Telegram 1

Accession Number: NEKHC:2009.95

Object: Telegram

Physical Description: Telegram sent via the Dutch Red Cross. Black and red text printed on paper, with hand writing in black ink.

Information: Telegram sent via the Dutch Red Cross. Black and red text printed on paper, with hand writing in black ink.

Further Information

This document forms part of the Steven Frank Collection. It came into Steven's possession as part of a group of documents given to Steven after his aunt who lived in America passed away. Steven did not previously know they existed. It is the first of two Red Cross telegrams written by Steven's aunt, his mother’s elder sister who had been a nurse. She sent these covert telegrams via the Red Cross to another of Steven's aunts who lived in America, informing her of what the family were experiencing in Holland at the time. The message had to be written in the third person so that the people who saw these telegrams did not know the author was around. It says:

Leo discharged from Concentration camp last week, but deported, destination unknown. Trixie brave, am anxious about them. Mother, no news. Have written Maxi. Loving thoughts FiFi.

It talks about Steven's father being deported from Westerbork, to Auschwitz. It informs the reader that Steven's mother (Trixie) was known about, and trying to cope with the conditions in which she found herself with three young children (Steven and his brothers) to look after. Steven's Grandmother, his mother’s mother, was deported to Auschwitz on an early transport in August 1942, at that time the Red Cross document states that there is 'no news' of where or how she was taken away. She had been sent first to Westerbork and then on to Auschwitz. Maxi was an old friend of the Frank family, living in Bern in Switzerland. It was through Maxi that Steven's mother was able later on to get word to his grandfather, who was in London, of what had happened to the family tell him. This, first of two telegrams, was sent in January 1943

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