Biography

Betty Frank and her family members.

Betty Frank, born in Steenwijk, was a daughter of Joachim Samuel Frank and Dora Heijmans. She had two brothers, namely Roelof, who lost his life in the Timor sea after a Japanese torpedo attack on his shp HMAS Armidale, where he served as medical officer and Nathan Bertus, who survived the Shoah. Through hiding, her parents survived the Holocaust too.

The Frank family moved from Steenwijk to Amsterdam in 1930 where they found a house at Wielingenstraat 38 ground floor. Her brother Roelof married in 1935, left the family house and moved to Oss. The other Frank members stayed at Wielingenstraat, until they were forced to move in January 1943 to Hofmeyerstraat 27 ground floor. With help of Betty’s sister-in-law Betty Maijer, the spouse of Roelof Frank and the resistance, it was then possible to find a hiding place in Brunsum (Limburg) for Betty’s parents Joachim Samuel Frank and Dora Heijmans, but also for Betty Maijer’s parents Siegmund Maijer and Johanne Rosenbaum and also for Betty Maijer herself. Thence they have survived the Holocaust.

Betty Frank was unmarried and worked as office clerk. After she she has ended up in January 1943 at Hofmeyerstraat, she had to move another time, now 5 March 1943 to Nieuwe Kerkstraat 135, which became her last known address in Amsterdam. A few weeks prior to this, she was appointed 15 February 1943 as probationer in the Nederlands Israëlitisch Ziekenhuis (NIZ) (Dutch Israëlitich Hospital) at Nieuwe Keizersgracht 104-114.

On 5 May 1943, after there had been a razzia on the Nederlands Israëlitisch Ziekenhuis, she was deported from Amsterdam to Westerbork, where she had to stay in barrack 55. On 18 May she was put on transport to Sobibor, where on arrival there on 21 May 1943, Betty Frank was immediately killed.

City Archive of Amsterdam, archive card of Betty Frank; residence card of Wielingenstraat 38 ground floor; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration card of Betty Frank; website Joods Amsterdam re Nieuwe Keizersgracht; website Geheugen van Oost re the razzia on the Nederlands Israëlitisch Ziekenhuis and “Ondergang” volume 1 by J. Presser, page 367, “the months of the last razzia’s”

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