Searching for Anne Frank: Letters from Amsterdam to Iowa

by Susan Goldman Rubin

Provides an insightful look at the life of Anne Frank through the letters she wrote to her two penpals, sisters Juanita and Betty Wagner of Iowa, prior to her hiding away from and being caught by the Nazis during World War II.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Holocaust, World War II, Judaism

80 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2003

About the author

Susan Goldman Rubin is the author of more than forty-five books for young people, including Andy Warhol: Pop Art Painter; The Yellow House: Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin Side by Side; and Edward Hopper: Painter of Light and Shadow. A long-time instructor in the UCLA Extension Writers Program, Susan Goldman Rubin lives in Malibu, California.

Reviews

[Tena Edlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book after visiting the Anne Frank Pen Pal Museum in Danville, IA, today. Honestly, I’m probably rating my whole day as 4 stars, but the book was definitely part of it. Most of all, I loved reading about these two stories and how they traveled through time. That these 2 Iowa farm girls could have a connection with Anne Frank is amazing. I didn’t learn many new things about Anne Frank, but this book (and the museum) helped me see her story in context with what was happening in my own home, in rural Iowa. It’s an easy read with lots of great pictures. I read it in one day.

[Phyllis]

A lot of repeat about her life.

[Micheline Jade · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is profoundly moving and difficult to digest. It tells the story more to the point. You get to know more about what happened to Anne, and how the diary was turned into a play and a movie. You learn how she died. You learn how everyone associated with her died. It's heart wrenching but necessary. I'm finding myself being drawn more and more into her story and into the life back during WW2. It is my heritage and I want to know so much. This book is an extreme eye opener and I'm glad it was here for me to read.

[Nathan Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

They were crammed into hidden chambers for two years, never leaving the house for fear of being discovered and sent to camps like so many of their friends. Otto and Edith Frank, their daughters Margot and Anne, along with Fritz Pfeffer the dentist and the van Pels family lived in secret upstairs rooms in Amsterdam. German society had gradually turned against all Jews after the formation of the National Socialists in 1920. They had taken over the education system in Germany and by the late 1930s, almost 3/4 of German boys had been indoctrinated with Hitler's hatred for the Jews. The Nazis had invaded the Netherlands and were hunting down all Jews.

Otto had taken his family to Amsterdam where he thought they would be safe- and for a while they were. His daughters Anne and Margot had pen pals in the US, where Anne dreamed of one day becoming a Hollywood star. Their father did his best to insulate them from all the changes, as their rights were eroded and taken away one by one. But the biggest change was being ordered out of the Montessori school they attended just because of their race. Otto had powerful friends in the US like Nathan Straus (whose father owned a department store) and tried to get into the US as a refugee, but couldn't get an exit permit. Therefore relying on Dutch friends to hide his family was the only option. Anne was no longer allowed to see any of her friends, so she took refuge in her diary. She wrote letters to people she knew would never answer and even wrote their responses. Every thought and feeling was written down- until one day, the Gestapo burst through the door and they were all taken away.

Across the ocean, and across the Mississippi River in Danville, Iowa, Juanita and Betty Wagner wondered what was happening to their pen pals. There had only been one or two letters, and then the letters stopped. The girls knew there was a war in Europe, but had little idea of the horrors being inflicted on the Jews- let alone the fact that their pen pals Anne and Margot were Jews. They knew who the Germans were- in fact, German POWs were in Iowa too. Some were in Muscatine and Clinton, while others were in much larger camps like Algona and Clarinda. Contrary to the way Japanese POWs in America were treated, most German POWs would have fond memories of America. Betty heard about a job working for the CIA in Washington DC, and was accepted. She got to meet J. Edgar Hoover, got to see the Lincoln Monument, and even saw Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill from a distance. If only her pen pals in Amsterdam could hear about all the excitement.....

