Otto Frank Biography

(German Businessman and Father of ‘Anne Frank', the Author of 'The Diary of a Young Girl’)

Birthday: May 12, 1889 (Taurus)

Born In: Province of Hesse-Nassau

Advanced SearchOtto Heinrich ‘Pim’ Frank, popularly known as Otto Frank, was a Jewish-German businessman who had to go through the devastating violence at the hands of German Nazis. He lost all of his family to the mass massacre of the Nazi concentration camps—his wife and two daughters - Margot and Anne. Frank was an exceptionally good businessman who started off working in a bank in Germany and then flew off to America for a few years for work. He took part in World War I and then opened his own business in Holland, where he took his family along. As soon as the tyranny of German army started, Frank hid his family in a secret annex over his office in Holland. But a few years later they were caught and sent to concentration camps. He was the only one who survived. Later he found out that all this while when his family was hidden in that office, his youngest daughter Anne was maintaining a journal, penning down the pain and experiences that she and her family was going through. He decided to publish the journal, after turning it into a single manuscript, so that everyone in the world can reflect upon the sadness of the whole incident, through his daughter’s words. Quick Facts

German Celebrities Born In May

Also Known As: Otto Heinrich Frank

Died At Age: 91

Family:

Spouse/Ex-: Edith Frank (m. 1925–1945), Elfriede Geiringer (m. 1953–1980)

father: Michael Frank

mother: Alice Stern Frank

children: Anne Frank, Margot Frank

Born Country: Germany

Holocaust Survivors Family Members

Died on: August 19, 1980

place of death: Birsfelden, Switzerland

Ancestry: German Swiss

Diseases & Disabilities: Lung Cancer

Cause of Death: Lung Cancer

More Facts

education: Heidelberg University

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Dutch CelebritiesGerman CelebritiesSwiss CelebritiesBusiness PeopleDutch MenGerman MenSwiss Men Childhood & Early LifeOtto Frank was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, to Michael Frank and Alice Betty Frank. He was born in a Jewish family and had three other siblings—Robert, Herbert and Helene Frank.After finishing his high school studies in Germany, Frank pursued art history at the University of Heidelberg.Continue Reading BelowRecommended Lists:Heidelberg UniversityTaurus EntrepreneursDutch EntrepreneursSwiss Business PeopleCareerFrank did a job at a local bank for a year and side by side he started pursuing economics at a university. It was around this time that he got an opportunity to work in Manhattan, New York.An internship at Macy’s Department store in New York was arranged for him. He became very excited about this opportunity and left for New York but sudden death of his father required him to come back after two weeks.After attending the funeral, Frank again headed back to New York to make a decent living there. He spent two years working there; he worked at the Macy’s and then secured a position at a bank.In 1911, Frank returned back to his homeland and started working in a company that manufactured window frames and later during World War I, he took up a job with a manufacturer of horseshoes for the German army.Soon, Frank was taken into the German Military in 1914 and was stationed at the Western front where he earned the rank of lieutenant. After the war ended, he returned back to his normal civilian life.Frank took over the management of the family bank which his younger brother was looking after until now but was not able to handle it properly. In 1936, he founded his own company ‘Opekta Company’ and became its director.Soon he shifted with his family to Holland to avoid the dangers of growing resistance of Hitler’s army towards the Jews. In 1940, Holland was invaded by Germany and Jews were prohibited to run their own businesses.Frank had to appoint his Dutch colleagues as the owners of the firm and in 1942, his elder daughter got an official letter that expected her to join a work camp. This shook the family and they went into hiding.The whole family hid into a secret annex above Frank’s former office along with other Jews and lived there for two years. This was the time when his youngest daughter Anne started to write a journal on her experiences.Continue Reading Below In 1944, Frank family’s safe haven was invaded by the Gestapo and the whole family was arrested and sent to the Westerbork transit concentration camp and later to the Auschwitz concentration camp.It was at Auschwitz that Frank was separated forever from his wife and his two daughters as he was shifted to men’s barracks and then to sick barracks. He was later released by Soviet troops in 1945.Frank went to Netherlands and tried his best to trace his family and friends but after months of struggling with the search, he finally realized that he was the sole survivor in his family.In 1945, Anne’s journal was handed to Frank by Miep Gies who salvaged the manuscript from the raided secret hiding. Frank did not do anything with it for some time but slowly started to translate it for his relatives.Slowly he found out that Anne’s writing reflected the pain of all the Jews who went through the act of hatred and violence at the hands of Nazis. He considered getting it published.He typed Anne’s dairy into a manuscript and edited the parts that he considered were too private a detail of his family to divulge. He then sent it to the Dutch historian Jan Romein, who evaluated it for ‘Het Parool’.In 1946, Amsterdam’s Contract Publishing took interest in Anne’s dairy and accepted it for publication. In the following year, Anne’s diary’s first edition came out under the title of, ‘Het Achterhuis’ which means ‘The Secret Annex’.In 1952, ‘Het Achterhuis’ was translated into English successfully, which is responsible for its eventual theatrical portrayal and a film version. Besides this, Frank was involved in restoration of the building where his family hid during the war. Recommended Lists:German Business PeopleTaurus MenMajor WorksFrank’s life’s most important work has been editing his daughter Anne’s dairy into a manuscript for its subsequent publication in 1946. He considered it imperative that the world should feel the pain of the Jews through his daughter’s words.Personal Life & LegacyFrank married his first wife Edith Hollander in 1925. The couple was together until Hollander’s death in the horrific concentration camps. They had two children together - Margot and Anne.He remarried in 1953 to Fritzi Markovits and the couple shifted to Switzerland for good. They lived there until their death. Frank died in 1980 in Basel, Switzerland, due to lung cancer.TriviaFrank family went into hiding in one of the upper rooms of his office ‘Opekta Company’ on the Prinsengracht. They moved in there with another family of three—Hermann van Pels. His colleagues helped them to live in hiding for two years; these were—Johannes Kleiman, Miep Gies, Victor Kugler and Bep Voskuijl.It was an anonymous informant that betrayed the family and they were all arrested.The place of their hiding was considered for demolition but Frank and his friend Johannes Kleiman founded the Anne Frank Foundation in 1957 and restored the building and opened a museum there, under the name of ‘Anne Frank House’.