Day 2, June 15

 This morning we drove five hours toward Berlin & went to Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp which operated from 1940-1945.  As with previous camps I have visited, it was a sobering experience.  We spent hours in the museum & walking the grounds.  In August of 1944, a tented camp was erected because the concentration camps near the front line were to be evacuated.  Many transports arrived with more than 8,000 girls & women from Auschwitz-Birkenau.  Among these in November 1944 were Anne & Margot Frank.  Open holes in the ground were used for toilets.  During a heavy winter storm, the tents collapsed.  Margo & Anne died of typhus in March 1945 only a few weks before the camp was liberated by the British April15th.  The number of prisoners still alive numbered approximately 60,000 & of those over 13,000  died.   What I did not realize was that Bergen Belsen became a displaced persons (DP) camp from 1945-1950 as so many Jews had no place to go.  

Cor is a fascinating person.  To learn more about him, go to:

  http://www.ijn.com/features/1781-dutch-hero-saved-13-jews--but-it-was-not-enough

We continued on four more hours to Berlin, & Cor shared stories of his time with Otto Frank.  A friend introduced him to Otto in 1965. Cor was then CEO of the dairy industry in charge of milk products for the Dutch government & living with his wife & children in Amsterdam.  The friend had told Otto about Cor & at their very first meeting, Otto asked him to go on the Board of Directors for the Anne Frank House.   He knew of Anne' s diary which had been published in 1947 (although he was embarrassed that he had not yet read it).  He had seen a photo in the newspaper of Otto with the pope.; Cor went on the board.

Otto lived in Switzerland & the next time he came to Amsterdam, he asked Cor to become Director of the Anne Frank House.  Cor was very flattered & he felt led to accept even though his wife disapproved.  Otto offered him half the salary he was making in the dairy industry, & it was a very small operation compared to his government position.  In the 27 years he was Director, the Anne Frank house grew in leaps & bounds.  When he first took over leadership they had 22,000 visitors the first year.  By time he left they had 920,000 a year.

Cor told us why Otto gave Cor five pages of Anne's diary which contained information he did not want shared with the general public.  Anne had written about not getting along with her mother & said her father told Anne he had never gotten over his first love.  He had been engaged for three years to a German woman who did not have permission from her parents to marry Otto & that he had never been in true love with his wife.

When Holocaust denial became an issue, the German government investigated Anne's diary to make sure she had actually written it.  They sent the top government secret service official to Switzerland to confirm the authenticity.  Otto gave Cor the extra five diary pages so they would not be in his possession & made him promise not to publish them until the death of Otto & his second wife Fritzi.  

After the death of Otto & Fritzi, Cor told the Dutch authorities about the five pages & Cor was accused of stealing the pages from Otto.  After five years of fighting between attorneys & experts, Cor's story was found to be true.  There were many offers to purchase the pages from Cor up to several million dollars, but he donated the pages to the Dutch government.  Out of gratitude they gave him $300,000 which he donated to the Anne Frank Foundation in America.  

Otto came from a prominent family, & had been an officer of tremendous distinction during WWI.  When a Nazi official came to arrest the Frank family of four plus the four others who had been hiding in the annex. (the betrayer who turned them in is still unknown), he found a box containing Otto 's military medal, & out of respect gave the group an hour to pack up to leave for deportation to the camps.  

Another memory from Cor was being invited to have dinner at Melissa Muller's home.  She is the author of Anne Frank the Biography ( & hopefully will now be writing Cor' story).  Also in attendance was Hitler' former secretary Traudl Junge.  She told them that Hitler was always very kind to her & that she was one of the people in the bunker in Berlin with him.  Before he & mistress Eva Braun, whom he married a few hours beforehand, committed suicide, he called Traudl to him & dictated his final will.  She typed it up & he read it & made corrections by hand.  She kept that rough draft & actually had it in her purse & showed it to them.  

And now for a much less interesting story--how this blog came to be.  My roommate Dana was blogging about our trip & promised to teach me.  Little did she know what she was getting into.  After arriving at our hotel in Berlin & a late dinner with our group, at 11:00 p.m. Dana, Lolle & I headed for the lobby for a lesson from Dana.  Two hours & 15 minutes later at 1:15 a.m. we had finally been able to log in & were able to begin our blogs.  Dana has the patience of Job.  It was a very short night in the feather beds.