Since Anne Frank hadn't been allowed to see the outside world for so long, it took her emotions a while to react to the seriousness of the situation as her and her family were loaded into cattle cars. Her mother would die in Auschwitz, and and Anne and Margot would die of tyhpus in Bergen-Belsen not long before the Allies liberated the camps. Otto survived the Holocaust virtually alone, and it took him a while to discover the fate of his daughters Anne and Margot. In the middle of his grief, a friend handed him the red and white diary that had been saved, which contained so many of Anne's thoughts and dreams. He took solace in what he read. Not all of it was shareable, but the parts that were shareable had to be made known. The world needed to know that in the middle of the genocide of 12 million Jews, there were young lives with thoughts and feelings. Parts of her diary were translated and printed in Europe and Japan, and in 1952 Americans discovered the Diary of Anne Frank.

Years before, Juanita and Betty had wondered what had happened to their pen pals. Now they knew. Not everyone believed their discovery at first, but after a Jewish family friend saw the letters, he advised the sisters to make them public. Soon reporters and journalists started to call. The story of Anne Frank became a play, and then a movie. The letters were auctioned off and another part of Anne Frank's story could be told.

We should never forget that what happened to the Jews happened in a civilized, first-world country. Ronald Reagan once said that freedom is a fragile thing. For that matter, so is human life. Without the understanding that man was created in God's image, the world may fail to see human life as something to be loved.

[Mrs. Hornick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine having a penpal from across the world who changed the world with her diary. Juanita Wagner (from Danville Iowa) chose a girl from her teacher’s list of pen pals who’s name was Anne Frank. They both wrote to each other a few times before Juanita got no answer from Anne Frank no more, unknown of what was happening where Anne Frank lived and the threats of Adolf Hitler. Meanwhile, Anne Frank, her family, and four other people decided to go into hiding in the Secret Annex, a secret building in Anne Frank’s father’s business. As two years went on, Anne Frank grew and wrote in her plaid-covered diary. She wrote about how afraid she was about being found and just the ordinary, everyday problems of being a teenager. As this happened, Anne Frank’s penpal Juanita grew and did not know anything about what was happening in Amsterdam with Anne Frank. After many years after World War ii, Anne Frank’s diary is to be found and show the world the adventures she had.
Anne Frank, her family, and four other people were cleverly hidden from the Nazis. Every day went on quietly with Anne Frank writing in her diary and spending time with a boy that also hid with the Franks named Peter. Although every day in the Secret Annex hiding from the Nazis is no ordinary feat, it is scary and inordinately quiet 24/7. At any moment, a Nazi could come and destroy their lives. Will a Nazi find them? Or will they keep hidden in the Secret Annex until the end of World War ii? Read Searching for Anne Frank by Susan Goldman Rubin to find out!
I think someone with the interest of the topic of Anne Frank would be intrigued and captivated by Searching for Anne Frank because one gets to read more about what she was like. Unlike other books, Searching for Anne Frank educates the reader about the character traits and the ordinary lifetime before going into hiding. The readers also get to know Anne’s family better which gives one more background on how Anne was brought up to be the girl she was in the annex. For someone who wants their voice to be heard for the world to hear, they can connect to Anne Frank. She had lots of strong opinions and wanted important people to listen so that the war would be stopped. A lesson I learned from Searching for Anne Frank by Susan Goldman Rubin is that something that you believe in can become a world changer or something so much more than you thought would be someday.

