When Anne and Margot Frank first arrived at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, they were malnourished but still mobile and able to communicate with the other prisoners. According to her autobiography “Holocaust Memoirs of a Bergen-Belsen Survivor,” Nanette Blitz Konig talked with both Anne and Margot several times while they were imprisoned at Bergen-Belsen.
However, at some point the Frank sisters both got typhus and soon became incredibly ill. More than likely, they contracted the disease from body lice, which were rampant at Bergen-Belsen. Margot was sicker than Anne, as she was bedridden, while Anne was still able to leave her barracks and talk with other prisoners. Fellow prisoners at Bergen-Belsen say that Margot died before Anne did, after she fell out of her bunk and was too frail to pick herself back up. The two shared a bunk, which meant that Anne was likely just feet away from her sister when she died. If Anne was still alive and conscious, it’s impossible to imagine the grief she must have felt at the loss of her sister.
Initially, the Dutch government listed Margot’s death date as March 27, 1945, as they needed a singular date for official purposes. However, researchers now speculate that she passed away in February 1945, around her would-be 19th birthday, and likely only days before Anne. Sadly, this was just months before Allied forces liberated Bergen-Belsen in April 1945.
