Non­fic­tion

Trea­sures from the Attic: The Extra­or­di­nary Sto­ry of Anne Frank’s Family

Mir­jam Pressler with Ger­ti Elias; Damion Searls, trans.
  • Review
By – December 26, 2011
When Ger­ti Elias moved with her fam­i­ly into the house in Basel, Switzer­land, in which many of Anne Frank’s extend­ed fam­i­ly mem­bers had lived, she came upon a trea­sure trove of fam­i­ly his­to­ry: thou­sands of items, includ­ing numer­ous let­ters, which had been pre­served in the attic of the house. In Trea­sures from the Attic: The Extra­or­di­nary Sto­ry of Anne Frank’s Fam­i­ly, Mir­jam Pressler and Ger­ti Elias present a selec­tion of these and oth­er items, such as paint­ings, pho­tographs, and poems, in a mov­ing nar­ra­tive that spans numer­ous gen­er­a­tions and focus­es on mem­bers of Anne’s extend­ed fam­i­ly. They include her grand­moth­er, Alice Frank, her aunt, Helene Elias, and her cousin, Ger­ti Elias’ hus­band, Bud­dy. A valu­able addi­tion to the grow­ing body of work on Anne Frank and her pub­lic lega­cy, Trea­sures from the Attic is also an impor­tant record of how the loss of Anne, her moth­er Edith, and her sis­ter Mar­got per­son­al­ly impact­ed their fam­i­ly mem­bers’ lives. 

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