Otto Frank: The Holocaust Survivor

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Throughout the holocaust, many Jews survived by going into hiding to escape the harsh fates and realities that would otherwise await the opressed. The Diary of a Young Girl allows readers to witness and experience a small idea of what Jews in hiding during the holocaust suffered. Some may have lost one's life, but Otto Frank, Anne's Frank's father, survived the holocaust through hiding. The secret annex became the shelter for Otto Frank, his family, and several others Jews starting July sixth, 1942(www.annefrank.org). The annex provided a barrier from the Nazis and death camps for two years before the Gestapo discovered the Franks and others and sent the Jews to concentration camps for the remainder of the holocaust(www.ushmm.org). The others in hiding with Frank lost their lives, leaving Otto Frank the sole survivor from the secret annex. His time in hiding happened to save his life, making him a survivor of the holocaust(www.ushmm.org).
Otto Frank, born on May twelfth, 1889 in Frankfurt am Main in Germany belonged to a Jewish liberal family with three siblings(www.biography.com). He studied art history and economics at the University of Heidelberg, eventually leading him to working at a bank and then to accepting an internship position at Macy's Department Store in Manhattan. His father's death held him back from gaining the business experience he longed to discover at first, but determined the young Otto Frank continued his business(www.biography.com). In 1911, Otto Frank left America for his home in Germany, and eventually during 1914, became conscripted into the German army on the Western Front and earned the title of lieutenant(www.annefrank.org). Once the war ended, Frank took over the family bank, married his first wif...

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...ble for publishing the diary and sharing his daughter's views(www.ushmm.org). Frank helped bring his daughter's story to become one of the most popular books in the world, along with opening the Anne Frank House. Otto Frank goes off to marry Elfriede(Fritzi) Markovits in 1953 and lives the remainder of his life with her in Switzerland. Frank took his last breath on August nineteenth, 1980 in Basel, Switzerland(www.biography.com). Otto Frank dealt with many hardships, but fought to overcame them, and ended up surviving the holocaust. The toll of losing his family impacted him greatly, his strength breaking when mentioning the horrors of the holocaust. In an interview before his death, Frank explains "I can no longer talk about how I felt when my family arrived on the train platform in Auschwitz and we were forcibly separated from each other."(www.annefrankguide.net).

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