Otto Frank
Otto Frank was bornon 12 May 1889 in Frankfurt am Main, German Empire, Swiss, German, Dutch, is Father of Anne Frank. Otto Heinrich ‘Pim’ Frank, popularly known as Otto Frank, was a Jewish-German businessman who had to go through the devastating violence at the hands of German Nazis. He lost all of his family to the mass massacre of the Nazi concentration camps—his wife and two daughters - Margot and Anne. Frank was an exceptionally good businessman who started off working in a bank in Germany and then flew off to America for a few years for work. He took part in World War I and then opened his own business in Holland, where he took his family along. As soon as the tyranny of German army started, Frank hid his family in a secret annex over his office in Holland. But a few years later they were caught and sent to concentration camps. He was the only one who survived. Later he found out that all this while when his family was hidden in that office, his youngest daughter Anne was maintaining a journal, penning down the pain and experiences that she and her family was going through. He decided to publish the journal, after turning it into a single manuscript, so that everyone in the world can reflect upon the sadness of the whole incident, through his daughter’s words.
Frank died in 1980 in Basel, Switzerland, due to lung cancer
The place of their hiding was considered for demolition but Frank and his friend Johannes Kleiman founded the Anne Frank Foundation in 1957 and restored the building and opened a museum there, under the name of ‘Anne Frank House’
He remarried in 1953 to Fritzi Markovits and the couple shifted to Switzerland for good
In 1952, ‘Het Achterhuis’ was translated into English successfully, which is responsible for its eventual theatrical portrayal and a film version
Frank’s life’s most important work has been editing his daughter Anne’s dairy into a manuscript for its subsequent publication in 1946
In 1945, Anne’s journal was handed to Frank by Miep Gies who salvaged the manuscript from the raided secret hiding
In 1944, Frank family’s safe haven was invaded by the Gestapo and the whole family was arrested and sent to the Westerbork transit concentration camp and later to the Auschwitz concentration camp
Frank had to appoint his Dutch colleagues as the owners of the firm and in 1942, his elder daughter got an official letter that expected her to join a work camp
In 1940, Holland was invaded by Germany and Jews were prohibited to run their own businesses
In 1936, he founded his own company ‘Opekta Company’ and became its director
Frank married his first wife Edith Hollander in 1925
Soon, Frank was taken into the German Military in 1914 and was stationed at the Western front where he earned the rank of lieutenant
In 1911, Frank returned back to his homeland and started working in a company that manufactured window frames and later during World War I, he took up a job with a manufacturer of horseshoes for the German army
