Peter van Pels

Peter van Pels (1942)

Peter Aron van Pels (born November 8, 1926 in Osnabrück ; † May 10, 1945 in Mauthausen concentration camp ) was a victim of National Socialism who is mentioned in Anne Frank's diary under the pseudonym Peter van Daan . From July 1942 to August 1944 he hid with Anne Frank and six other Jewish people in hiding in the rear building of Prinsengracht 263 , Amsterdam , today's Anne Frank House .

Life

Prinsengracht 263, where Peter van Pels was hiding

Stumbling blocks of the van Pels family at Martinistraße 67a

Peter van Pels was born in 1926 on Martinistraße in Osnabrück . He was the only child of Hermann van Pels and Auguste van Pels (née Röttgen). After school he did an apprenticeship as a carpenter. The family moved to Amsterdam in June 1937 to escape the anti-Jewish laws in National Socialist Germany .

On July 13, 1942, she went into hiding in the back of the company building of Opekta and Pectacon, Prinsengracht 263, together with Fritz Pfeffer , Otto Frank , Edith Frank-Holländer , Margot Frank and Anne Frank . In Anne Frank's diary, the encounter with Peter, Anne's initial dislike and then developing affection play a central role.

The only surviving piece of furniture from 263 Prinsengracht was probably built by Peter van Pels.

The Gestapo stormed the Secret Annex on August 4, 1944 and arrested the eight people in hiding. Peter van Pels was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp ; it is known from the time of his internment there that he regularly provided Otto Frank with food. During the advance of the Red Army , he was sent on the " death march " on the night of January 17-18, 1945 . The trek in which Peter van Pels was located reached the Austrian Mauthausen concentration camp on January 25, 1945 via various camps . Four days after his arrival, on January 29, 1945, he was taken from the main camp in Mauthausen to one of the satellite camps in Melk . He must have gotten sick there. On April 11, 1945, he was brought back from the Melk "Revier" to the main camp in Mauthausen and was taken to the so-called medical warehouse. His death is dated May 10, 1945, a few days after the concentration camp was liberated. His name appears on this day in the “Abgangsbuch (Tote)” of the Mauthausen Hospital. The same date can be found on a list of the US Army , which in all probability was compiled on the basis of the "exit book". Before the entry in the “exit book” was discovered, the Red Cross had given the day of liberation of the camp, May 5th, as the official date of death, as an alternative to the lack of documents. That is why this date still appears frequently in reports and documents, including the Stolperstein laid for Peter van Pels and in Melissa Müller's biography of Anne Frank.

His father Hermann van Pels was gassed on September 8, 1944 in the Auschwitz concentration camp . His mother Auguste van Pels was taken to several camps and died on April 9, 1945 in Raguhn , a satellite camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp .

In front of the building at Martinistraße 67a in Osnabrück there are stumbling blocks for the van Pels family. They had lived there on the first floor.

Literary reception

Peter van Pels later became the main character in the novel The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank (German translation: The boy who loved Anne Frank , 2005) by Ellen Feldman . In the novel, the love story between Peter and Anne is fictionally embellished. The author also provides Peter with an invented continuation of his life story, in which he survived his imprisonment in a concentration camp, emigrated to the USA and there, in a traumatic way, experienced the rediscovery of his initially suppressed past.

Quotes

Max van Creveld, who lodged with the van Pels family in 1940 and 1941:

“I rented a room with them and we ate together every evening. Ms. van Pels did the cooking herself. We weren't particularly close, for example I didn't know that they wanted to go into hiding. But at that time they kept something like that to themselves. It was a bad time. Mr. van Pels was very kind and so was Mrs. van Pels. Peter was a fine guy. I don't really remember which school he went to, but I still remember that he took part in a course in furniture upholstery. "

Bertel Hess, a cousin of Hermann van Pels:

“I've seen Peter often. He visited his aunt Henny and his grandfather, who had also fled Osnabrück and were now living in Amsterdam. He was a very nice boy, and shy, very shy. He often came to Henny when she had something to fix, carpentry or something, he would do something for her. He was very quiet. "

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Melissa Müller: The girl Anne Frank - The biography. Fischer Diary, 2013, ISBN 978-3-596-18902-1 .
2. ↑ Erika Prins: Onderzoeksverslag naar het verblijf van de eight onderduikers uit het Achterhuis in de kampen . Amsterdam, April 2016, pp. 66–67. Online . See also: Peter van Pels on the website of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam; Erika Prins: Peter van Pels 1926–1945 , online at gedenkstaetten.at. The “exit book” can be viewed online at the Arolsen Archives . The entry can be found in document 1312035.
3. ↑ Erika Prins: Onderzoeksverslag naar het verblijf van de eight onderduikers uit het Achterhuis in de kampen . Amsterdam, April 2016, p. 67. Online .
4. ↑ Melissa Müller: The girl Anne Frank. The biography. Fischer, Frankfurt 2013, p. 382. She writes there: “His death on May 5, 1945 was recorded in the official camp lists - the day on which the Americans liberated the camp. When he actually died remains unclear. ”In the note, she cites information from the International Red Cross from 1958 (see p. 502, note 308).
5. ↑ Ellen Feldman: The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank. DVA, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-421-05878-4 . (Novel based on the historical figure)
6. ↑ ^{a b} See annefrank.org ( Memento from November 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

• Peter van Pels on the website of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam
• The boy who loved Anne Frank (review) on literaturkritik.de