Frank Family That Survived

Told by the grandson of the head of the family, this is the gripping odyssey of another Frank family from the deceptively good life of Berlin in the 1920s, through the rise of Hitler and their flight to apparently safe Holland, the nightmarish ordeal of their thousand-day-long "submersion" in a small apartment in The Hague, to the joy and pain of liberation and their final journey to America, the same route Anne Frank might have taken had she not been betrayed. Based on personal testaments, records, and family interviews, the book describes their life behind closed curtains in constant fear of discovery. In 1945, after many adventures and appalling vicissitudes, they finally emerged to face the uncertainties of postwar Holland and the promise of the New World. Both a history and a memoir, this extensively researched book gives the first account of the war in Holland, the occupation, and the resistance (including the Jewish resistance) to be published for several years. Despite that resistance, and the help of the Dutch citizens who sheltered their Jewish neighbors, most of Dutch Jewry was destroyed.

"An extraordinary tale of survival—part family memoir, part history—in which the author's passion and judgment are finely balanced. Gordon Sander's grandfather Myrtil Frank took his wife Flory and daughters into hiding in the Netherlands in July 1942, just as Otto Frank did at around the same time. . . . This book explains, in a way that Anne Frank could never have done, the context of what happened to her and others like her. It is an indispensable contribution to a dark subject. . . . Sander has produced a sensitive, insightful, and gripping tribute to their horrible ordeal."—Sunday Express, "Excellent. . . . Gordon Sander gives a fascinating and moving account of the remarkable story of another Dutch family called Frank who also went into hiding in July 1942."—The Jewish News, "Anyone who has thrilled to the story of Anne Frank will want to read this book. . . . The tensions roused by the gripping narrative reflect the complexities of war, history, and fate."—Arthur Schlesinger Jr., "Gordon Sander's book will appeal to anyone who was moved by Anne's diary, answering as it does the oft-asked question of what might have become of Anne Frank had she survived. It also is beautifully written."—Carol Ann Lee, author of The Hidden Life of Otto Frank

Gordon F. Sander is a journalist and historian who has written for the New York Times and the Financial Times. He is the author of The Frank Family That Survived and Serling: The Rise and Twilight of TV's Last Angry Man, both from Cornell.