The Last Secrets of Anne Frank: The Untold Story of Her Silent Protector
Written by Joop van Wijk-Voskuijl and Jeroen De Bruyn
Narrated by Jacques Roy
()
About this audiobook
Anne Frank’s life has been studied by many scholars, but the story of Bep Voskuijl has remained untold, until now. As the youngest of the five Dutch people who hid the Frank family, Bep was Anne’s closest confidante during the 761 excruciating days she spent hidden in the Secret Annex. Bep, who was just twenty-three when the Franks went into hiding, risking her life to protect them, plunging into Amsterdam’s black market to source food and medicine for people who officially didn’t exist under the noses of German soldiers and Dutch spies. In those cramped quarters, Bep and Anne’s friendship bloomed through deep conversations, shared meals, and a youthful understanding.
Told by her own son, The Last Secrets of Anne Frank intertwines the story of Bep and her sister Nelly with Anne’s iconic narrative. Nelly’s name may have been scrubbed from Anne’s published diary, but Joop van Wijk-Voskuijl and Jeroen De Bruyn expose details about her collaboration with the Nazis, a deeply held family secret. After the war, Bep tried to bury her memories just as the Secret Annex was becoming world famous as a symbol of resistance to the Nazi horrors. She never got over losing Anne nor could Bep put to rest the horrifying suspicion that those in the Annex had been betrayed by her own flesh and blood.
“Part biography, part whodunit” (The Wall Street Journal), this is a story about those caught in between the Jewish victims and Nazi persecutors, and the moral ambiguities and hard choices faced by ordinary families like the Voskuijls, in which collaborators and resistors often lived under the same roof.
Beautifully written and unsettlingly suspenseful, The Last Secrets of Anne Frank will show the Secret Annex as we’ve never seen it before. And it provides a powerful understanding of how historical trauma is inherited from one generation to the next and how sometimes keeping a secret hurts far more than revealing a shameful truth.
Joop van Wijk-Voskuijl
Joop van Wijk-Voskuijl is the third of Bep Voskuijl’s four children. He was born in 1949 in Amsterdam. After a successful career as a video producer (creating corporate movies for major Dutch companies) and marketing manager (for newspapers such as NRC Handelsblad and Algemeen Dagblad), Joop retired in 2010 to pursue research and writing with the goal of telling his mother’s story. He also volunteers as a guest lecturer, teaching Dutch schoolchildren and other groups about Anne Frank, the Holocaust and the resistance during World War II.
Related to The Last Secrets of Anne Frank
Related audiobooks
The Daughter of Auschwitz: My Story of Resilience, Survival and Hope Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inside the Gas Chambers: Eight Months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Renia's Diary: A Holocaust Journal Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On Hitler's Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rescued from the Ashes: The Diary of Leokadia Schmidt, Survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Last Letter: A Father's Struggle, A Daughter's Quest and the Long Shadow of the Holocaust Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The House of Fragile Things: Jewish Art Collectors and the Fall of France Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Watchmakers: A Powerful WW2 Story of Brotherhood, Survival, and Hope Amid the Holocaust Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles during the Holocaust Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In the Garden of the Righteous: The Heroes Who Risked Their Lives to Save Jews During the Holocaust Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Man Who Broke into Auschwitz: A True Story of World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ravensbruck: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Three Sisters: A True Holocaust Story of Love, Luck, and Survival Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bravest Voices: A Memoir of Two Sisters' Heroism During the Nazi Era Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Searching for Augusta: The Forgotten Angel of Bastogne Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWe Must Not Forget: Holocaust Stories of Survival and Resistance (Scholastic Focus) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Displaced: A Holocaust Memoir and the Road to a New Beginning Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Holocaust Memoirs of a Bergen-Belsen Survivor: Classmate of Anne Frank Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Jews in Berlin Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Volunteer: One Man, an Underground Army, and the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitz Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I Give You My Heart: A True Story of Courage and Survival Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hitler's Boy Soldiers: How My Father's Generation Was Trained to Kill and Sent to Die for Germany Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cold Crematorium: Reporting from the Land of Auschwitz Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nazi Wives: The Women at the Top of Hitler's Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mistress of Life and Death: The Dark Journey of Maria Mandl, Head Overseer of the Women's Camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ghost Tattoo Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Holocaust For You
Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pharmacist of Auschwitz: The Untold Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What They Didn't Burn: Uncovering My Father's Holocaust Secrets Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Watchmaker's Daughter: The True Story of World War II Heroine Corrie ten Boom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Night: New translation by Marion Wiesel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Holocaust: An Unfinished History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Happiest Man on Earth: The Beautiful Life of an Auschwitz Survivor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Doctors from Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sisters of Auschwitz: The True Story of Two Jewish Sisters’ Resistance in the Heart of Nazi Territory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cold Crematorium: Reporting from the Land of Auschwitz Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Denial [Movie Tie-in]: Holocaust History on Trial Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Holocaust Memoirs of a Bergen-Belsen Survivor: Classmate of Anne Frank Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hitler's Children: Sons and Daughters of Third Reich Leaders Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Unstoppable Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Do You Kill 11 Million People?: Why the Truth Matters More Than You Think Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Stone Crusher: The True Story of a Father and Son's Fight for Survival in Auschwitz Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler's Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In My Father's House: The Years Before the Hiding Place Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Asperger's Children: The Origins of Autism in Nazi Vienna Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Displaced: A Holocaust Memoir and the Road to a New Beginning Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Last Secrets of Anne Frank
0 ratings0 reviews