2 Quotes & Sayings By Otto Frank

Otto Frank was born in Frankfurt, Germany, on June 12, 1889. His father, Hermann Otto Frank, was a wealthy businessman who owned a successful leather goods company. Frank spent his early childhood in Frankfurt and later moved to Amsterdam, where he attended the Jewish elementary school "Joodsche School De Bijenkorf." In 1898, at the age of fifteen, Otto Frank left home to study pharmacy in Paris. There he was introduced to socialism and the ideals of Humanism and gained an appreciation for writing and poetry Read more

He studied pharmacy and chemistry at the University of Marburg from 1901 to 1904. In 1905 he returned to Frankfurt and began working for his father's leather goods company. In January 1908 Otto Frank married Edith Holländer (born December 13, 1891). The couple had a son named Walter in 1909 and a daughter named Margot in 1911.

Following his brother-in-law Fritz Pfeffer's death in 1914, Otto took over the reins of the family business. In 1919 he divorced Edith Holländer and married her sister Annie. The couple had an additional four children: Peter (born 1920), Susanne (born 1922), Hans (born 1924) and Ilse (born 1932). In 1926 Otto Frank decided to leave Germany for good after being drawn into anti-Semitic activism by German Nazis such as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels .

In 1929 he moved his family from Germany to Amsterdam , where they lived until March 1933 when they moved to Basel , Switzerland , until May 1940 when they fled to France . In August 1942, Anne Frank , their eldest daughter, died from typhus . Having been told that their next child would die at birth due to faulty blood supply caused by a hereditary disease , they were determined not to let this happen so they moved again to the Netherlands during the summer of 1943 .

On August 4 , 1944 , Anne also died suddenly of typhus . On August 5 , Otto traveled by train eastwards across Belgium , France , Luxembourg , Switzerland , Austria , Italy , Croatia and finally Hungary . He reached neutral Switzerland on August 15 .

Here he stayed with friends for three weeks while discussing what had happened during his absence while awaiting news of his visa application with US authorities. On September 2 Otto received word that he had been granted entry into America within six months on humanitarian grounds based on an application submitted on August 12 . He arrived in New York City on September 18 .

A week later he boarded