chernivtsi in Ukraine). The train journey took six days and Otto Frank wrote daily in his notebook the scenes he saw along the way. In keywords, he describes the lively bartering that took place along the track and on the train, the hours of standing still and the route past destroyed villages.^[1]

Rosa de Winter-Levy described the train journey as follows: "It is a wonderful journey, though in freight wagons, but now with unlocked doors! There are about 30 of us in a wagon. The mood is cheerful. The 'train commander' distributes bread and sugar every day, which articles we get from the Russians."^[2]

On the train, Otto Frank again met his old neighbour Eva Geiringer, whom he had already spoken to in Auschwitz shortly after the liberation, hoping she could tell him more about his wife and children. Eva Geiringer, meanwhile, had found her mother Fritzi Markovits again, and when she met Otto Frank again on the train, she introduced the two to each other. Later, a new love would blossom between Fritzi and Otto and they would marry in 1953.^[3]

Both Rosa de Winter and Otto Frank's notebook reveal that once they arrived in Chernivtsi, travellers were warmly welcomed and given food by the city's large Jewish community. Otto Frank wrote on 7 April 1945: "Got off the train in the morning (...) reception from all sides. People sympathised, as it were."^[4]

In Chernivtsi, Otto Frank stayed in a barracks where he slept on the ground but was well fed. His notebook shows that he explored the city and was given plenty to eat, but was not fully recovered physically and suffered from diarrhoea. It also shows that Rosa de Winter and Otto Frank still kept in touch, on 11 April he wrote: Ate at Frau de Winter 's.^[5]

After some confusion about who was and was not allowed to continue travelling, Otto Frank left on 22 April 1945 by train for Odessa, where he arrived late at night a day later.^[6]