New research from the Amsterdam-based Anne Frank House has shown Anne's father Otto Frank made numerous attempts for the family to emigrate to the United States, starting in 1938.

"I am forced to look out for emigration and as far as I can see the USA is the only country we could go to," Otto Frank wrote in 1941 to his American friend Nathan Strauss in New York.

The only American consulate in the Netherlands issuing visas had been in Rotterdam but it was destroyed during the German bombing of May 1940. All applications for asylum then had to be resubmitted, and the Frank family's request was never processed.

As the US closed all German consulates, the Nazi regime reciprocated and ordered all American consulates to close in occupied and collaborationist territory. Frank's efforts to get a passage to Cuba failed and after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, all transatlantic shipping was suspended.

People stand in line to visit the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam

'Turned away from sanctuary'

It was then, in July 1942, that the Frank family went into hiding in the annex of his business premises on the Prinsengracht canal in Amsterdam where they stayed for two years before being discovered and deported, first to a transit camp and then to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps.

The only member of the family to survive, Otto Frank made his way back to Holland in 1945 and then on to Switzerland, where his mother had fled in the 1930s. He arranged for the publication of his daughter's diary in 1947. He died in Basel, Switzerland in 1980.

"Otto Frank desperately sought to get his family to safety, seeking asylum here in the United States," said the New York-based Anne Frank Center in a tweet. "He was denied. Like thousands of others, the Franks were turned away from sanctuary, left with no choice but to go into hiding. We teach the past to build the future."

US suspicions towards immigrants

The new report details the lack of asylum policy in the US during the 1930s and complicated bureaucracy and suspicion towards people trying to emigrate from Europe.

US State Department officials were under instructions to scrutinize all applications carefully as suspicions increased of foreign "spies and saboteurs infiltrating the US."

Further US restrictions in 1941 made applicants with close relatives in German-occupied countries ineligible for vias. All applications were sent to Washington for review and applicants had to appear at a consulate in Europe for an interview. A "suspicious consular officer could still reject the visa."

A Gallup poll the previous year had found 71 percent of respondents believed Nazi Germany had "already established a network of spies and saboteurs in the US."

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt warned at the time that Jewish refugees could be "spying under compulsion."

The wartime attitude of the US has been compared to that of the present day as President Donald Trump argues criminals and terrorists could be among refugees and immigrants trying to get into the US.

Anne Frank: Betrayed, deported, world-famous Fleeing from the Nazis In 1933, Anne Frank and her family fled from Germany to the Netherlands to escape the Nazis. In the Second World War, she had to go into hiding under the German occupation. For two years, she lived concealed in the secret annex of a house in Amsterdam. But someone betrayed her: On August 4, 1944, her family was found, arrested and deported to Auschwitz.

Anne Frank: Betrayed, deported, world-famous Family ties Anne Frank (front left) had a sister Margot (back right) who was three-and-a-half years older than she was. Her father, Otto Frank, took this photo on Margot's eighth birthday in February 1934, when the family was already in exile in the Netherlands.

Anne Frank: Betrayed, deported, world-famous The hiding place in Amsterdam Anne's father was able to found a company in Amsterdam. It had its headquarters in this building (c.). Otto organized the "secret annex" above and behind the premises. The family of four lived there from 1942 to 1944, together with four other people on the run from the Nazis. It was here that Anne Frank wrote her world-famous diary. The Anne Frank House has been a museum since 1960.

Anne Frank: Betrayed, deported, world-famous A diary as best friend From the start, Anne wrote in her diary almost every day. It became a kind of friend to her, and she called it Kitty. The life she led was completely different from her previous, carefree existence. "What I like the most is that I can at least write down what I think and feel, otherwise I would completely suffocate," she penned.

Anne Frank: Betrayed, deported, world-famous Death in Bergen-Belsen Anne Frank and her sister were taken from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen on October 30, 1944. More than 70,000 people died in this concentration camp. After the liberation of the camp, the victims were transported to mass graves under the supervision of British soldiers. Anne and Margot Frank were among those who died there from typhus, at an unknown date in March 1945. Anne was just 15 years old.

Anne Frank: Betrayed, deported, world-famous Anne's tombstone Anne's tombstone also stands in Bergen-Belsen. This Jewish girl from Frankfurt had imagined her life differently. "I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to bring joy and aid to the people who live around me, but who don't know me all the same. I want to live on, even after my death," she wrote in her diary on April 5, 1944.

Anne Frank: Betrayed, deported, world-famous Made famous by a diary Her great dream was to become a journalist or author. Thanks to her father, her diary was published on July 25, 1947. An English version was brought out in 1952. Anne Frank became a symbol for the victims of the Nazi dictatorship. "We all live with the aim of attaining happiness; we all live differently, but the same." — Anne Frank, July 6, 1944. Author: Iveta Ondruskova / tj



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