**A picture from happy days: Anne Frank in the 1930s on summer holiday in Sils.** Anne Frank Fonds Basel

Anne Frank and Switzerland

Anne Frank had close ties with Switzerland. Here she spent happy days with the family, some of whom had been living in Basel since 1929.

Gabriel Heim

Gabriel Heim is a book and film author and exhibition organiser. He is principally concerned with research into topics of modern and contemporary history and lives in Basel.

On 25 July 1952, Otto Frank, Anne's father, wrote to the Swiss consulate in Amsterdam: «In 1944 I was deported with my family. My wife and children were murdered. Now that I live alone, I want to go to Basel, where my mother still lives and where my sister has lived with her husband and family since 1929.» These are just a few words, but they lead directly to the fate of Otto and Edith Frank and their daughters Margot and Anne – a Jewish family who decided to leave Germany in 1933 to escape the hatred of the Jews in Amsterdam. Otto Frank does not choose Switzerland as his country of exile, although he has family ties there. His sister Leni lives in Basel with her husband Erich Elias and their sons Stephan and Bernhard (Bernd). Nevertheless, Otto Frank chose Holland, which had maintained its neutrality during the First World War and therefore seemed an equally safe haven.

**Leni and Erich with their sons Stephan and Buddy and Leni's mother Alice. The picture dates from 1929, shortly before the family emigrated to Basel.** Anne Frank Fonds Basel

The Franks, now in Amsterdam, and the Elias, in Basel, are closely linked. Letters went back and forth and parcels arrived on birthdays. «I thank Uncle Erich again for the Frigor. When are you coming to visit us?» ten-year-old Margot wrote to Basel in 1936, recalling her visit to Switzerland the previous year with her parents and little Anne. Although Basel, where Anne's grandmother Alice also lived, was always the first place they met, the two families spent summer weeks together in the Engadine in 1935 and 1936.

Edith Frank with her daughters Margot and Anne in Sils Maria, summer 1937. None survived the Holocaust. — **Edith Frank with her daughters Margot and Anne in Sils Maria, summer 1937. None of them survived the Holocaust.** Anne Frank Fonds Basel

In Sils Maria, at the entrance to the Val Fex, Anne's wealthy great-aunt Olga Spitzer owns a spacious villa with a view of the lake and the mountains. The happy days spent at this place of longing in Sils Laret forged a close bond between Anne and her cousin Bernd. It is possible that when she wrote in her diary on 12 February 1942: «The sun is shining, the sky is deep blue, a wonderful wind is blowing and I long so, so long for everything...», she was thinking of those carefree weeks in the Engadine. There were also winter pleasures between the cousins Elias and Frank. Bernd, an enthusiastic and talented skater, later known as the ice clown «Buddy», liked to take Margot and Anne to the «Kunsti» in Basel when they visited, where he showed them his daring moves on the ice.

Ice clown Buddy in action. YouTube / Anne Frank Fonds, Basel

Back in Amsterdam, Anne wanted a pair of skates, and soon she was doing her first pirouettes. On 14 January 1941, she wrote to her grandmother in Basel: «I spend every free minute at the ice rink. (...) I now have regular figure skating lessons, where you learn to waltz, jump and all the other things that go with figure skating. (...). I hope to learn to skate as well as Bernd. (...). Bernd, maybe we could perform together later, but then I'll have to practise a lot to get as far as you are now». Half a year later, new signs were put up on all the sports fields in Amsterdam: No Jews allowed.

**Ice skates from the 1930s: Black boots with screwed-on blades.** Swiss National Museum

On 6 July 1942, the Frank family goes into hiding in the rear building at Prinsengracht 263, where Anne will live for more than two years without contact with the outside world. To cover their tracks, the Franks left a note at their previous address, faking a hasty escape to Switzerland. A credible plan, given their connections there. But in the middle of the war, it was too late.

More of: 20th / 21st century War/battle Women in history Literature Article

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