© NIOD
Prisoners
The building which now houses the Gerrit van der Veen College has a turbulent history. Before the war it was a girls’ school. During the occupation is was requisitioned by the Nazis. They use it as the headquarters of the security services.
Here Anne Frank, the other people in hiding in the secret annex and two of their helpers are taken after their arrest on 4 August 1944. They are interrogated by the SS.
To Westerbork
The following day the people in hiding are taken to the detention centre on the Weteringschans. Jo Kleiman and Victor Kugler, the two helpers who have also been arrested, are taken to another prison. On 8 August the people in hiding are taken by train to transit camp Westerbork. They remain here for just under a month before being deported by train to Auschwitz.
Only Otto survives
Hermann van Pels and Edith Frank die in Auschwitz. Fritz Pfeffer is transferred to another concentration camp, Neuengamme and dies there. Auguste van Pels is first taken to Bergen-Belsen and then sent to Theresienstadt, she dies on the way. Margot and Anne are also sent to Bergen-Belsen and die there in March 1945. Peter van Pels leaves Auschwitz in January 1945 for camp Mauthausen where he dies in May 1945. Otto Frank remains in Auschwitz where he is liberated on 27 January 1945. He is the only one of the people in hiding in the secret annex to survive.
A new street name
The headquarters of the security services are in the Euterpestraat. For this reason the street name has somewhat nasty associations. Quite soon after the liberation this street was renamed the Gerrit van der Veenstraat, after the Dutch resistance hero and sculptor Gerrit van der Veen.
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