In an essay adapted from his recent book, “The Last Secret of the Secret Annex,” Joop van Wijk-Voskuijl recalls the long shadow of Anne Frank’s death on his mother, Bep—and Bep’s lasting friendship with her former employer (and Anne’s father), Otto Frank.
Despite his full schedule, he always made time to see us and to check in on my mother. He cared deeply for the Voskuijl family. One of the first things he did upon his return from Auschwitz was visit my dying grandfather Johan at home, something that he had not been able to do while in hiding. A year later, at my parents’ wedding in Amsterdam in May 1946, Otto was the one who gave away the bride. I sometimes get choked up just thinking about this fact.
He motioned for my mother to stop speaking. Then he gave me some money as a gift for my birthday, which was coming up in September. I happily ran off along the boardwalk to buy myself a present. It didn’t take me long to pick something out: a large kite called Groene Valk . I know the Secret Annex was the root of my mother’s pain, but I think her problems with my father, Cor van Wijk, only made things worse. Their marriage had started out strong, but cracks had emerged in the late 1940s, and as the relationship deteriorated, my mother retreated deeper into herself. At some point in the 1950s, she began to investigate her trauma, writing long letters to Otto and Miep, trying to make sense of what had happened so that she could move on. But it never worked.
“Why are you always so sad when you go back in your mind to that time?” I asked her when I was only 10 years old. “It’s just beautiful what you’ve done.”My mother and me in 1965.Around this time, I noticed that my mother would often sob quietly in the mornings while sitting at her writing desk in the living room. As the weeks passed and she grew more hopeless and forlorn, I began to watch over her, to worry about what she might do.
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