Auguste van Pels

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Auguste van Pels , b. Röttgen, (born September 29, 1900 in Buer ; † April 9, 1945 in / near Raguhn , on the transport to Theresienstadt ) was a German-Dutch victim of National Socialism . She was one of the eight people in hiding in the Secret Annex who became world famous through Anne Frank's diary .

Life

Prinsengracht 263, in the back of which Auguste van Pels was hiding
Stumbling block for Auguste van Pels in Osnabrück

Auguste Röttgen was born on September 29, 1900 in Buer, a current district of Gelsenkirchen , as the daughter of a businessman. She was of Jewish faith and met Hermann van Pels , also a Jewish Dutchman , whom she married on December 5, 1925. When she got married, she automatically assumed Dutch citizenship , but never spoke the language well. As recently as 1942, Anne Frank reported in her diary that her mother Edith Frank-Holländer and Auguste van Pels “speak terrible Dutch”. The van Pels couple moved to Osnabrück and moved into an apartment at Martinistraße 67a. Their son, Peter van Pels , was born on November 8, 1926 and remained the couple's only child.

The van Pels family fled from the National Socialists to the Netherlands on June 26, 1937 and moved into an apartment in Amsterdam on the Zuider Amstellaan. From 1938 Hermann van Pels worked for Otto Frank's company Pectacon . Auguste and Hermann van Pels were friends with the Franks outside of work and were frequent guests at the family's Saturday afternoon coffee. From the summer of 1941, both families created a hiding place in the back of the Otto Franks company in the event that a family member was threatened with deportation . They had already met their future assistant Miep Gies at the afternoon teas , whom van Pels described in retrospect as a "pretty ..., a little coquettish ... woman".

On July 5, 1942, Edith Frank-Holländer accepted an obligation addressed to her daughter Margot to work in Germany. She immediately informed the van Pels family that they now had to go into hiding as quickly as possible, even if the hiding place in the rear building was not yet finished. While the Frank family went into hiding on July 6, 1942, the van Pels family followed on July 13. A little later, dentist Fritz Pfeffer joined as the eighth refugee. Auguste and Hermann van Pels lived in a room on the second floor. During the day, her bedroom served as a dining room and lounge for all those in hiding. The van Pels family's apartment on Zuider Amstellaan was only cleared out by the National Socialists in October 1942. "We haven't told Ms. van Daan yet, she's already been so 'nervous' lately, and we don't feel like listening to the moaning about her beautiful service and the fine armchairs that stayed at home", Anne Frank noted in her diary on October 29, 1942.

Van Pels was considered an extrovert, “a dominant woman, moody and flirtatious too” - an image that was passed down primarily through the subjective portrayal in Anne Frank's diary. Melissa Müller also rated van Pels in her book Das Mädchen Anne Frank as completely inexperienced in matters of parenting. For example, the mother locked her son Peter van Pels in the attic in the event of a dispute or beat him. In other questions about her education she turned to Edith Frank-Holländer for help. Again and again there were violent disputes between Auguste and Hermann van Pels, which were fought out in front of everyone present, but which were also followed by exuberant reconciliations. When those in hiding had spent a long time in the Secret Annex and the mood became more pessimistic, van Pels repeatedly vented their increasing despair with attacks of hysterics and threatened "loudly with suicide - sometimes by hanging up, sometimes with a bullet through the head". In October 1943, money worries meant that van Pels had to sell her fur coat.

On August 4, 1944, those in hiding were betrayed and arrested. Auguste van Pels was like the other seven people in hiding from the Westerbork transit camp to Auschwitz-Birkenau deported. She was one of 442 women on the transport and survived the selection on September 6, 1944 as one of 212 women, including Edith, Margot and Anne Frank. Between October and November 1944, van Pels was probably deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp together with Anne and Margot Frank . The three women kept in contact with each other in the camp. At the beginning of February 1945, Van Pels met a woman she knew from earlier times in the concentration camp, who in turn was in contact with Hannah Goslar . The woman told Goslar that other Dutch people were in the camp, including Anne Frank, her childhood friend from school. She should try to call Anne on the barbed wire. Looking back, Pick-Goslar wrote in her memoirs:

“Of course I did. In the evening I stood by the barbed wire and started calling a little, and it happened that Frau van Daan was really there again. I asked her, 'Can you call Anne?' She said: 'Yes, yes, wait a minute, I'll get Anne, I can't get Margot, she is terminally ill and is in bed.' "

- Hannah Pick-Goslar 1997

Anne Frank and Hannah Goslar met several times at the fence and Goslar was able to throw a small package of food over the fence once. On February 6, 1945, van Pels was deported to the Raguhn subcamp , a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp . She died on April 9, 1945 while being transported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp .

Stumbling blocks in front of the van Pels family home in Osnabrück have been a reminder of the family since November 15, 2007 .

