We are still holding hands, even outside on Ludlow Street, then Eighteenth. As we walk we laugh and talk about the future, our breath frosting beautiful circles in the winter night.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The first time I read THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL, I was thirteen. As an American teenager in the early 1990s—even a Jewish one—I didn’t think the book would have much to do with me. That is, until I read it. I was the same age as Anne was when she wrote the diary, a writer, a dreamer, Jewish—had I lived fifty years earlier in Europe, I might have been the one writing the diary in hiding. It was a terrifying thought.
Nearly twenty years later, I picked up the diary again, and this time, as I read it, I was struck by something entirely different. Anne Frank had an older sister, Margot, who also kept a diary in the annex. I realized I didn’t really remember Margot from my earlier teenage reading of Anne’s diary, but as an older sister myself, I was interested in what happened to her, in how her experience in the annex was different from Anne’s, and what their sister relationship was like. So I set out to learn more about Margot, only to discover that virtually all that is known of her today is the little that Anne wrote within the pages of her diary. (Margot’s diary, unlike Anne’s, was never recovered after the war.) I began to wonder about the two sisters, both of whom were teenagers during the Holocaust, both Jews, both hiding in the annex, both keeping diaries. How is it that one sister and her diary have, in the aftermath, become an icon of the Holocaust, a symbol for a whole generation, while the other sister is today virtually unknown? And thus the idea for Margot was born.
Though this book is a work of fiction, and the Margot Frank/Margie Franklin within these pages is my own creation, I drew loosely from historical fact for some of the scenes and people surrounding the annex, as well as for Margot/Margie’s character.
In July of 1942, sixteen-year-old Margot Frank received a call-up notice from the Germans to report to a forced-labor camp, and Otto Frank quickly took the family into hiding in the annex above his office at 263 Prinsengracht, sooner than he’d originally planned, in order to prevent Margot from going. The Frank family—Edith, Otto, Anne, and Margot—were soon joined by the van Pelses—Hermann, Auguste, and their son, Peter. Later they were also joined by a dentist, Fritz Pfeffer, and when he came to the annex, Margot left the room she shared with her sister to sleep in their parents’ room while Anne shared a room with Mr. Pfeffer. Peter brought his cat, Mouschi, to the annex, while Margot and Anne were forced to leave their own cat, Moortje, behind.
As described by Anne in her diary, Margot was the older, quieter, more responsible sister. Anne often teased Margot, calling her a “paragon of virtue.” Margot was highly intelligent, and used her time in the annex to further her studies. (Among many other things, Margot really did learn shorthand in the annex.) Anne also mentions the annex members’ weights at one point in her diary, and Margot did weigh 132 pounds then, though there are also several mentions in the diary of Margot not eating enough.
Some episodes in the annex that Margie remembers here are also based on things Anne wrote about in her diary. For instance, Anne and Margot did lie cramped together in Anne’s bed and read each other’s diaries. Margot did listen in to a business meeting for her father while Anne fell asleep on the floor beside her, but Margie’s memory of Otto praising Anne for her notes is fictional. The burglary Margie recounts in the annex also happened on several occasions, though Peter’s coming to find Margot in the middle of the night is fictional.
One of the things I distinctly remembered from my earlier teenage reading of the diary was Anne’s relationship with Peter. But rereading the diary many years later, I noticed that while Anne wrote of her own growing feelings for Peter, she also wrote and wondered about whether Margot might like him too. Which led me to also wonder: how might Margot have felt about Peter, and how might Peter have felt about her? Without Margot’s diary, I’m not sure we’ll ever know the true answers to those questions. In reality, I don’t know how close they were, how much they liked each other, or if they did at all. The idea that they spent time together at night in Peter’s room, that Peter told Margot they would be together after the war and go to Philadelphia, is all completely fictional. However, the idea that Peter would not want people to know he was Jewish after the war is based on what Anne wrote about him in her diary.
Margie Franklin refers to specifics from her sister’s diary here, and I have tried to keep these things consistent with the actual diary, although I (and Margie) conveniently leave some pieces out. For instance, Anne does write that she is not in love with Peter at one point in her diary (though I, and Margie, leave out the part where later on she wonders if she might be).
The reality of Margot Frank’s teenage life just before the family’s move to the annex remains, for the most part, a mystery to me, and the majority of what I’ve included here is fictional. The Frank family really did live on the Merwedeplein, and Anne and Margot attended the Jewish Lyceum, where Margot did very well academically. However, Margot’s first diary, Maria, and the boy named Johann are fictional. The scene where Margot is approached by the Green Police on the Prinsengracht shortly before she was called up did not, to the best of my knowledge, happen. Though I found a photograph of the Frank family at the beach in happier times, the scene here where Margie remembers her last beach vacation with Anne is fictional.
The inhabitants of the annex were found in hiding in August 1944, though I took fictional liberties with what they were doing in those last moments before they were discovered. They were taken to Westerbork in Holland, then, in September, they were transferred to Auschwitz in Poland, where the men and women were separated. Anne, Margot, and Edith were given tattoos, though the scene here that Margie remembers is fictional. Their exact tattoo numbers are not known today, but they are thought to have been between A-25060 and A-25271.
