Examentrainers

The Hidden Life Of Otto Frank
by Carol Ann Lee
Reviewed by Walter Reich

		Otto Frank with his daughters Margot, left, and Anne				of the pectin sales to the Germans -
						“kept his silence.”
				7		But the most protracted period of
						payoffs, Lee suggests, took place in
						the 1960s, after Otto had become a
						public figure as a result of Anne’s
						diary. However, a more important
						dimension to Otto’s life, and one that
						had a direct bearing on Anne’s diary,
						was the way in which he edited it and
						shaped its career. Lee shows how
						decisions that Otto made about editing
						the diary, finding a publisher, arranging
						for foreign translations, and having it
						turned into a play and a movie,
						determined how Anne’s story would be
						told. Otto’s sense of himself as an
						assimilated Jew likely affected these
						decisions, as did his sense of what
						should be said by and about Anne.
				8		In editing the diary Otto removed
						some of Anne’s critical comments
1		In The Hidden Life Of Otto Frank, the				about her mother and some of her
		first biography of Anne Frank’s father,				references to her own sexuality. He
		Carol Ann Lee offers us a scoop: the				also diminished, somewhat, her focus
		name of the man who, she says, told				on her Jewishness. But it was in his
		the Germans where the Frank family				choice of writers for the stage
		was hiding during the Holocaust. But				adaptation that he most significantly
		buried behind the scoop is an account				distanced Anne from her Jewish roots
		of how Otto shaped and in some ways				and leached from her story the dark
		distorted Anne’s story and her public				themes that, in the diary, were plainly a
		image after her diary was found.				part of it.
2		First the scoop. Who betrayed the		9		He chose Frances Goodrich and
		Frank family? Based on archival				Albert Hackett, Hollywood
		research and interviews, Lee has				screenwriters whose credits included
		fingered Anton Ahlers, a thuggish				It’s A Wonderful Life. Not surprisingly,
		Dutch Nazi and violent anti-semite, and				they crafted a sentimental and upbeat
		said that he probably did it for the				play. And the play’s director, Garson
		reward the Germans were giving to				Kanin, wanted Anne’s focus on Jewish
		those who turned in Jews.				suffering to be translated into human
3		In the course of writing about Ahlers,				suffering in general. Lee notes that,
		Lee also tells us about his relationship				under Kanin’s direction, “almost all
		with Otto. It turns out, according to				references to Jews and Jewish
		Lee, that Ahlers, a chronic blackmailer,				suffering were erased.”
		victimized Otto repeatedly. One of		10		With regard to maximizing the
		these occasions was in 1941, after the				audience for Anne’s story and making
		Germans occupied the Netherlands but				it universally embraceable, at least in
		before the Franks went into hiding. He				those early years after the Holocaust,
		showed Otto a letter to Dutch Nazi				Otto’s instincts may have been right.
		Party officials in which one of Otto’s				The diary has reportedly sold more
		former employees denounced him for				than 31m copies in 67 languages. The
		having made unflattering remarks				annual number of visitors to the Anne
		about the German military and asking				Frank House in Amsterdam is
		that “the Jew Frank” be arrested; Otto				approaching a million.
		paid Ahlers off and took the letter.		11		But is audience all? Anne had to go
4		Otto paid Ahlers off again, though				into hiding only because she was a
		not with money, in 1945, after returning				Jew. She was betrayed only because
		from Auschwitz. By that time the Dutch				she was a Jew. She was sent to her
		were arresting collaborators, and				death only because she was a Jew. To
		Ahlers was picked up. Otto wrote to the				soft-pedal her Jewishness is to deny
		authorities, telling them that Ahlers had				the reality of her fate.
		helped him by giving him the		12		Moreover, after arrest, Anne’s life
		denunciatory letter but not mentioning				wasn’t uplifting or inspiring at all. A
		that he had paid Ahlers for it.				witness who saw Anne and her sister,
5		Why did Otto do this? Because of				Margot, in Bergen-Belsen described
		another hidden part of his life, Lee				them as “two scrawny threadbare
		suggests. She contends that he was				figures” who “looked like little birds”.
		afraid that Ahlers would divulge to the				They contracted typhus and died soon
		Dutch authorities that he had done				after.
		business with the Germans before		13		Otto may have been right that, in his
		going into hiding.				time, the world preferred an uplifting
6		Otto’s firm produced pectin, used in				and a universal Anne. Clearly, as we
		making jam, and he apparently sold				can see in Lee’s biography, he had
		some of it to the Germans. More than				those preferences himself. One hopes,
		80 percent of Dutch firms did business				though, that in the decades since
		with the Germans, and selling pectin				Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz, during
		was neither important to the German				which we have witnessed repeated
		war effort nor significant business. Still,				genocides, we can stare such horror in
		it was business, and Lee argues that				the eyes and recognize its face without
		Otto felt vulnerable on that account				the need to universalize the victim or
		after the war. The letters Otto sent to				transform the horror into consolation
		the authorities for Ahlers, Lee writes,				and kitsch.
		“would ensure that Ahlers” - who knew				The Washington Post