Childhood

Margot Betti Frank was born in Frankfurt am Main on 16 February 1926. Her middle name Betti was in memory of her mother Edith’s sister who had died in 1914 at the age of 16.

At the time of Margot’s birth, the Frank family lived in Otto’s parents’ house in the Westend district of Frankfurt with their grandmother, Alice Frank, and the family of Otto’s sister Leni.

Margot was a happy, uncomplicated child who was known as “little angel” by those around her. She was a shy, serious, and well-behaved child with striking large dark eyes.

Edith and with newborn Margot, Aachen, 26 June 1926. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel

Growing up in an open home

In mid-1927, Edith and Otto Frank with two-year-old Margot moved into a spacious rented apartment in Marbachstrasse, in a residential Frankfurt area. The house had a garden where the neighbourhood children met for playing. Two years later, in 1929, her younger sister Anne was born. Edith and Otto educated their daughters along progressive lines, by supporting and furthering their development. The neighbourhood children also felt at home at the Franks’.

Margot (far left) with neighbourhood children in the garden in Marbachweg, Frankfurt, July 1929. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel

Margot (centre) with neighbourhood children, Frankfurt, July 1929. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel

Good pupil

In 1932, Margot started school at a public school in the immediate vicinity of her home. Here Protestant, Catholic and Jewish girls from various social classes came together; the headmaster was well-known as a reformist educator.

At the same time, the financial situation of the Frank family became difficult and their neighbourhood was increasingly targeted by members of the Nazi party (NSPAD) who marched through the streets chanting anti-Semitic slogans. In 1933, they moved to a smaller, cheaper apartment in Ganghoferstrasse in what is still known as the «Dichterviertel» (poets’ quarter). Margot had to change schools.

Margot on her first day at school, 6 April 1932. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel

She had a close circle of friends. She regularly attended the liberal synagogue with her mother and joined the Zionist youth organisation Makkabi Hazair in 1940.

Leaving Frankfurt

On 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of the Reich. One month later the Nazis unleashed the state terror against opponents, left-wing proponents, liberals, intellectuals and Jews. Children were not spared either: after the 1933 Easter holidays, Jewish children were allocated separate benches at school to segregate them from the “Aryan” pupils. Otto and Edith were hugely concerned about their future as a family and in particular about their children. They decided to leave Germany. While Otto Frank tried to build a new livelihood for his family in Amsterdam, Edith, Margot and Anne moved in with Edith’s mother, Rosa Holländer, in Aachen. In late December 1933, Edith followed her husband to Amsterdam with Margot who started at her new school in January. Anne was brought to Amsterdam six weeks later.

Margot in Amsterdam in December 1935. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel

Despite initial problems with the Dutch language, Margot became a star pupil in Amsterdam, too, and enjoyed rowing and playing tennis in her spare time.

Margot, Amsterdam 1935. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel

She had a close circle of friends. She regularly attended the liberal synagogue with her mother and joined the Zionist youth organisation Makkabi Hazair in 1940.

Margot (second from left, wearing sunglasses) playing tennis, Amsterdam, 1941. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel

Margot on the beach, Zandvoort, July 1938. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel

Life in occupied Amsterdam

After the German army occupied the Netherlands in May 1940, the situation for Jews in Amsterdam also became increasingly restricted and threatening. Here, too, in autumn 1941 Jewish pupils were segregated and Margot and Anne started attending the Jewish Lyceum.

Margot in Merwedeplein, Amsterdam, 1939. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel

Early summer 1942 sees the start of the systematic deportation of Jews from the Netherlands. On 5 July 1942, Margot is one of the first to receive a summons for “labour duty in Germany”. The summons is compulsory and means separation from the family and deportation to a concentration camp. Otto and Edith are aware of the summons’ meaning and act immediately: the following day, the Frank family goes into hiding in the secret annex of Otto Frank’s company building.

Jetteke Frida, Margot’s best friend, on the differences between the sisters. © Anne Frank Fonds/AVE

In the secret annex

Margot is sixteen years old when she goes into hiding. Together with Anne, her parents, the van Pels family and Fritz Pfeffer, she spends more than two years in the secret annex, supported and looked after by former employees of Otto Frank’s. Everyday life is strictly structured around the working day in the spice warehouse below the secret annex: during work hours there must not be any activities that cause noise. Margot and Anne diligently pursue their learning so that they will be able to continue with their education after liberation. In the evenings, the girls also help with office tasks. At first the girls share a bedroom, but once Fritz Pfeffer moves in to the secret annex, Margot sleeps in her parents’ room.

Margot, shortly before going into hiding, Amsterdam, May 1942. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel

Margot in the diary

At the beginning of the diary, in particular, Anne describes her sister Margot in a more distanced manner and emphasises the differences between them:

«I confess that I have absolutely no desire to be like Margot. She’s too weak-willed and passive to suit me; she lets herself be swayed by others and always gives way under pressure. I want to have more backbone!»

Diary, 5 February 1943

Anne writes that Margot’s character resembles that of her mother Edith, that she rarely loses control, that she is disciplined and clever. Anne, who loves theatre and films and would like to become a writer, finds it hard to understand her sister’s more modest goals. Margot wants to be a maternity nurse in Palestine after the war.

Anne resents when her father appears to favour Margot:

«When I see him being partial to Margot, approving Margot’s every action, praising her, hugging her, I feel a gnawing ache inside, because I’m mad about him. I model myself on Father, and there’s no one in the world I love more. He doesn’t realize that he treats Margot differently from me: Margot just happens to be the cleverest, the kindest, the prettiest and the best. But I have a right to be taken seriously too. I’ve always been the clown and mischief-maker of the family; I’ve always had to pay double for my sins: once with scoldings and then again with my own sense of despair. I’m no longer satisfied with the meaningless affection or the supposedly serious talks. I long for something from Father that he’s incapable of giving. I’m not jealous of Margot; I never have been. I’m not envious of her brains or her beauty. It’s just that I’d like to feel that Father really loves.»

Diary, 30 October 1943

However, time and again, there are episodes in the diary where the closeness of the two sisters becomes apparent, for example when they are lying under a blanket together and reading. The relationship changes in particular during the second year in the secret annex: Anne starts to open up to Margot and finds in her an ally who is pleased about her little sister being close to and in love with Peter van Pels.

«Margot’s much nicer. She seems a lot different from what she used to be. She’s not nearly as catty these days and is becoming a real friend. She no longer thinks of me as a little baby who doesn’t count.»

Diary, 12 January 1944

Margot also kept a diary during her time in the secret annex, but it has never been found.

Arrest and deportation

On 4 August 1944,SSOberscharführer Karl Silberbauer and Dutch members of the Nazi Security Service burst into the secret annex and arrest the eight people in hiding there. They are taken to the Westerbork transit camp and one month later deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on the last transport out of Westerbork. After a three-day journey in cattle wagons, the women are separated from the men on arrival in Auschwitz. Margot and Anne remain with their mother for the first eight weeks. When Anne is moved to what is known as the scabies block, Margot goes with her sister.

Between late October and early November, the two girls are separated from their mother and transported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where there is no space for the many new detainees. Margot and Anne sleep in tents which do not withstand the winter storms, and are given hardly anything to eat. During the day they rip the soles off old shoes. Both are weak and run a high fever; they lie next to each other in the sick barracks. Margot dies first, Anne dies a few days later. It is presumed that they die in late February 1945, ultimately from typhus.