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© 2026 Bryan R. Hinton
Auschwitz I was surrounded by a double barbed-wire fence punctuated by guard towers at regular intervals. The towers stood on the outer perimeter; the fence was electrified at 400 volts. Between the inner fence and the blocks was a gravelled three-metre strip — the "neutral zone" — where prisoners could be shot on sight by the guards in the towers. Their function was custody: to ensure that the people inside could not leave until the state had decided how they would.
On 3 September 1944, the last large transport from the Netherlands departed the Westerbork transit camp for Auschwitz. It arrived at the new ramp inside Auschwitz II–Birkenau on the night of 5–6 September, after two and a half days in locked cattle wagons. Of the 1,019 Jews on the manifest, four were Franks. They appeared in sequence: Margot at 306, Otto at 307, Edith at 308, Annelies Marie at 309. After selection, 371 people from the transport were sent directly to the gas chambers; 648 were registered into the camp administration. The women remained at Auschwitz II–Birkenau. Otto was sent on foot to the men's camp at Auschwitz I. On 30 October, Margot and Anne were selected for transfer to Bergen-Belsen; the transport departed the night of 1 November and arrived on 3 November. Edith was left behind at Auschwitz II–Birkenau and died there on 6 January 1945.
At Bergen-Belsen, Margot and Anne were registered again and given new prisoner numbers. Shortly before British forces liberated the camp on 15 April 1945, the SS burned the prisoner registration records. The numbers Anne and Margot were assigned at Bergen-Belsen are not known. For the last four months of their lives, no surviving document names them. They died there, almost certainly in February 1945, of typhus.
The card below is from the Amsterdam civil registry. It was drawn up on 29 October 1954, nine and a half years after Anne Frank's death. The date recorded is 31 March 1945 — the last day of the month, a bureaucratic default used by the Dutch Ministry of Justice's Committee for the Reporting of the Decease of Missing Persons when the actual date was unknown. It traces to a single statement given to the Dutch Red Cross by Lientje Brilleslijper, a prisoner who had been in Bergen-Belsen with the sisters, on 22 January 1951. She said they died "around March 1945." The committee picked March 31. No one then knew, and no one now knows, when Anne Frank actually died. Bijzonderheden (particulars): blank.
Burgerlijke Stand Amsterdam · 29 October 1954
She arrived under a tower like this one. She left as Reg. A 105, folio 9.
Sources
Transport list — numbers 306, 307, 308, 309 (Margot, Otto, Edith, Anne Frank). Nederlandse Rode Kruis, Den Haag: Transportlijst Westerbork–Auschwitz, 3 september 1944 (inv. nr. 1066, blatt 7). Otto Frank is listed at number 307 as "Frank Otto 12.5.89 Kaufman." Cited via the scholarly apparatus of the Anne Frank House Knowledge Base: Deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Auschwitz-Birkenau: selection at the ramp, separation of men and women. Anne Frank House Knowledge Base: Selections upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau; Auschwitz I: the men in the Stammlager.
The new internal Birkenau ramp (Neue Rampe), operational from May 1944. Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau (Oświęcim): The unloading ramps and selections.
Auschwitz I — double barbed-wire fence, watchtowers, electrified at 400 V, the "neutral zone." Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau: Watchtowers and fence system (Former Auschwitz I site).
Transfer of Margot and Anne to Bergen-Belsen (selected 30 October 1944; transport departed 1 November; arrived 3 November). Anne Frank House Knowledge Base: Journey to Bergen-Belsen; Arrival at Bergen-Belsen.
Destruction of Bergen-Belsen prisoner registration records by the SS before liberation. Gedenkstätte Bergen-Belsen (Lower Saxony): Register of Names; The Dead of the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp.
Westerbork transit camp — site memorial and documentation. Herinneringscentrum Kamp Westerbork (Hooghalen): kampwesterbork.nl.
Westerbork records as archived in the International Tracing Service. Arolsen Archives (Bad Arolsen, UNESCO Memory of the World): Westerbork Assembly and Transit Camp records (DE ITS 1.1.46).
Anne Frank's Jewish Council index card (Amsterdam). Arolsen Archives: Index card from the Jewish Council card file in Amsterdam — Annelies Maria Frank.
Date of death of Anne and Margot Frank — the 31 March 1945 administrative default. Anne Frank House: Sources for the date of death of Anne and Margot Frank in Bergen-Belsen (2015). Anne Frank House Knowledge Base: Death of Anne and Margot Frank. Based on Lientje Brilleslijper's 22 January 1951 statement to the Nederlandse Rode Kruis (file 117266, Carthoteekkaartje Afwikkelingsbureau Concentratiekampen); official date set by the Commissie tot het doen van aangifte van overlijden van vermisten, Dutch Ministry of Justice. Underlying archival research: Raymund Schütz, Vermoedelijk op transport (Master's thesis, Archival Science, Universiteit Leiden Instituut Geschiedenis, 2010).
Edith Frank — death at Auschwitz II–Birkenau, 6 January 1945. NIOD Instituut voor Oorlogs-, Holocaust- en Genocidestudies (Amsterdam): niod.nl. Corroborated by the Anne Frank House Knowledge Base.
Death registration (Annelies Marie Frank). Burgerlijke Stand Amsterdam, Register A, folio 9, entered 29 October 1954 (overlijdensakte).