24
time as he pushes open the front door to my building with his
25
other hand.
26
We are still holding hands, even outside on Ludlow Street,
27
then Eighteenth. As we walk we laugh and talk about the
28S
future, our breath frosting beautiful circles in the winter
29N
night.
01
02
03
Author’s Note
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
The first time I read
T
he
D
iary of
a y
oung
g
irl
, I was
14
thirteen. As an American teenager in the early 1990s—even
15
a Jewish one—I didn’t think the book would have much to do
16
with me. That is, until I read it. I was the same age as Anne
17
was when she wrote the diary, a writer, a dreamer, Jewish—
18
had I lived fifty years earlier in Europe, I might have been the
19
one writing the diary in hiding. It was a terrifying thought.
20
Nearly twenty years later, I picked up the diary again, and
21
this time, as I read it, I was struck by something entirely dif
22
ferent. Anne Frank had an older sister, Margot, who also kept
23
a diary in the annex. I realized I didn’t really remember Mar
24
got from my earlier teenage reading of Anne’s diary, but as an
25
older sister myself, I was interested in what happened to her,
26
in how her experience in the annex was different from Anne’s,
27
and what their sister relationship was like. So I set out to
S28
learn more about Margot, only to discover that virtually all
N29
01
that is known of her today is the little that Anne wrote within
02
the pages of her diary. (Margot’s diary, unlike Anne’s, was
03
never recovered after the war.) I began to wonder about the
04
two sisters, both of whom were teenagers during the Holo
05
caust, both Jews, both hiding in the annex, both keeping dia
06
ries. How is it that one sister and her diary have, in the
07
aftermath, become an icon of the Holocaust, a symbol for a
08
whole generation, while the other sister is today virtually
09
unknown? And thus the idea for
Margot
was born.
10
Though this book is a work of fiction, and the Margot
11
Frank/Margie Franklin within these pages is my own cre
12
ation, I drew loosely from historical fact for some of the
13
scenes and people surrounding the annex, as well as for Mar
14
got/Margie’s
character.
15
In July of 1942, sixteen-year-old Margot Frank received a
16
call-up notice from the Germans to report to a forced-labor
17
camp, and Otto Frank quickly took the family into hiding in
18
the annex above his office at 263 Prinsengracht, sooner than
19
he’d originally planned, in order to prevent Margot from
20
going. The Frank family—Edith, Otto, Anne, and Margot—
21
were soon joined by the van Pelses—Hermann, Auguste, and
22
their son, Peter. Later they were also joined by a dentist, Fritz
23
Pfeffer, and when he came to the annex, Margot left the
24
room she shared with her sister to sleep in their parents’ room
25
while Anne shared a room with Mr. Pfeffer. Peter brought his
26
cat, Mouschi, to the annex, while Margot and Anne were
27
forced to leave their own cat, Moortje, behind.
28S
As described by Anne in her diary, Margot was the older,
29N
quieter, more responsible sister. Anne often teased Margot,
calling her a “paragon of virtue.” Margot was highly intelli
01
gent, and used her time in the annex to further her studies.
02
(Among many other things, Margot really did learn shorthand
03
in the annex.) Anne also mentions the annex members’
04
weights at one point in her diary, and Margot did weigh 132
05
pounds then, though there are also several mentions in the
06
diary of Margot not eating enough.
07
Some episodes in the annex that Margie remembers here
08
are also based on things Anne wrote about in her diary. For
09
instance, Anne and Margot did lie cramped together in
10
Anne’s bed and read each other’s diaries. Margot did listen in
11
to a business meeting for her father while Anne fell asleep on
12
the floor beside her, but Margie’s memory of Otto praising
13
Anne for her notes is fictional. The burglary Margie recounts
14
in the annex also happened on several occasions, though
15
Peter’s coming to find Margot in the middle of the night is
16
fictional.
17
One of the things I distinctly remembered from my earlier
18
teenage reading of the diary was Anne’s relationship with
19
Peter. But rereading the diary many years later, I noticed that
20
while Anne wrote of her own growing feelings for Peter, she
21
also wrote and wondered about whether Margot might like
22
him too. Which led me to also wonder: how might Margot
23
have felt about Peter, and how might Peter have felt about
24
her? Without Margot’s diary, I’m not sure we’ll ever know the
25
true answers to those questions. In reality, I don’t know how
26
close they were, how much they liked each other, or if they
27
did at all. The idea that they spent time together at night in
S28
Peter’s room, that Peter told Margot they would be together
N29
01
after the war and go to Philadelphia, is all completely fic
02
tional. However, the idea that Peter would not want people to
03
know he was Jewish after the war is based on what Anne
04
wrote about him in her diary.
05
Margie Franklin refers to specifics from her sister’s diary
06
here, and I have tried to keep these things consistent with the
07
actual diary, although I (and Margie) conveniently leave some
08
pieces out. For instance, Anne does write that she is not
09
in love with Peter at one point in her diary (though I, and
10
Margie, leave out the part where later on she wonders if she
11
might be).
12
The reality of Margot Frank’s teenage life just before the
13
family’s move to the annex remains, for the most part, a mys
14
tery to me, and the majority of what I’ve included here is fic
15
tional. The Frank family really did live on the Merwedeplein,
16
and Anne and Margot attended the Jewish Lyceum, where
17
Margot did very well academically. However, Margot’s first
18
diary,
Maria,
and the boy named Johann are fictional. The
19
scene where Margot is approached by the Green Police on
20
the Prinsengracht shortly before she was called up did not, to
21
the best of my knowledge, happen. Though I found a photo
22
graph of the Frank family at the beach in happier times, the
23
scene here where Margie remembers her last beach vacation
24
with Anne is fictional.