Though Anne and Margot were transported from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen in the fall of 1944, all the details here of Margot’s escaping from the Nazis are entirely fictional. The real Margot Frank made it to Bergen-Belsen and succumbed to typhus there a few days before Anne in March of 1945. Both were buried in a mass grave. Peter van Pels died in Mauthausen in May of 1945, just before the camp was liberated.
Thus the characters and situations Margot/Margie encounters after she escapes the Nazis are all fictional. There was no Sister Brigitta, Eduard, or Ilsa, and no Judischausen synagogue. In Margie’s Philadelphia world, all the characters, situations, and places are fictional with the exception of many of the street names and a few locations such as Fairmount Park, Reading Terminal Market, Robin’s Books, John Wanamaker’s, Levittown, and Margate, which are or were real places in and around the Philadelphia area.
The incidents of anti-Semitism that Margie describes in Philadelphia in the 1950s are historically accurate. In May of 1954, a flaming flare was nailed to a door accompanied by anti-Semitic language; in April of 1954, a gang of hoodlums was arrested for committing anti-Semitic attacks against Jewish kids; and in October 1953, a firebomb was thrown into a synagogue. However, I read about the incidents in the archives of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (not in the Inquirer, as Margie does). The incident Margie mentions reading about of swastikas on synagogues in 1959 is not based on one specific incident in Philadelphia, but on several articles and accounts from that time period recording Jewish places being defiled with swastikas.
In reality, Otto Frank was the only one from the annex to have survived the concentration camps, and after he returned to Amsterdam and learned that his daughters were dead, Miep Gies gave him Anne’s diary, which she had rescued from the annex. Anne’s diary was originally published in Dutch in 1947, then in English in 1952. The book was followed by the play in 1955, and the American movie The Diary of Anne Frank, in 1959, which won three Oscars. Mr. Frank married Elfriede “Fritzi” Markovits Geiringer, and they settled in Switzerland.
While writing this book
, I read countless books and articles, visited Web sites, and watched several movies in an attempt to glean everything I possibly could about Margot and the people of her world. I read and reread (and reread again!) The Diary of a Young Girl, both the definitive edition and the version that Margie would’ve read in 1959, as well as watched the 1959 movie that Margie talks about in the book. Additionally I read Anne Frank: the Book, the Life, the Afterlife by Francine Prose, and Anne Frank Remembered: The Story of the Woman Who Helped to Hide the Frank Family by Miep Gies and Alison Leslie Gold. (The epigraph quote about Margot came from “Afterword: My 100th Birthday” in Gies and Gold’s book.) The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Web site and the Anne Frank House Museum Web site were especially helpful. Any inaccuracies, mistakes, or fictionalizations within these pages—intentional or not—are entirely my own.
In the end, neither Margie Franklin nor I know what actually happened to Margot Frank’s diary from the annex. What I do know is that what happened to these two sisters, their family, their friends, and so many other Jews is something that still terrifies, horrifies, and haunts me. And that, most of all, is why I wrote this book. In creating Margot/Margie here, I wanted to give back what was stolen from her, even if only in a fictional world: her voice, her life, her happy ending.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
An enormous thank-you to my agent, Jessica Regel, without whose encouragement and support, I’m entirely sure I never would’ve written this book. I am so grateful for her comments, ideas, and wisdom on countless drafts, as well as her continued unfailing belief in me and my work. I’m so lucky to have her in my corner, always! Thank you also to the amazing team at JVNLA, who truly are the best, especially Tara Hart, Laura Biagi, and Jennifer Weltz, to whom I am indebted for her invaluable early feedback.
I feel so incredibly fortunate that this book found its way into the very wise and capable hands of my editor at Riverhead Books, Laura Perciasepe. Her unparalleled enthusiasm for this story and her brilliant edits and insights have made her an absolute joy to work with. I am deeply grateful for her guidance and support, as well as that of the entire team at Riverhead, who gave this book a home and brought it through every step of the publication process in the best possible way, with extra thanks to publicists Leslie Schwartz, Craig Burke, Fiona Brown, and Meagan Brown. Thank you also to the team at Orlando for giving this book a home in the Netherlands, and especially Jacqueline Smit for her early insights.
I’m very grateful to have a network of friends and family who offer unlimited support. Thank you especially to Maureen Lipinski and Laura Fitzgerald, whose encouragement kept me going in the early stages of writing this book; Monica Tufo, BFF extraordinaire; and Rachel Fogarty, the reason why I tell stories about sisters. Thank you to Ronna and Alan Cantor, my parents, who always encouraged me to follow my dreams and never give up. And an extra thank-you to my dad for helping with the Philadelphia details. Any mistakes here are mine, not his.
Thank you to my husband, Gregg Goldner, who always believes, listens, loves unconditionally, and insists I find the time to disappear into a fictional world. And to my children, who make all my stories worth telling, but most especially, this one.
Jillian Cantor has a BA in English from Penn State University and an MFA from the University of Arizona, where she was also a recipient of the national Jacob K. Javits Fellowship. The author of several books for teens and adults, she grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia. She currently lives in Arizona with her husband and two sons. Visit her online at www.jilliancantor.com.
Margot Page 25
