When did he die in the movie? Is it when the SS or whatever they're called did a round up of jews and made them sit down on their knees and put both their hands up? OH and about Otto Frank, if he participated in World War l then why didin't he register as a Veteran? He could've saved his family. Now that I think about it I say "what an *beep*
shareHello didn't die. In August 1942, a month after the Franks went into hiding, he was caught in a round up of Jews but managed to escape. When the next round up came he managed to hide behind a wardrobe in his grandparents house. But then he had to run away or go into hiding. He managed to hide in Belgium throughout the war. After the war Hello emigrated to the USA and he still lives there today but he now calls himself Ed Siberburg.
Here is an interview with him on American TV from 2007:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbpYDwOQ1dE
Otto Frank probably didn't register as a Veteran because a) he might not have known the Nazis were planning on giving them 'better' conditions or most probably b) because many Jewish people at that time didn't trust what the Nazis told them (and rightly so).
When the SS Officer asked Otto 'why didn't you tell us you served in WW1? You could have been sent to Theresienstadt.' it sounds like this camp was luxury in comparison to the others, when in fact this was just another of their mind games and just not true.
Theresienstad was used as a ghetto and then became a concentration camp. At the beginning of the 'Final Solution' the Nazis filmed a propaganda film there, showing the 'excellent' conditions in the camps and aimed to fool the Red Cross into thinking that people were being treated fairly and they were healthy.
Around 144,000 Jewish people were sent to Theresiestadt and at the end of the war there was only 17,247 survivors. If the Frank family were sent to Theresienstadt in 1942 instead of going into hiding, I think they would have had the same, if not a bigger chance of perishing in the Holocaust as they did when they were arrested in hiding, and there probably would have been many transports from Theresienstadt to extermination camps like Auschwitz too.
exactly - Theresenstadt wasn't an isle of paradise for Jews during WWII. It was just as likely that the others would've died there too.
Actually, if you go through Anne's whole story, there are SO many incidents of if only.
1. Otto's relative offered to take the girls for a while right before the invasion. Otto refused - wanted to keep them together
2. There WAS a steamer that was there - somewhere in Northern Holland that was ready to transport people to England. They didn't even try for it - if they knew - because Edith's mother was there with them and was extremely sick with cancer. There was no way to do it with her.
3. The enrollment - and this goes for ALL Jews. If the Jewish population DIDN'T register, there'd have been no way to really collect them all . . . . but they did.
4. Apparently, according to Muller's biography, there was some discussion amongst the helpers about the safety of those in hiding. There was an idea of whether or not to get Margot and Anne out of there.
5. If their betrayal hadn't taken place WHEN it had - maybe a few more days or so later, maybe they would have missed the final trains out of Holland, and would've been able to stay in Westerbork until the liberation.
6. Edith and Margot had a chance to get out of Auschwitz, on that transport to a munitions camp. Most of the women who went on that transport survived.
It's just a sad comment on the almosts and what-ifs in their lives - and many others. . .
Yes, you can look at Theresienstadt as being comparable to Westerbork. The camp itself wasn't tremendously deadly, but the transports out of the camp primarily went to the death camps.
The "if onlys" are very sad to contemplate. Had Peter van Pels stayed in Auschwitz, it is almost certain he would have survived. Had August van Pels not gone on the transfer from Bergen-Belsen, she may well have made it to liberation. The factory/work camps are very interesting, because they varied greatly with treatment of the prisoners. In some, nearly all of the prisoners survived (and were treated comparatively much more humanely), while in others, all of the prisoners were shot or somehow otherwise killed prior to liberation.
It is sad that most of the people who had hidden in the Secret Annex came so close to surviving until liberation and in many cases only died days before liberation...Not that that would have guaranteed long-term survival due to their deteriorated health, but making it until liberation could have feasibly at least given them a greater sense of hope and resolve to live.
Hello died last year.
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