Time: Anne Frank Father's Letters Found

[DoYouEverWonder]

January 25, 2007

NEW YORK -- Newly disclosed letters written by the father of the famous Holocaust victim Anne Frank illustrate his desperate attempts to get his family out of the Nazi-occupied Netherlands, Time magazine reported on its Web site.

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, a New York-based institution that focuses on the history and culture of Eastern European Jews, plans to release the roughly 80 documents Feb. 14, according to Time.com. A telephone message left at the institute early Thursday was not returned.

The documents include letters that Otto Frank wrote to relatives, friends and officials between April 30, 1941, and Dec. 11, 1941, when Germany declared war on the United States, Time said.

Written when the U.S. consulate in the Netherlands had closed, the letters show how Otto Frank investigated potential escape routes through Spain to Portugal, attempted to secure visas to Paris and tried to arrange for his family to go to the United States or Cuba, according to the magazine.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-otto-frank-letters,0,6823215.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

[Berry Cool]

1. These have got to be heartbreaking to read.

Knowing he tried so hard to find a way out, and was unable to find one, and finally had no choice but to take them into hiding.

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. Multiple his story by millions

of people who didn't get to tell their stories.

[w4rma]

3. Very good. (nt)

[Judi Lynn]

4. Anne Frank's father sought visas

Last Updated: Thursday, 25 January 2007, 20:01 GMT

Anne Frank's father sought visas

Anne Frank's moving story came to symbolise the Holocaust
Dozens of letters found in an American archive reveal the desperate efforts of Anne Frank's father Otto to escape from the Nazis with his family.
The letters - including some from his American relatives and friends - were written before the family went into hiding in Amsterdam in 1942.

The 78 documents are to be released on 14 February by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York.

Anne Frank's diary, found after the war, has moved millions of readers.
(snip/...)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6300233.stm

[PeaceProgProsp]

6. The letter from the US State Dep't rejecting their application

is in the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam. I felt ashamed of my country when I read that letter.

[demo dutch]

5. US made very little effort to accept refugees. Jews onboard the MS St. Louis were denied entrance in

Cuba in 1940. Only 22 of 937 passengers were allowed in Havana, so the rest turned to the United States. The Roosevelt administration did not reply. They could see the lights of Miami as the ship headed north. Eventually, sadly, the ship returned to Hamburg. The Jews deboarded. They died in concentration camps.

[Lurking Dem]

8. Many were also turned away

by the British within sight of the port of Haifa.

[dflprincess]

9. Eleanor Roosevelt tried to immigration quotas lifted

but her pleas fell on deaf ears. Even when she asked they be lifted just for children. She would have been a hell of a president.

[goforit]

7. And to think Prescott Bush and the Rockefellers supported the Nazi regime

How ironic so many have forgotten this.