Afori Publishing

Letters From The Ledermanns Afori Publishing

The Ledermanns were a Jewish family living in Berlin, Germany. The rise of the Nazis in 1933 led the family to migrate to the Netherlands as did many other Jewish families at that time. They rented an apartment in Amsterdam, tens of meters from Merwedeplein square where the Frank family lived. The girls: Barbara, born 1925, was admitted to Jeker School in the class of Margot Frank. The younger sister Sanne, born 1928, also was admitted to Jeker School in the class Eva Schloss (the stepsister of Anne Frank) was later attended to as well. Anne Frank and Hanneli Goslar attended the Montessori school and the three girls became close friends as they all lived next to the Merwedeplein square. Life returned to normal until the German invasion to the Netherlands. Gradually the lives of the Jews began being increasingly restricted with each day. The first letter in this book dated July 3rd, 1942 was written mere days before Margot Frank received her call up letter on July 5th. This letter led to the immediate entry of the Frank family into hiding the next day, on July 6th. This book contains 51 letters that were written by the family members in the period of July 1942 to November 1943, and it is the Ledermanns diary of letters that describes the family's struggle with the impossible living conditions at the time. This book was written in the memory of the Ledermann family.