I was received on a friendly note by the current residents of 24 Ganghoferstrasse. I rang the doorbell and was lucky to find them home because the letter I had sent them through TNT (currently PostNL) came back to me: the villa has multiple inhabitants and I had not directed my letter to a particular person. The current residents informed me that 24 Ganghoferstrasse is visited regularly by students and journalists who are interested in Anne’s story.
I asked the inhabitants whether they recognised the place in the old photo that shows Anne and her sister playing with one of their friends. They did, and enthusiastically pointed me to their backyard. When I took a current photograph of the backyard from the same perspective, I could feel the emptiness Anne left behind.
I appreciate the interest the inhabitants of 24 Ganghoferstrasse take in the history of their home and its previous residents; it makes me feel supported in my project. There is more overgrowth at the back of the house now, and most of the paving stones have made way for a lawn. The sandpit Anne used to play in has disappeared from the backyard. The outline of neighbours’ house is still partly the same, although the open veranda is now a closed veranda.
Three and a half miles south of 24 Ganghoferstrasse was 4 Jordanstrasse where the Franks stayed with Otto’s mother Alice from late March 1933 to July 1933. It is not easy to find 4 Jordanstrasse because the street names changed after WWII. From 1917 through to 1933, Jordanstrasse was known as Mertonstrasse, a name which was then changed to Dantestrasse. Strangely enough, the current Jordanstrasse starts with a number 6. The friendly owner of a café in the current Jordanstrasse handed me an old black-and-white photograph showing the beautiful stately mansions of the 1930 Jordanstrasse. Alice’s home was also in this street: it had a large dome and was surrounded by lush overgrowth. Unfortunately, her former house in Jordanstrasse was demolished following WWII. The neighbourhood’s old atmosphere is completely gone.
After WWII, some of Frankfurts’ inhabitants blamed the Jews for the terrors of the war. Gradually, however, when people were able to look back on the war more objectively, they became a little more understanding towards the Jews.
In 1957, 2,000 teenagers travelled from Hamburg to Bergen- Belsen to commemorate Anne’s death. The memorial plate on the façade of 24 Ganghoferstrasse was placed on their initiative. Its inscription reads: ‘This used to be Anne Frank’s house (born on 12/06/1929 in Frankfurt A. Main). She became a victim of the national-socialist persecution and died in the Bergen-Belsen KZ-Lager in 1945. Her life and death—our obligation. The youth of Frankfurt.’ 59 There was a memorial service in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt in the same year. 60 The plate at 24 Ganghoferstrasse is the only sign I have seen on the former residences of Anne in Frankfurt am Main that commemorates her as a war victim. Although Frankfurt am Main does show some interest in her, there is a noticeable lack of a prominent statue of Anne in the centre of her place of birth.
There are, however, some general references to the war in the city centre. The commemorative plaque on Römerberg reads: ‘In this place, on 10 May 1933, national-socialist students burnt the books of literary authors, scientists, essayists and philosophers.’ The edge of the plaque reads: ‘This was merely a prelude, for where people burn books, people will eventually burn people.’ 61 This is a quote from Heinrich Heine (1797-1856). The books burnt by the Nazis had been written by Jewish authors and social critics, such as Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) and Bertold Brecht (1898- 1956).
There are a few references to Anne outside of the city centre, such as the Anne Frank School 62 and the Anne Frank Strasse. The Jewish Monument at Battonnstrasse commemorates the Jewish inhabitants of Frankfurt am Main who were murdered, including Anne. 63 It is located next to the former synagogue that was destroyed during Kristallnacht in 1938. The Historic Museum in Frankfurt am Main 4 organised exhibitions about Anne. The exhibition Anne Frank in the World, 1929-1945 took place in the Paulskirche 64 in 1985. 65 In 1992, the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt am Main (14/15 Untermainkai) 66 opened the Museum Judengasse, which exhibits the history of Judaism in Frankfurt am Main and commemorates the Jewish inhabitants of Frankfurt who were killed by the Nazis. In 2008, I visited a special photographic exhibition Special Express to Death: Deportation on the German National Railway about the role the Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) played in transporting Jews and gypsies to the concentration camps. Anne is listed in the Gedenkbuch Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933-1945 (Memorial Book: Victims of the Persecution of Jews under the National-Socialist Tyranny in Germany 1933-1945) by the German Federal Archives 67 that accompanied the exhibition.
Anne’s photograph was probably not on display in this exhibition since she was not deported directly from Germany to the extermination camps in the east. When she was deported from the Westerbork camp to Auschwitz, however, she will have been transferred onto the German National Railway once she had crossed the German border.
The exhibition also displayed many children of Anne’s age group who had lived in Germany or had fled to France and who were killed by the Nazis. Steffi Bernheim, for example, was born on 11 January 1930 in Berlin. The Bernheims fled Germany and went to live in Paris, France, on 60 Rue de Provence. Steffi was arrested during a large-scale razzia and sent to Auschwitz on transport 23 on 24 August 1942, where she joined her mother, who had been imprisoned earlier.
Her father, Walter, and brother, Norbert, followed on transport 57 on 18 July 1943. 68 This family’s fate is no less tragic than that of the Franks.
I experience my environment best when I walk. I ended up walking many miles to visit Anne’s locations. In spite of my hiking shoes, I had blisters on my feet. The current residents of 24 Ganghoferstrasse were considerate enough to offer me a ride back to 4 my hotel near Frankfurt central station, where I could enjoy a good night’s sleep.
1 Source: (various) labels from the Kölner Hof hotel dated around 1900 and containing anti-Semitic texts. Archives of the Jewish Historical Museum , inventory no. 00004698.
2 http://www.annefrank.org/en/Anne-Frank/All-people/Otto-Frank/.
3‘ Wie die Mehrheit der Deutschen, reagierten die Juden auf die Kriegserklärungen im August 1914 mit vaterländischer Begeisterung zu machen.’ From: Rachel Heuberger and Helgo Krohn. Hinaus aus dem ghetto…Juden in Frankfurt am Main 1800-1950 [Out of the Ghetto: Jews in Frankfurt am Main 1800-1950] (Frankfurt am Main, 1988), p. 129.
4‘ An die deutschen Juden! In schicksalsernster Stunde ruft das Vaterland seine Söhne unter die Fahnen. Dass jeder deutsche Jude zu den Opfern an Gut und Blut bereit ist, die die Pflicht erheischt, ist selbstverständlich. Glaubensgenossen! Wir rufen Euch auf, über dass Mass der Pflicht hinaus Eure Kräfte dem Vaterlande nu widmen! Eilet freiwillig zu den Fahnen! Ihr alle –Männer und Frauen- stellet Euch durch persönliche Hilfeleistung jeder Art und durch Hergabe von Geld und Gut in den Dienst der Vaterlandes! Berlin, den 1. August 1914.’ From: Rachel Heuberger en Helgo Krohn. Hinaus aus dem ghetto…Juden in Frankfurt am Main 1800-1950 (Frankfurt am Main, 1988), p. 130.
5 Melissa Müller, Anne Frank. De biografie (Amsterdam, 1998), p. 27. Original German edition: Das Mädchen Anne Frank. Die Biographie . English edition: Anne Frank. The Biography (Macmillan, 2013).
6 Max C. van der Glas, email dated 22 December 2010.
7 Rachel Heuberger and Helgo Krohn. Hinaus aus dem ghetto…Juden in Frankfurt am Main 1800-1950 (Frankfurt am Main, 1988), p. 147.
8 http://www.freebase.com/view/en/herbert_frank .
9 http://www.freebase.com/view/m/073jm1t .