[Jon Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book as a scanned copy on the Internet Archive. I had seen the book at the Anne Frank Connection Museum in Danville, Iowa when I visited the museum last week. I only became aware of the story behind Anne Frank's connection with Danville Iowa about a year ago, when I happened to be driving through southeastern Iowa and saw a highway sign pointing the way to the "Anne Frank Pen Pal Museum." Say WHAT?!? Some subsequent web research revealed the story: encouraged by their teacher at school, Juanita and Betty Wagner, two sisters in the tiny hamlet of Danville, Iowa had a brief pen pal correspondence by letter with Anne Frank and her sister Margot in Amsterdam at the time of the outbreak of WW2 in Europe. Their correspondence was ended forever when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands in 1940, and subsequent tragic fate of Anne Frank and her family is well known. The small museum in Danville thoroughly and thoughtfully explains how the lives of the two pairs of sisters were briefly intertwined by an exchange of letters, and the subsequent story of the letters written by the Frank sisters. This book also tells that same story, and provides a detailed account of this amazing but little known chapter of history. The book is aimed at a younger audience, so it's a short read, and there is a lot of explanation of Nazism, the attempt to exterminate the Jews in Europe, and why the Frank family had to go into hiding. The book follows the post-war lives of the Wagner sisters and Otto Frank (Anne's father who survived the war), the publishing of the diary and its world-wide impact, and the eventual public revelation in 1988 of the existence of letters written by Anne Frank and sent to the USA before she and her family were forced into hiding. Four out of five stars.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book that showed a different perspective on WWII, the Holocaust and Anne Frank’s story. A good book to read before or after The Betrayal of Anne Frank. Gives more personal details about Anne Frank’s life and even has a paragraph or two commenting on the possible identity of the betrayer. Weaving Anne’s story together with an American teenager added a different perspective to WWII literature. PIctures were a nice addition. Really glad this was on a display shelf at the library. The bookish universe is giving me several books set near or during WWII that are different from many of the books I’ve previously read.

[Molly Kremer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very quick read. It was really interesting to hear how the two experiences of the pen pals were so drastically different during the same time period. Was especially intriguing to me that Anne Frank had a connection to Iowa. After the war, when the sisters wrote a letter to the Frank girls, their letter was received by Otto Frank and he wrote a lengthy, detailed letter back explaining their plight during the war.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is an interesting one in that it tells the story from two different perspectives, Anne's and Betty's, the girl that started to write to Anne as a pen pal before the war started. You hear how both girls survived the war and how their lives differed and were the same. A good read and insight into this historical person.

[Danielle McLeod · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. So interesting to read that Anne had a pen pal. How very sad that they never heard from her again. I found it so interesting to hear both sides of their stories. Although Anne struggled far more greatly during the war, it was fascinating to hear about Betty & Juanita’s experiences throughout the war. Quick and easy read.

[Miah Bartlett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Packed with so much information but in small bites so one can digest it all without getting overwhelmed. So thankful for testimonies and historical books like these.

“How wonderful it is that no one gas to wait, but can start right now to gradually change the world.” Anne Frank “Give”

[Meiley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a lot about Anne's friends and family.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

New perspective shared for Anne Frank with an American connection in a pen pal from her school days. It was a good reminder of how little Americans knew how Jewish people were treated under Nazism.

[TheLibraryOfSarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, I absolutely loved this book! It was fascinating to see what life was like in both the Netherlands and America during WWII. I loved getting to see Anne’s story from more than just her perspective, and the book was a great summary of the events surrounding Anne and the war, and after. I actually learned a few things from this book! The only thing I didn’t really like was that I thought the author over-emphasized the “connection” between Anne and the pen pals in Iowa- I mean, they only wrote one letter. I think this served as a nice link, so that both life in America and the Netherlands could be explored, but in some parts it seemed the author was speculating too much as to what Anne might have thought, and trying to make connections that weren’t really that strong. Besides that though, I thoroughly enjoyed this book!

[Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quick but thorough look into the lives of two very different families during WW2 who knew each other only by one letter apiece. The contrast in hardships endured is interesting and thought provoking. I'm definitely keeping this book around for the time when my child will learn about Anne Frank and Holocaust literature.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting.

[Djdee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting story.New slant to it.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is a must read especially if you have teenagers. I will give more in my review, but I highly recommend this book!

[Edwina Book Anaconda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book.

[Gwynfor · Rating 4 out of 5]

✔️