Lies Goosens and Anne Frank in school before the war.
Following the information of a collaborator, the whole Frank family was arrested in August 1944 and shipped to the extermination camp in Auschwitz. The betrayer of the secret hiding place received from Hitler's Secret Police the usual reward of five gulden ($1.40) for each member of the Frank family. Only Anne Frank's father, Otto, survived the terrible starvation and suffering of the camp life.
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During the swift advance of the Allied Armies in the winter of 1944, Anne and her sister, Margot, were shipped to their final destination, the Belsen Camp in Germany. There Anne accidentally met her friend, Lies Goosens, about whose fate she had worried so much worried in her diary. Lies survived miraculously the horrors of the prison camps. About her meeting with Anne in March 1945, the last month of Anne's life, she recalls:
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"I was shivering in darkness when I suddenly heard a voice; 'Lies, Lies where are you?' It was Anne, and I ran in the direction of the voice, and then I saw her beyond the barbed wire. She was in rags. I saw her emaciated, sunken face in the darkness. Her eyes were very large. We cried and cried, for now there was only the barbed wire between us, nothing more. And no longer any difference in our fates.
"I told Anne that my mother had died and my father was dying, and Anne told me that her mother died and that she knew nothing about her father. Only her sister, Margot, was with her but she was already very sick and died a few days later. Anne was not informed of her sister's death; but after a few days she sensed it and died soon afterwards -- only seven weeks before the end of the war. She was not yet 16."
When Morawetz wrote the Diary, he realized that as the text was written so recently, he would have to get permission to use the words in his composition. As the composition was almost completely finished, he was very nervous that this permission may not be granted. Instead of writing a business-like letter to the publisher of the diary, Doubleday, he decided to write a very personal, impassioned note about how much the diary meant to him. In hindsight he was relieved to have crafted such a polite letter when the publisher replied that he could not give permission to Morawetz as the father of Anne Frank was still alive, and he has taken the liberty of forwarding Morawetz' letter to him.
Click here to read Doubleday's reply
May 15, 1990. CKDU-FM Halifax:
Morawetz
describes how he obtained permission to
use the words from the Diary.
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Permission was granted to Morawetz, and a long-time friendship and correspondence developed between him and Otto Frank. When Morawetz asked what had happened to all the other people who had helped hide the Frank family, Mr. Frank informed him that Miep and Elly, the two secretaries that helped bring food and other essential items to the eight people hiding in the attic were living in Holland; Lies, about whom Anne writes in the excerpt used in Morawetz' composition lives in Jerusalem, and Mr. Kraler (whose real name is Victor Kugler) lives, in all places, in Toronto! Here is the letter that Mr. Frank wrote to Morawetz disclosing this information:
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Morawetz invited Mr. Kugler to the première performance of the Diary, where he presented flowers to soprano Lois Marshall on behalf of Otto Frank. On the occasion of the première, Mr. Frank sent Morawetz the following letter as well as a silver dish, one of the few possessions he had saved from the war. Much to Morawetz' dismay, the dish seemed to have gone missing during his divorce.
Morawetz visited Mr. Kugler and his wife often, and invited Mr. Kugler to Toronto performances of his composition, where he would surprise the audience by presenting Mr. Kugler to an often emotional audience.
In 1973, Morawetz travelled to Switzerland and met Otto Frank for the first time, at his home in Basel. During their visit, Morawetz lamented the fact that he had not brought a tape recorder whereupon Otto Frank offered his own cassette machine, and Morawetz recorded a conversation with Mr. Frank. Below are excerpts from the recorded conversation on May 29, 1973 between Morawetz and Otto Frank:
In 1976, the Diary was performed in Tel Aviv. Morawetz and his daughter travelled to Israel for the performance, and then spent a week touring Jerusalem. After many failed attempts to contact Anne Frank's childhood friend, Lies, the subject of the diary excerpt which Morawetz set to music, Morawetz finally arranged to spend his last evening in Jerusalem with her. Lies was somewhat reluctant to talk about the horrors of the past, but gave Morawetz her only copy of an article she had written for a magazine shortly after the war:
During the same 1976 trip, Morawetz once again visited Otto Frank in his home and met Miep Gies, one of the secretaries who helped to hide the Frank family, and who was visiting Mr. Frank at the time.
Two years later, Elly van Wyck, the second secretary who helped bring food, comfort and outside news to the Frank family while they were in hiding, visited Mr. Kugler from her home in Holland. Morawetz was invited to meet her, completing his association with all the surviving members of the "Anne Frank" story. During his visit with Elly in Mr. Kugler's home on Oct. 9, 1978, Morawetz asked Elly a few questions:
In the remainder of Morawetz' interview, Elly responds in her native Dutch, and translation is provided by Mr. Kugler's wife, Lucy.
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Dedication: |
Dedication: |
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Lies Goosens was Anne's best friend from school |
Miep was one of the two secretaries that helped to hide the Frank family |
Elly was one of the two secretaries |
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Additional background material:
