THE HELPERS AND HIDERS: BIOGRAPHIES


Here are some bullet-point biographies of the helpers and those in hiding. To find out what happened to those involved following the arrest of the hiders, see Helpers and Hiders: After the Arrests.

 

Helpers

Hiders

 

Miep Gies
        
• Born Hermine Santrouschitz in Vienna, Austria, 15th February 1909
• Hermine was placed in care of a foster family in Holland in 1920 by a organization that helped undernourished children in war areas, they gave her the less formal Dutch nickname of Miep
• Adopted Holland as her home and only went back to Austria for brief visits
• Miep was hired by Otto Frank to be a part of his small company, Opekta in 1933 quickly becoming a close friend of the entire family.
• Married Jan Gies on 16 July 1941 after she refused to join a Nazi women's association and was threatened with deportation back to Austria and becomes a Dutch citizen
• Jan Gies was part of the Dutch Underground Resistance but that was unknown to the people in the Secret Annex
• Miep and Jan visited with the Franks in hiding often
• Interview with Miep Gies by Scholastic, here.

 

Johannes Kleiman
(played as character Mr Koophuis)
• Johannes Kleiman was born in Koog aan de Zaan, Netherlands on  August 17, 1896
• Kleiman met Otto Frank in 1923 when Otto opened a branch of the Frank family bank, Michael Frank Bank, in Amsterdam
• Johannes Kleiman was married to Johanna Reuman and had a daughter, Corrie.
• Kleiman was friendly with Otto because their business paths frequently crossed and he was hired as a bookkeeper for Opekta in 1938
• Miep described Kleiman “as a fragile, pale man with a large pair of thick spectacles, a pointed nose and a delicate appearance. He had a placid personality and was a person who immediately inspired trust.”

 

Victor Kugler
(played as character Mr Kraler)
• Victor Kugler was born in early June 1900 in Hohenelbe, Austria/Hungary
• After returning to work in Austria after World War I. he found the economic environment unstable and was sent on to the Netherlands to work on an assembly line
• He was hired by Opekta as a deputy and became a Dutch citizen in 1938 when it became apparent that Otto’s business would be taken by the Nazis and put into the hands of someone in the party.
• His wife did not know that he was helping to hide the families in the house so he suffered the stressful and dangerous situation without support.

Victor Kugler died on the 16th of December 1981.

Bep Voskuijl
(Played as character Elli Vossen) 
• Elisabeth 'Bep' Voskuijl was born on July 5, 1919 in Amsterdam
• She was the eldest of eight children in a Dutch Reformed Christian family in Amsterdam
• Bep began working for Opekta when she was eighteen years old and her father joined Opekta in 1937 working in the warehouse, he was responsible for building the bookcase that hid the doorway into the secret annex
• Neither Bep nor her father let the rest of their family know their secret
• She readily agreed to help; she organised correspondence courses for Anne, Margot and Peter in her own name, brought special treats for everyone in hiding and ate dinner with them every night

 


Otto Frank

• Otto Frank was born into a wealthy family in Frankfurt on May 12, 1889
• The Frank family was not particularly religious, they felt that they had assimilated into German society
• Otto attended courses at Heidelberg University and spent time in foreign countries on holiday
• He also served time in the Imperial German Army during World War I, being promoted to lieutenant in 1915
• Otto married Edith Hollander in 1925
• Otto recognized the Nazis’ rise to power in Germany as dangerous for his young family and relocated them several times, first to Aachen, Germany and then to Amsterdam. He also attempted to secure visas to the United States or Cuba, for them to travel out of harms way, but could not get them
• The Frank family went into hiding in 1942 in the attic space of Otto’s business Opekta
• Interview with Otto Frank by the Anne Frank House, click here. 


Edith Frank-Holländer
• Edith Holländer was born on January 16th 1900 in Aachen, a small town in Germany close to the border with the Netherlands
• The wealthy Holländer family was very involved in the Jewish religious community of Aachen. Edith was quite religious and well educated, having attended a girls’ high school.
• Otto was eleven years older then Edith when they married on May 12th 1925. Margot quickly followed nine months later on February 16th 1926. Anne was born three years later
• When the Frank family moved to Amsterdam she felt lonely and isolated by the move to a foreign city, made worse by the fact that she couldn’t visit her mother in nearby Aachen.

