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Auschwitz-Birkenau: the women in the Durchgangslager

Anne, Margot and Edith Frank and Auguste van Pels were imprisoned in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Anne, Margot and Auguste were transported back to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after two months. Edith stayed behind and died two months later.

Subject

Little is known about the time in Auschwitz of the women from the Secret Annex. The camp records are almost entirely lost. What we do know comes from various witnesses who stayed with Anne, Margot, Edith Frank and Auguste van Pels in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Huts

Bloeme Emden and Lenie de Jong-van Naarden formed a close-knit group in Auschwitz-Birkenau along with a dozen other Dutch women. They also had contact there with Anne, Margot and Edith. According to Bloeme, Anne, Margot and Edith formed an 'inseparable trinity'.[1] In hut 29, Anne, Margot and Edith were said to have shared a bed together.[2] Auguste van Pels also stayed in hut 29, but little is known about her stay there.

How long the women were in the quarantine hut, we do not know. Indeed, according to witnesses, Anne and Margot ended up in the Krätzeblock: the hut for scabies sufferers and other sick people. Lenie de Jong-van Naarden remembered that it was actually Margot who had to be admitted, but that Anne wanted to stay with her sister and therefore went with her.[3] Conditions in the scabies hut were appalling and many sick people were abandoned to their fate there. To help her daughters in the Krätzeblock, Edith Frank, together with Rebbeca Brommet-Ritmeester (the mother of Frieda Brommet, who was also in the scabies hut) and Lenie de Jong-van Naarden, dug a hole somewhere along the side of the hut to give food to the children.[4]

In addition, Rebbeca Brommet-Ritmeester and Edith Frank were said to have hidden in order to avoid being taken on a transport and thus continue to care for their children. Frieda Brommet recalled:

'They dug a hole together. (...) and one day my mother came and she could also speak through that hole, and she said, she would shout, 'Frieda! Frieda!' [...] And said: 'Mrs Frank and I are the only ones here in the camp now. We have been hiding because the group has gone on transport. But we hid because we wanted to stay with you. And we stole some bread and I am giving it to you now through the hole and you have to share it between the four of you.' And that  four was with Margot and Anne.'[5]

Selections

When Anne and Margot were discharged from the scabies hut is unclear. What we do know is that Anne, Margot and Auguste were selected for work in Bergen-Belsen on the evening of 30 October 1944.

Rosa de Winter-Levy was also in hut 29 with the Frank women. She wrote about her friendship with Edith Frank and her daughters in her book Escaped the Gas Chamber! in August 1945. She later recounted the selection of Anne and Margot in an interview with Ernst Schnabel:

'Again Blocksperre, but this time we had to wait naked on the roll call court, and it took a very long time (...) And then it was the two girls' turn: Anne and Margot. And Anne stood with her face even still 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..."'[6]

The more than a thousand selected women were locked in a hut until the transport left on 1 November 1944. The women who had not been selected, such as Rosa de Winter-Levy and Edith Frank, were locked in a hut in the B-Lager and transferred two days later to the A-Lager - the part where the infirmary huts were located - obviously to be murdered soon. Several selections for transport followed, which Edith and Rosa did not pass, but with the help of the Blockälteste they managed to escape gassing.[7]

However, it was not long until Edith Frank was so ill that she was admitted to the infirmary hut. Some time later, Rosa also became so ill that she was put in the Durchfallblock (for diarhoea sufferers). One day there, she saw Edith Frank being brought into her hut. 'One morning new patients came in. Suddenly I recognise Edith, she comes from another ward. She is just a ghost. A few days later she dies, totally exhausted.'[8]

Footnotes

  1. ^ Anne Frank Stichting (AFS), Anne Frank Collectie (AFC), Getuigenarchief, interview Bloeme Evers-Emden, 11 maart 2010.
  2. ^ NIOD Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogs-, Holocaust- en Genocidestudies, 250d, Kampen en gevangenissen, inv.nr. 583, I. Salomon. Ook andere vertelden hierover: Bloeme Evers-Emden, Ronnie Goldstein-van Cleef, Lenie de Jong-van Naarden, Frieda Menco-Brommet, Anita Mayer-Roos.
  3. ^ AFS, AFC, Getuigenarchief, interview Lenie de Jong-van Naarden, 22 maart 2010.
  4. ^ Ook Frieda’s moeder Rebecca Brommet-Ritmeester overleefde de Holocaust. AFS, AFC, Getuigenarchief, interview Frieda Menco-Brommet, 12 februari 2010.
  5. ^ AFS, Getuigenarchief. De getuigenissen hierover van Frieda Menco-Brommet, Ronnie Goldstein-van Cleef en Lenie de Jong-van Naarden hebben allemaal dezelfde strekking en wijken slechts in enkele kleine details van elkaar af.
  6. ^ Origineel citaat: ‘Wieder Blocksperre, aber diesmal mussten wir nackt auf dem Apellplatz warten, und es dauerte sehr lange. (…) Und dann kamen die beiden Mädchen an die Reihe: Anne und Margot. Und An[1]ne 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...’ In: Ernst Schnabel, Anne Frank, Spur eines Kindes. Ein Bericht, Frankfurt/Main, 1958, p. 138-139.
  7. ^ Zie: Bas von Benda-Beckmann, Na het Achterhuis. Anne Frank en de andere onderduikers in de kampen, Amsterdam: Querido, 2020, p.211-214.
  8. ^ Rosa de Winter-Levy, Aan de gaskamer ontsnapt! Het satanswerk van de S.S.: relaas van het lijden in de bevrijding uit het concentratiekamp "Birkenau" bij Auschwitz, Doetinchem: Misset, 1945, 29. Zelf zou Rosa de Winter-Levy Auschwitz ternauwernood overleven.