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 As the first blog entry got exhausted. My second book |
| Evolution of Love Part 2 |
| She begged her family to hide with her. They refused. She survived. They didn't. And she spent 84 years making sure we'd remember them. September 4, 2024. North Carolina. Barbara Ledermann Rodbell died at home, surrounded by her children and grandchildren. It was her 99th birthday—exactly 99 years after she was born on September 4, 1925. For nearly a century, she carried a story most of us can't fathom: surviving the Holocaust while her entire family was murdered. Being best friends with Anne Frank. Reading Anne's diary before the world knew it existed. And spending eight decades bearing witness to what happened to the girls who didn't survive. 1933. Berlin. Barbara was 8 years old when her world started collapsing. The Nazis had just taken power. Her father, Franz—a respected Jewish lawyer—saw what was coming. The Ledermann family fled Germany for Amsterdam, joining thousands of German Jewish refugees who believed the Netherlands would be safe. For seven years, it was. Barbara's childhood in Amsterdam was happy. She studied ballet. She excelled in school. She became inseparable from two sisters who lived nearby: Anne and Margot Frank. Anne Frank's diary mentions Barbara by name. They were neighbors, classmates, best friends. Anne wrote about Barbara's ballet performances, their time together at the Jewish Lyceum after being expelled from public schools, their teenage dreams about the future. Barbara remembered Anne as funny, opinionated, full of life—the same personality that shines through every page of her diary. May 1940. The illusion of safety shattered. Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands. Within months, Jewish children were expelled from public schools. Jews were banned from parks, theaters, swimming pools. Yellow stars became mandatory. Deportations began. By 1942, Barbara's boyfriend—active in the Dutch resistance—brought her terrifying news: The people being "relocated to work camps" weren't going to work. They were being murdered. He had obtained false identity papers for Barbara and her family. They needed to hide. Immediately. Barbara said yes. Her family said no. Her father, Franz, was a lawyer. He'd spent his entire career believing in law, order, legal process. He thought that cooperating with authorities, following the rules, would keep them safer than hiding with forged papers. Barbara begged them to reconsider. Pleaded with them. Showed them the false papers that could save them. Franz refused. He was making what he thought was the rational choice—the lawful choice. It was the choice that killed them. Barbara went into hiding alone. Her parents and her 16-year-old sister Sanne stayed behind. In 1943, Franz, Ilse, and Sanne Ledermann were arrested and deported. Franz died at Auschwitz. Ilse died at Auschwitz. Sanne died at Bergen-Belsen—the same camp where Anne and Margot Frank would die two years later. Barbara, hidden under a false identity, survived. May 1945. Liberation. Barbara was 19 years old when she emerged from hiding. The war was over. She had survived. Everyone she loved was gone. Her father. Her mother. Her little sister. Most of her extended family. Nearly all her childhood friends. Anne and Margot Frank: dead. Sanne: dead. Out of the vibrant Jewish community she'd known in Amsterdam, almost no one remained. Then Otto Frank came back. Otto was the only member of the Frank family to survive. He returned to Amsterdam broken, carrying the diary his daughter Anne had kept while hiding in the Secret Annex. Miep Gies—the woman who had hidden the Franks—had saved the diary. She gave it to Otto, who couldn't bring himself to read it immediately. The pain was too raw. When he finally did, he was stunned. This wasn't just a child's diary. It was extraordinary. Otto shared it with a few close friends and survivors, trying to decide what to do with Anne's words. Barbara was one of the very first people to read Anne Frank's diary. Before it was edited. Before it was published. Before the world knew Anne's name. Reading it was devastating. Here was her friend's voice—funny, thoughtful, frustrated, hopeful—frozen at age 15. Anne had written about Barbara. About their school days. About ballet performances and teenage concerns that now felt impossibly distant. Anne had written about dreaming of becoming a writer. About believing that people were truly good at heart. About imagining her future. A future she never got. Barbara told Otto he had to publish it. The world needed to hear Anne's voice. In 1947, "Het Achterhuis" (The Secret Annex) was published in Dutch. It would become one of the most widely read books in human history, translated into over 70 languages, read by millions. But for Barbara, it would always be her friend's voice. Her best friend who died at 15. Barbara tried to rebuild. She immigrated to the United States. She married Martin Rodbell, a brilliant biochemist who would win the Nobel Prize in 1994. They had three children. She became a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother. She lived a full life in North Carolina—gardening, reading, surrounded by family. But she never forgot. She couldn't. For eight decades, Barbara spoke publicly about what happened. She gave talks at schools, universities, Holocaust museums. She met with students reading Anne's diary, helping them understand that Anne was real. "Anne was my friend," she would say. "She liked to laugh. She could be bossy. She loved movie stars and wanted to be a writer. She was a real person, not just history." Barbara also spoke about the impossible choice that saved her life and haunted her forever: going into hiding while her family refused. She never blamed her father. She understood his reasoning—he thought compliance was safer than defiance. In the chaos of occupation, no one knew which choice led to survival. She was just the one who guessed right. By the 2010s, Barbara was one of the last living people who had known Anne Frank personally. As Holocaust survivors aged and passed away, the burden of memory fell on fewer shoulders. Barbara kept speaking. Even in her 90s, she gave interviews, participated in documentaries, shared her story with anyone who would listen. Because she understood: she got to do what Anne never could. She got to grow old. On September 4, 2024, Barbara Ledermann Rodbell died peacefully at home. It was her 99th birthday. She had lived nearly a century. She had survived the Holocaust. She had raised a family. She had spent 84 years bearing witness. 84 years longer than her sister Sanne got. 84 years longer than Anne Frank got. Barbara's life is a reminder that behind every Holocaust statistic—six million murdered Jews—there were real people. Real families. Real friendships. Real dreams. Real futures stolen. Anne Frank died at 15. Sanne Ledermann died at 16. Barbara lived to 99. She spent those extra 84 years making sure we never forget the girls who didn't get to grow old. Every student who reads Anne's diary and hears "she was my friend." Every classroom that learns their names. Every person who remembers that they were real. That's Barbara's gift to the world. She survived. And she made sure they would too—in memory, in story, in the refusal to let them be forgotten. Barbara Ledermann Rodbell September 4, 1925 – September 4, 2024 Friend. Survivor. Witness. She lived the life Anne Frank wrote about. And she spent every year of it making sure Anne's voice would never be silenced. |
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