The story of Otto Frank, the father of Anne Frank.

Wow! Just finished this book. I don't really know what to write about it. It is very in-depth. It has an afterword to add information discovered since it was first published in the Netherlands, Appendix I and II, a list of key figures, a glossary, references, a bibliography and an extensive index. The author obviously researched the book very well.

I knew very little about Otto Frank before I read this. I knew he was Anne's father, and what Anne had written about him, that he had had her book published, but really nothing more. This book tells you so much about the quiet, private man. It tells of his life as a young man, about his marriage and becoming a father, why he and the family came to be in Amsterdam, the businesses he ran, what happened after the invasion by the Nazis, a bit more about when they were in hiding, who betrayed the family, what happened to the Franks and the others after they were betrayed, how Otto made it back to Amsterdam and eventually learnt his entire family had been killed. It tells of his fight to preserve his daughter's legacy and fend off all attacks on the diary's authenticity.

Otto Frank was a truly amazing man who achieved much. He really promoted the cause against racism and facism. However, there is some dark history there, one that hasn't come out yet. What had he done that gave the Franks' traitor a hold on him? One that allowed the traitor to blackmail him until after his death? We'll probably never know.

I've offered this as a bookray. Participants are:

aussie-rose, Australia, ship Australia
magicjessnrach, Australia, ship Australia
pumpkin-head, Scotland, int'l prefer Britain
Aberpeter, US, prefer North America
darkpunkangel, Canada, international