25
The inhabitants of the annex were found in hiding in
26
August 1944, though I took fictional liberties with what they
27
were doing in those last moments before they were discovered.
28S
They were taken to Westerbork in Holland, then, in Septem
29N
ber, they were transferred to Auschwitz in Poland, where the
men and woman were separated. Anne, Margot, and Edith
01
were given tattoos, though the scene here that Margie remem
02
bers is fictional. Their exact tattoo numbers are not known
03
today, but they are thought to have been between A-25060 and
04
A-25271.
05
Though Anne and Margot were transported from Aus
06
chwitz to Bergen-Belsen in the fall of 1944, all the details here
07
of Margot’s escaping from the Nazis are entirely fictional. The
08
real Margot Frank made it to Bergen-Belsen and succumbed
09
to typhus there a few days before Anne in March of 1945.
10
Both were buried in a mass grave. Peter van Pels died in Mau
11
thausen in May of 1945, just before the camp was liberated.
12
Thus the characters and situations Margot/Margie
13
encounters after she escapes the Nazis are all fictional. There
14
was no Sister Brigitta, Eduard, or Ilsa, and no Judischausen
15
synagogue. In Margie’s Philadelphia world, all the characters,
16
situations, and places are fictional with the exception of many
17
of the street names and a few locations such as Fairmount
18
Park, Reading Terminal Market, Robin’s Books, John Wana
19
maker’s, Levittown, and Margate, which are or were real
20
places in and around the Philadelphia area.
21
The incidents of anti-Semitism that Margie describes in
22
Philadelphia in the 1950s are historically accurate. In May of
23
1954, a flaming flare was nailed to a door accompanied by
24
anti-Semitic language; in April of 1954, a gang of hoodlums
25
was arrested for committing anti-Semitic attacks against Jew
26
ish kids, and in October 1953, a firebomb was thrown into a
27
synagogue. However, I read about the incidents in the
S28
archives of the
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
(not in
the Inquirer,
N29
01
as Margie does). The incident Margie mentions reading about
02
of swastikas on synagogues in 1959 is not based on one spe
03
cific incident in Philadelphia, but on several articles and
04
accounts from that time period recording Jewish places being
05
defiled with swastikas.
06
In reality, Otto Frank was the only one from the annex to
07
have survived the concentration camps, and after he returned
08
to Amsterdam and learned that his daughters were dead,
09
Miep Gies gave him Anne’s diary, which she had rescued
10
from the annex. Anne’s diary was originally published in
11
Dutch in 1947, then in English in 1952. The book was followed
12
by the play in 1955, and the American movie
The Diary of
13
Anne Frank,
in 1959, which won three Oscars. Mr. Frank
14
married Elfriede “Fritzi” Markovits Geiringer, and they set
15
tled Switzerland.
16
While writing this book, I read countless books and arti
17
cles, visited Web sites, and watched several movies in an
18
attempt to glean everything I possibly could about Margot
19
and the people of her world. I read and reread (and
20
reread again!)
The Diary of a Young Girl,
both the definitive
21
edition and the version that Margie would’ve read in 1959, as
22
well as watched the 1959 movie that Margie talks about in the
23
book. Additionally I read
Anne Frank: the Book, the Life, the
24
Afterlife
by Francine Prose, and
Anne Frank Remembered: The
25
Story of the Woman Who Helped to Hide the Frank Family
by
26
Miep Gies and Alison Leslie Gold. (The epigraph quote about
27
Margot came from Afterword: My 100th Birthday in Gies’ and
28S
Gold’s book.)The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
29N
Web site and the Anne Frank House Museum Web site were
especially helpful. Any inaccuracies, mistakes, or fictionaliza
01
tions within these pages—intentional or not—are entirely
02
my own.
03
In the end, neither Margie Franklin nor I know what actu
04
ally happened to Margot Frank’s diary from the annex. What
05
I do know is that what happened to these two sisters, their
06
family, their friends, and so many other Jews is something
07
that still terrifies, horrifies, and haunts me. And that, most of
08
all, is why I wrote this book. In creating Margot/Margie here,
09
I wanted to give back what was stolen from her, even if only
10
in a fictional world: her voice, her life, her happy ending.
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
S28
N29
02
03
Acknowledgments
04
05
06
07
08
An enormous thank-you to my agent, Jessica Regel, without whose
09
encouragement and support, I’m entirely sure I never would’ve
10
written this book. I am so grateful for her comments, ideas, and
11
wisdom on countless drafts, as well as her continued unfailing
12
belief in me and my work. I’m so lucky to have her in my corner,
13
always! Thank you also to the amazing team at JVNLA, who truly
14
are the best, especially Tara Hart, Laura Biagi, and Jennifer
15
Weltz, to whom I am indebted for her invaluable early feedback.
16
I feel so incredibly fortunate that this book found its way into
17
the very wise and capable hands of my editor at Riverhead Books,
18
Laura Perciasepe. Her unparalleled enthusiasm for this story and
19
her brilliant edits and insights have made her an absolute joy to
20
work with. I am deeply grateful for her guidance and support, as
21
well as that of the entire team at Riverhead, who gave this book a
22
home and brought it through every step of the publication process
23
in the best possible way. Thank you also to the team at Orlando
24
for giving this book a home in the Netherlands, and especially
25
Jacqueline Smit for her early insights.
26
I’m very grateful to have a network of friends and family who
27
offer unlimited support. Thank you especially to Maureen Lipin
S28
ski and Laura Fitzgerald whose encouragement kept me going in
N29