Letters from Anne Frank's father surface


WASHINGTON (AFP) - Desperate letters written by the father of Anne Frank, the teenager whose diary of hiding from Nazis documented the horror of Jews during World War II, have surfaced in the United States and will be released next month.


Otto Frank wrote the letters in 1941 in a despairing effort to get his family out of Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, before finally hiding the family, including Anne, in secret rooms in an Amsterdam office building for two years until they were betrayed, Time magazine said Thursday.

The family was sent to Nazi prison camps where Anne, her sister Margot, and their mother Edith died before the war's end. But Otto Frank survived and returned to Amsterdam where he recovered his daughter's diary of their time hiding from the Nazis.

He had it published and eventually, under the title "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl," it turned into a best-seller in the United States and other countries.

In 1959 a movie was made from the book, "The Diary of Anne Frank."

The sheaf of Otto Frank's letters, about 80 documents in total, show him seeking escape routes to Spain, exit visas from Paris and help to get to the United States or Cuba, all in vain.

They were discovered by a researcher at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research two years ago. But concerns over copyright and other legal issues compelled YIVO to keep their existence quiet until now, Time said. The New York Institute will release the letters on February 14, it said.

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