Peter van Pels

Peter van Pels was born on 8 November 1926 in Osnabrück (Germany).^[1] His parents were Hermann van Pels and Auguste van Pels-Röttgen. He was an only child. He grew up in Osnabrück and came to Amsterdam with his parents in 1937.

Little is known about the schools Peter attended in the Netherlands. According to old classmates, he went to junior high school in Diezestraat. It is likely that, after education was segregated, Peter did a technical vocational course. He learnt amongst other things to upholster furniture. Later, in the Mauthausen concentration camp, he would be registered as a furniture maker.

In contrast to Anne, who left Moortje with the neighbours, Peter brought his cat Mouschi to the Annex. He did most of the small carpentry jobs in the Annex, and he lugged the potatoes upstairs. Anne thought Peter would go to Indonesia after the war to live on the plantations. Most of what is known about Peter during this period comes from Anne's diary, although Otto Frank and Miep Gies did speak about him in later years.

After the arrest on 4 August 1944, Peter was sent to Austria via Westerbork. He met Max Stoppelman there, the son of Jan and Miep's landlady. Stoppelman took Peter under his wing. According to Otto Frank, Peter witnessed his father, after a selection process, being sent to his death. In January 1945 the Germans evacuated the camp. Otto Frank tried to persuade Peter to hide to avoid the evacuation, which became known later the 'death march'. Nevertheless, Peter left and arrived at Mauthausen on 25 January. He was put to work, including in the Melk sub-camp, before ending up in the Sanitätslager of the main camp. The exact date of Peter's death is unclear. A list compiled by the Americans when the camp was liberated states that it was 5 May 1945. According to another list drawn up after the liberation of Mauthausen, Peter van Pels died on 10 May 1945. Peter was 18 years old.^[2]