 

Margot Frank
• Born in 1926 in Frankfurt Germany, Margot was the adored first daughter of Otto and Edith Frank
• In 1929 sister Anne joined the family and Margot was delighted to have a sister to take care of
• “Margot was sweet and kind. She was good at everything but also very modest. You could trust her; you could rely on her.”- from a childhood friend
• In her diary, Anne claimed Margot had noble ambitions to ‘nurse new-born babies in Palestine’
• Margot was a quiet, obedient child, who always kept her clothes neat and clean, unlike her younger sister who was constantly in trouble.
• Margot was academically successful and was a serious student
• The letter requiring Margot to serve in a labour camp was the reason that the Frank family went into hiding

Anne Frank
• Anne Frank was born on June 11th, 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany. Her family was thrilled to welcome her and from early on she showed an interest and curiosity in everything and everyone surrounding around her
• Edith described her daughter as ‘a little comedian.’
• Anne enjoyed socializing with her friends and had many boyfriends from a early age
• She collected postcards of movie stars
• Although not the best student at times, Anne enjoyed reading and writing stories
• Just before the family hid, Anne’s parents bought her a present for her 13th birthday on June 12th. It was a red checked diary.

 

The Other Hiders from the Secret Annexe

Fritz Pfeffer
(played as character Albert Dussel)
• Fritz Pfeffer was born on April 30 1889 in Giessen, Germany
• Fritz studied to be a dentist in Berlin where he started a dental practice
• In 1921 he married Vera Bythiner, and their son Werner was born on April 3 1927. Sadly they divorced in 1933.
•  Fritz met and fell in love with Charlotte Kaletta but did not marry because of the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 prohibiting marriages between Jews and non-Jews
• After Kristallnacht, ‘The Night of Broken Glass’, Fritz made arrangements for them to leave the country. He arranged for Werner to go to England; Charlotte and Fritz would migrate to the Netherlands. In Amsterdam he again worked as a dentist, where he meets a patient named Miep Gies. On November 16, 1942, thanks to Miep, fifty-three year old Fritz Pfeffer became the eighth person hiding in the Secret Annexe.

Hermann Van Pels
(played as character Mr van Daan)
• Hermann was born on March 31 1898, the third of six children.
• On December 5, 1925 he married Auguste (Gusti) Röttgen
• Hermann and his sister Ida joined the family meat seasoning business, just before the family were forced to sell it at a huge loss in 1933 under the newly-introduced Nazi Jewish possession laws
• The Frank and van Pels families knew each other from 1937 as Otto Frank and Mr van Pels were in business together. Otto Frank had hired van Pels for his vast knowledge of spices used in the butcher’s trade.
• In 1939 the van Pels family moved to the Zuider-Amstellaan, right behind the Frank family. 

 

Auguste Van Pels
(played as character Mrs van Daan)
• Auguste Van Pels was born on September 29 1900 into a lower middle class Jewish household
• On December 5, 1925 she married Hermann van Pels. She became Dutch since according to German law women automatically assumed the nationality of their husbands.
• They lived in Osnabruck, near the Dutch and German border, where their only child Peter was born on November 8, 1926. 
 
 

Peter Van Pels
Peter van Pels  (played as character Peter van Daan)  
• Peter was born on November 8, 1926 and lived in Osnabrück, near the Dutch border.
• He attended the Jewish Lyceum in the same year as Margot Frank, in accordance to the Nazi regulations that Jewish and Christian children should be educated separately
• He was not remembered as being particularly gifted academically but did master carpentry, giving his trade on official documents as 'furniture maker
• Peter was 16 when he and his family moved into the ‘Secret Annexe’.
• Anne does not write a great deal about Peter's pre-war life or his future plans. In February 1944 Peter mentions his idea "to go to the Dutch East Indies and live on a rubber plantation."

 

All photos used © Anne Frank Stichting Amsterdam reproduced under license agreement.