Sources Continued:
van der Zee N. Endlich C, trans. The Roommate of Anne Frank. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Lakeman Publishers; 1990.
Newspapers/journals:
Verschuur P. Old letters shed new light on Anne Frank's roommate. Item. December 3, 1987:11c. Accessed February 13, 2014.
Websites:
Anne Frank. Wikipedia website. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Frank. Accessed February 13, 2014.
Anne Frank remembered, http://annefrankremembered.co.uk/miep_gies/. Accessed February 16, 2014.
Battle of the Netherlands. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Netherlands. Accessed February 14, 2014.
Fritz Pfeffer. Wikipedia website. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Pfeffer. Accessed February 13, 2014.
Jon Blair. Wikipedia website. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Blair. Accessed February 19, 2014.
The Nazification of Germany. http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/timeline/nazifica.htm. Accessed February 14, 2014.
Nuremberg Laws. Wikipedia website. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws. Accessed February 19, 2014.
Email correspondence:
Erika Prins. Anne Frank House. February 19, 20, 2014.
Related Reading:
20, 1944, from enterocolitis, a fatal diarrheal disease, four and a half months after he was betrayed. He was 55. His other roommates -- Anne, her mother, and her sister also perished in Nazi concentration camps, as did Hermann and Auguste van Pels and their son Peter (known as the van Daan family in Anne's diary), and the other inhabitants of the annex. Only Anne's father survived.
Kaletta's ex-husband and only son, Gustaf, also perished in German concentration camps. Fritz's son, Werner, immigrated to the U.S. after the war and became a successful California businessman. Like Kaletta, he had little love for Anne Frank, the youthful diarist, who had portrayed his father in such unflattering terms.
In 1994, Jon Blair persuaded Werner to go with him to Amsterdam and visit the hiding place -- now a museum. There he was introduced to Miep Gies. The two had never met before. Blair describes one very sad scene when Werner "wiped away tears of embarrassed emotion" and an equally emotional Miep told him his father "was a lovely, lovely man ... and a very good dentist." Werner died two months later of cancer at the age of 64.
No one ever interviewed Kaletta, who married Fritz posthumously in 1950 -- retroactive to 1937. It allowed her to obtain a pension. She died in 1984 at age 74. One of Anne's entries in her diary reads: "He only thinks of his Lotte [Charlotte]," which speaks volumes of their love. van der Zee interposes a thought wondering, "Can you imagine what it means to see your loved one, your husband, who was so fond of children and everything that was young, being portrayed by a teenager like a moody and annoying idiot who is in her way?"
Sources:
Frank A. The Diary of a Young Girl. New York, NY: Bantam Books; 1993.
Johnson P. A History of the Jews. New York, NY: Harper & Rowe Publishers; 1987.
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2 portraits of Dr. Fritz Pfeffer, Anne Frank's roommate
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