Anne Frank's diary

The Diary of Anne Frank , which the girl had written especially during the time of immersion, was published in 1947 by her father Otto Frank for the first time. When the diary was being rewritten, probably in May 1944, Anne Frank had given all eight people in hiding pseudonyms . Auguste van Pels became “Petronella van Daan”. Often, however, Anne Frank calls her "Madame" rather disparagingly in her diary.

On July 11, 1942, Frank reported on their anticipation for the arrival of the van Pels family: “I am very much looking forward to the arrival of the van Daans, which is scheduled for Tuesday. It will be much more cozy and also less quiet. ”The arrival of Auguste van Pels made Frank amused:“ Ms. van Daan had a chamber pot in her hat box, to our great pleasure. 'I don't feel at home anywhere without a chamber pot,' she explained, and the pot got its permanent place under the sofa bed. "

Already on September 2, 1942, Frank reported disputes between Auguste and Hermann van Pels ("Mr and Mrs Daan had a violent argument. I have never experienced anything like this, because father and mother would never think of yelling at each other like that") and of a bad relationship between Edith Frank-Holländer and Auguste van Pels. The first complaints about Mrs. van Pels appear on September 21, 1942: “Mrs. van Daan is unbearable. I keep getting lecture notes from above because I talk too much. But I don't care about her words! ”In the following years there were repeated complaints about van Pels, whom Frank described in the diary as moody and“ little, crazy, stupid woman ”. She was particularly annoyed by Auguste van Pels' "Attempts to flirt with father [Otto Frank]. She strokes his cheek and hair, pulls her skirt up very high, says things that she thinks are funny, and tries to get Pim's attention. ”When van Pels squeezed or even broke an upper rib during gymnastics , Frank commented on this just as smugly ("This is what happens when older (!) women do such extremely idiotic gymnastic exercises to get rid of their big butts!"), as she described van Pels' dental treatment by the eighth person in hiding, Fritz Pfeffer .

Only rarely - especially in times of increasing conflicts with her mother and Fritz Pfeffer - did Frank see the positive aspects of van Pels and, for example, wrote in December 1942: "[...] you have to say that, she is extraordinarily hardworking and orderly, and for as long as she is in good physical and mental condition, also happy. "

Auguste van Pels in the film

The Diary of Anne Frank has been filmed several times. The following actresses took on the role of Auguste van Pels in the films:

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 1890 according to the deportation list and Otto H. Frank, Mirjam Pressler (ed.): Anne Frank Tagebuch . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1998, p. 7; Information on yadvashem.org and annefrank.org 1900.
  2. ↑ Auguste van Pels, née Röttgen, does not come from Buer near Melle, but from Buer near Gelsenkirchen
  3. ↑ Miep Gies wrote in her memoir that Hermann van Pels was "married to a German Jewess". Compare Miep Gies: My time with Anne Frank . 9th edition. Heyne, Munich 1996, p. 43.
  4. ↑ Otto H. Frank, Mirjam Pressler (ed.): Anne Frank diary . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1998, p. 47.
  5. ↑ Melissa Müller: The girl Anne Frank. The biography . Claassen, Munich 1998, p. 136.
  6. ^ Miep Gies: My time with Anne Frank . 9th edition. Heyne, Munich 1996, p. 44.
  7. ↑ Otto H. Frank, Mirjam Pressler (ed.): Anne Frank diary . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1998, p. 70.
  8. ↑ Melissa Müller: The girl Anne Frank. The biography . Claassen, Munich 1998, p. 291.
  9. ↑ Melissa Müller: The girl Anne Frank. The biography . Claassen, Munich 1998, p. 270.
  10. ↑ Hannah Elisabeth Pick Gooslar . In: Willy Lindwer: Anne Frank. The last seven months. Eyewitnesses report . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1997, p. 46.
  11. ↑ Otto H. Frank, Mirjam Pressler (ed.): Anne Frank diary . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1998, p. 39.
  12. ↑ Otto H. Frank, Mirjam Pressler (ed.): Anne Frank diary . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1998, p. 43.
  13. ↑ Otto H. Frank, Mirjam Pressler (ed.): Anne Frank diary . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1998, p. 46.
  14. ↑ Otto H. Frank, Mirjam Pressler (ed.): Anne Frank diary . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1998, p. 49.
  15. ↑ Otto H. Frank, Mirjam Pressler (ed.): Anne Frank diary . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1998, p. 58.
  16. ↑ Otto H. Frank, Mirjam Pressler (ed.): Anne Frank diary . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1998, p. 60.
  17. ^ Anne Frank on December 10, 1942; Otto H. Frank, Mirjam Pressler (eds.): Anne Frank diary . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1998, p. 87.
  18. ↑ Otto H. Frank, Mirjam Pressler (ed.): Anne Frank diary . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1998, pp. 87-88.
  19. ↑ Otto H. Frank, Mirjam Pressler (ed.): Anne Frank diary . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1998, p. 90.
personal data
SURNAME Pels, Auguste van
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Daan, Auguste van (pseudonym); Röttgen, Auguste (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Dutch victim of National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH 29th September 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Buer
DATE OF DEATH April 9, 1945
Place of death at Raguhn