The fate of the women
After the selection, Edith, Margot and Anne are assigned to the same barrack. Auguste van Pels is most likely sent to a different part of the camp. During the day, the women have to work very hard hauling heavy stones or grass mats. They often have to stand outside for hours on end to be counted for roll-call, no matter how awful the weather conditions might be.
Otto returns
He hopes Anne and Margot might still be alive.
More
Edith Frank
In the winter of 1944, the Russian Army is on the advance. The Nazis decide to take as many prisoners as possible, who are still capable of working, back to Germany. The health of the women prisoners is a primary factor. Edith may not go along. Margot and Anne are then considered. Rosa de Winter-Levy witnesses this: “Then it was the turn of both girls...and there they stood for that moment, naked and bald. Anne looked straight at us with her innocent eyes, and then they were gone. We weren’t able to see what happened to them next. We heard Mrs. Frank cry out: 'The children! Oh God..."' Margot and Anne Frank are crammed into a crowded freight train bound for the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. Edith Frank is left behind at Auschwitz. She falls ill and dies on January 6, 1945.
Margot en Anne in Bergen-Belsen
After an awful train journey lasting three days, Margot and Anne arrive at Bergen-Belsen. More and more prisoners are being sent to Bergen-Belsen from the other concentration camps. The camp is already much too full when their transport gets there, so the new women are placed in tents. A few days later the tents are destroyed in a heavy storm. These prisoners must then find a space in one of the already overcrowded barracks.
Prisoners in Bergen-Belsen
Auguste van Pels
At the end of November 1944 , another train load of prisoners from Auschwitz reaches Bergen-Belsen. Auguste van Pels is among these prisoners. She is reunited with Margot and Anne. Though after a few months she must leave Bergen-Belsen again and is moved to Raguhn, which is part of the concentration camp at Buchenwald. From Raguhn she is sent to the camp at Theresienstadt. During that journey, between 9 April and 8 May 1945, Auguste van Pels is murdered.
Margot en Anne die
In the winter of 1944-1945, the situation at Bergen-Belsen deteriorates. There is little or no food and the sanitary conditions are dreadful. Many of the prisoners become ill. Margot and Anne Frank come down with typhus. They both die just a few weeks before the camp is liberated.
First Margot had fallen out of bed onto the stone floor. She couldn’t get up anymore. Anne died a day later.
Janny Brilleslijper