by World Passport Museum
Today we dive into historical archives to find out how one citizenship that greatly eluded Anne Frank, a 15 year old celebrity who sent to concentration camp for hiding in Amsterdam
Anne Frank born in Frankfurt, Germany, lost her citizenship in 1941 became stateless. Anne Frank came from respected German Jewish families engaged in commerce for many generations. By November 25, 1941, all German Jews living outside Germany were officially stripped of their nationality.
She never became a Dutch citizen despite spending most of her life in Netherlands and writing her book in Dutch language.
Anne Frank wrote in her diary that she wanted to become a dutch citizen. Her wish never came true until today! She died stateless and remained stateless even after her death.
This is because Dutch law does not allow granting citizenship after a person’s death.
She received a dairy as gift from her father on 13th birthday and since then she began writing. “The Diary of a Young Girl” about the German occupation in Netherlands. Her diary, first published in 1947 by her father Otto Frank, has been translated into more than 60 languages and was sold millions of copies worldwide.
The Franks were among 300,000 Jews who fled Germany between 1933 and 1939. Anne Frank came to Amsterdam in February 1934. Since that year the dutch naturalization laws made it also difficult to obtain citizenship for Frank family.
In 1935, Dutch citizenship was only granted if it is more or less certain that the applicant will also be employed in the future
On 10 May 1940, the Netherlands were drawn into the Second World War. Soon afterwards, the Dutch Parliament stopped assembling and Queen Wilhelmina and her Ministers fled to London. The naturalisation of aliens came to a standstill. After this naturalisation policies remained restrictive.
The Anne Frank family desperately tried to immigrate to US applying for visa as early as 1938. A letter from Otto Frank written on April 30, 1941 is the only surviving evidence that he applied for U.S. visas. A huge waiting list on US visa quotas (maxed out for Germans) and difficulty in obtaining papers made things very difficult for them. The waiting list skyrocketed from 140,000 to 310,000 during that time
To make things worse, a German bombing destroyed all of the Rotterdam consulate’s papers in waiting list on May 14, 1940. Then on July 1, 1941, the State Department made “applicants with close relatives remaining in German-occupied countries” ineligible for visas. There is no evidence Anne frank family were refused visas by State Department.
Anne Frank died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Feb 1945, according to Anne Frank house, just weeks before the liberation of the camps.
Thus difficulty in obtaining citizenship, visas constantly eluded the Frank family. Had the family had the necessary papers, it would have saved the life of Anne Frank and her legendary writing talent!
Anne Frank House is visited by more than million tourists and No.1 tourist attraction in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Dont forget to visit!
The Museum dedicates the life and struggle of Anne Frank to all the 12 million stateless people living all over the world.
