Peter van Pels

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Peter Aron van Pels (November 8, 1926 – c. May 5, 1945), was a German Jewish refugee who hid with Anne Frank and six other people in the Secret Annex on the Prinsengracht, Amsterdam, during the Nazi Occupation of the Netherlands, and who died in the Mauthausen concentration camp. In the published version of Anne Frank's diary he was given the pseudonym Peter van Daan.

[edit] Biography

Peter was born in his parents' rented apartment in the Martinistrasse 67a, Osnabrück, Germany, far away from the Dutch border. He was the only child of Hermann and Auguste van Pels. His family moved to Amsterdam in June 1937 to escape the anti-semitic laws being passed in Germany and its territories. They bought an apartment on the Zuider-Amstellan, in a neighbourhood which was accommodating many of the Jewish refugees from Germany, where they met their neighbors, the Frank family.

He attended the Jewish Lyceum in the same year as Margot Frank, in accordance to the Nazi regulations that Jewish and Christian children should be educated separately. He was not remembered as being particularly gifted academically but did master carpentry, giving his trade on official documents as 'furniture maker'.

After several failed attempts to emigrate, the Van Daan family joined the Franks in their hiding place in concealed rooms at the rear of Otto Frank's office building on 19 July 1942.

Although he was already acquainted with Anne Frank, neither ever relished the prospect of living with each other. When he joined the Franks in hiding, Peter was sixteen, and Anne Frank was thirteen. Her diary recounts how her initial feelings of dislike for the shy and awkward boy changed as she learned more about him and his feelings. Eventually they started a romance.

[edit] Arrest and Deportation

Following an anonymous betrayal, the eight refugees were arrested by the Gestapo on 8 August 1944. They were imprisoned in Amsterdam for several days before being taken to Westerbork on August 8, where they were held in the Punishment Barracks, reserved for those arrested in hiding. On 3 September the group was deported on what would be the last transport from Westerbork to the Auschwitz concentration camp. They arrived after a three-day journey, and were separated by gender, with the men and women never to see each other ever again.

Peter, Otto Frank who was Anne's father, and Fritz Pfeffer were assigned to a forced labour group from which Hermann van Pels was selected for the gas chambers in September or October 1944, in a selection witnessed by Peter and by Otto Frank, who subsequently protected Peter during their period of imprisonment together.

Evacuations from the camp started shortly before the Red Army arrived to liberate it on January 27, 1945, and Peter was among those removed. Otto Frank later recalled that he had urged Peter to hide and remain behind with him, rather than set out on the forced march. Peter decided that he would have a better chance of survival if he joined the march. It is not known whether Peter was included in the many death marches out of Auschwitz, or transported by train or truck, but he was registered in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp on January 25. According to the camp records he was placed in quarantine until January 29, then assigned to an outdoor labour group until April 11 when he was sent to the sick barracks. He died one day short of the liberation of Mauthausen.