A LETTER TO...
Notes:
- Peter Van Pels was part of the group of people who stayed in the Secret Annex with Anne Frank and her family.
- Peter Van Pels left Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp just two days before it was liberated. He went on the death march to Mauthausen in Austria, hoping he could escape. However he later died of unknown or natural causes just three days before the Holocaust ended on May 5, 1945.
- “Fernweh” is the German word for “when you feel like you have to leave your familiar surroundings to discover new places. It is the need for distance, the wish to experience something far away from home, the urge to escape from your everyday life by travelling.” Opposite of the word homesickness in English.
- “Viel Glück!” means Good Luck! in German
- June 7th, 1937 is around the time before the Van Pels family would be leaving Germany to go live in Amsterdam to avoid the German officials gaining power. However they did not go into hiding until about two years later.