Otto Heinrich Frank was born in Frankfurt in 1889 to a liberal Jewish family. He had the opportunity to study economics, and then traveled to the United States to spend time with friends while working at Macys. He returned to Germany before the onset of World War I, ultimately serving in the Imperial German Army. In fact, he was present at the infamous Battle of the Somme. After the war, he began his career at a bank. He married Edith in 1925. Their daughter, Margot, was born the following year, in 1926. Anne, their second daughter, was born in 1929. (Unfortunately, Edith died in Auschwitz from starvation/disease. Margot and Anne were removed to Bergen-Belsen, where they died from typhus.)

I had no idea that Otto Frank remarried after the death of his family. His second wife was a Holocaust survivor as well, and her daughter is a well known speaker about this topic, Eva Schloss. Of course, The Diary of Anne Frank was required reading in high school for me and helped to foster my interest and eventual degree path in World War II history. Otto Frank also kept his own diary, and this book is filled with personal reflections from that, which I very much enjoyed. This author did a tremendous about of research on this topic, and it really gave you a sense of the man behind Anne Frank and her diary. He had a very interesting life up to the point of the Holocaust, which I think has been overlooked and diminished in the wake of Anne's diary and the Holocaust itself. The Holocaust stripped away identities of millions of people, and this is just another point proven in that regard. I learned a great deal from this book, and I am glad that I ran across it. I would suggest reading this as a companion to the Anne Frank book if you want a more detailed family history for her.