Otto copied passages from the diaries and asked family and friends to read them. At first, he could not summon the courage to read them, but once he started, he was gripped by her writing. When Miep learned the sad news, she handed Anne's diaries over to Otto. They told him about their miserable last months and about their deaths due to illness and exhaustion. Otto’s hope that Anne and Margot might have survived the concentration camps ended in July 1945, when he met with the Brilleslijper sisters, who had been imprisoned in Bergen-Belsen with Anne and Margot. Otto moved in with helpers Jan and Miep Gies. To his great relief, the helpers of the Secret Annex had all survived the war. Would they still be alive? On 3 June 1945, ten months after his arrest, Otto was back in Amsterdam. From that moment on, all his hopes were pinned on Anne and Margot. In Odessa (then in the Soviet Union, today in Ukraine) he got on board of the 'Monowai', a ship that was heading towards Marseille (France), with hundreds of other survivors.ĭuring the long journey, Rosa de Winter - who had been imprisoned together with Edith in Auschwitz - told him that his wife had died in Auschwitz. As the fighting was still going on in large parts of Europe, he had to make a long detour. ‘I was lucky and had good friends,’ he wrote to his mother on 18 March.Īs soon as Otto had his strength back, he wanted nothing more than to return to the Netherlands. Otto felt that it was a miracle that he had survived. On 27 January 1945, Soviet troops entered the camp. Otto expected the prisoners remaining behind to be shot, but that did not happen. Otto’s main worry: have Margot and Anne survived? He was too weak to travel, weighed only 52 kilogrammes and was in no condition to join. When the Soviet troops came closer, the camp command cleared Auschwitz. When at one point, Otto lost hope after he had been beaten, his fellow inmates, with the help of a Dutch doctor, made sure that he was admitted to the sick barracks. He was also helped by other friends in the camp. Otto felt greatly supported by Peter van Pels, who would sometimes be able to get some extra food through his job in the camp’s post office. When the frost made working outdoors impossible, Otto ended up with less exhausting work: peeling potatoes. Then, he was transferred to the 'Kommando Strassenbau', building roads outside the camp. The gravel was used for construction projects. At first, Otto was put to work outside the camp in the 'Kommando Kiesgrube’, a gravel mine. It was the last time Otto would ever see his wife and children.Īfter the separation on the Auschwitz-Birkenau platform, the men from the Secret Annex stayed together. The men and women were separated on the platform. The prisoners were packed tightly in cattle wagons, without enough food and with only a small barrel for a toilet.Īfter three days on the train, they arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau. This was the last train ever to leave Westerbork for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. Otto had to work during the day - the kind of work is not known - but in the evening he could be with Edith, Margot, and Anne.Īfter only a few weeks in Westerbork, Otto and the others were put on train travelling to the east. They ended up in the prison barracks, and the men and women were separated. Otto felt guilty when they also took Johannes Kleiman and Victor Kugler.Īfter a few days in prison, Otto and the others were put on a train to the Westerbork transit camp. Otto and the other people in hiding were arrested. The hiding period came to an abrupt end when, on 4 August 1944, Dutch police officers headed by SS-Hauptscharführer Karl Josef Silberbauer unexpectedly raided the Secret Annex. Otto sees his wife and children for the last time
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