Shortly after the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938, the Geiringer family immigrated to Belgium and finally to the Netherlands. In Amsterdam, the family lived across the road from the Franks. Otto Frank, with an eye to the future, had left Germany in 1933 and was working as the managing director of the Dutch Opekta Company, a pectin and spice company. In “No Asylum,” Eva Geiringer Schloss, then eleven years old, fondly recalls how Anne was nicknamed Mrs. Quack-Quack for her incessant chatter. Deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in May 1944, Eva and her mother Elfriede (Fritzi) managed to survive the war. In 1953, Fritzi married Otto Frank who had lost his wife as well as both his daughters. Eva became stepsister to the girl who had lived across the road. Her testimony in “No Asylum” turns history into reality.
Meeting British Major Leonard Berney Major Leonard Berney of the British 11th Armored Division was intensely involved with the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. “Major Berney, who was in LA on a speaking tour, showed up in my living room,” says Fouce, pointing out that all her meetings with her primary information sources were serendipitous. By adding his eye-witness account of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen to her other sources, Fouce knew she had compelling material for her film.
In “No Asylum” we see the horrors of the liberation through the eyes of Major Berney. In April 1945, two surrendering German soldiers told him about a civilian prisoner camp some kilometers ahead. Nothing could have prepared the division for the nightmare they encountered. The major describes how the soldiers found 60,000 starved and ill prisoners. 13,000 unburied corpses lay around the camp; 500 prisoners a day were dying in a terrible typhus outbreak.
Balancing the need to show respect to the victims and, at the same time, show enough to capture the trauma, was a “terrible” task, says Fouce. “We wanted to show as little as possible, but enough to make the point.”
Death Creeps Closer In July 1942, the Franks went into hiding in the upper rear rooms of the Opekta premises. Eight people lived in the cramped quarters for 24 months until they were betrayed. They were taken to the Dutch transit camp of Westerbork and then transported to Auschwitz. While in hiding, Anne wrote the diary that was to immortalize her. “I don’t want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death!” she wrote. Her wish came true.
During the final months of the war, tens of thousands of Jews were evacuated to Bergen-Belsen from Auschwitz and other eastern camps threatened by the advancing Soviets. The camp became severely overcrowded as the number of inmates increased from 15,000 in December 1944 to 42,000 at the beginning of March 1945, and more than 50,000 a month later.
Fouce brings survivor Irene Butter to tell us about meeting Anne in Bergen-Belsen. The lively fifteen-year-old budding author had become a thin figure wrapped in a blanket begging for clothes. Anne and Margot died of typhus in February or March 1945 just weeks before the camp was liberated.
Sole Survivor Otto Frank was the sole survivor of the Frank family. A small monument in Bergen-Belsen commemorates Margot and Anne. Sadly, it does not mark their graves because we don’t know in which of the ten mass graves they were buried.
Anne’s diary, a collection of three books and scattered papers, was found by Miep Gies, one of the righteous people who had helped hide the family. “She was saving it to give to Anne when she returned,” says Eva Schoss, “but three weeks after Otto’s return from Auschwitz, when it became clear that Anne wasn’t coming back, she gave it to Otto.”