The Sunday That Changed Everything
It was a warm, quiet Sunday afternoon, the kind of day meant for rest. The sun beat down on Amsterdam, pushing the temperature close to thirty degrees. Inside the apartment at Merwedeplein 37, a sense of stillness had settled. Anne was lounging on the balcony with a book, Margot had found refuge from the heat indoors, and their mother, Edith, was busy in the kitchen.
Then, the doorbell rang.
It was a simple sound, but it shattered the peace of the day. Edith opened the door to a policeman holding a card. It wasn’t a friendly visit. It was a notice requiring Margot Frank to report for work in Germany. Edith, forcing herself to remain calm, knew she had to act immediately. She left to find Hermann van Pels, a trusted friend and business partner of her husband, Otto, who was out visiting a Jewish old people’s home.
Meanwhile, a miscommunication and a moment of fear played out inside the apartment. Margot, in a desperate effort to shield her younger sister, told Anne the notice was for their father. But the truth was too heavy to carry. When Edith returned with Hermann, she sent the girls to their room. It was there, waiting, that Margot finally confessed: the call-up was for her. Anne, who idolized her older sister, burst into tears. Margot was just sixteen. But even in her own terror, Margot tried to comfort Anne, promising that of course she wasn’t going to Germany.
At five that afternoon, Otto returned home to a household on the brink. He immediately made two phone calls—to his business partner Johannes Kleiman and to his helpers Miep and Jan Gies. The decision was made swiftly and with a grim determination: they would go into hiding the very next day. In a frenzy of quiet activity, Anne and Margot began to pack. Anne, choosing the things that meant the most, packed her school satchel with her diary, hair curlers, schoolbooks, and some old letters. These weren’t just objects; they were fragments of the life she was leaving behind. That Sunday, a family’s life was rerouted, not by choice, but by the relentless march of history.
