365 Days of Books

I knew that Otto Frank had remarried after the deaths of his wife and daughters in Bergen-Belsen because I had read Eva's Story though I don't remember it having the elongated title. BTW, it is a good book and does a great job of telling of the difficulties that the released death camp prisoners had in adjusting to life outside the camps and their difficult journeys to home and health. I did not know anything about how Otto Frank discovered the Diary of Anne Frank or how it was edited and published. The Hidden Life of Otto Frank documents this process as part of the life of Otto Frank from his childhood. A lot of time and space is given to examining a possible betrayer of the Franks and their friends; this is fascinating on its own but does tie in with decisions made about the Diary and Otto Franks general decisions.

There is very little story and a lot of documenting because (I believe) this was the purpose of the book. Every step in the collection, editing, writing, translating, scropt, and screenplay is brought out and documented. When there are two or more documented ideas that seem reasonable to a piece in the process, they are all discussed in as much detail as the author can manage. Disagreements over different views of the Jewishness of the Diary on stage and screen are scrutinized and evidence from both sides is offered in the form of vague remembrances and copies of written communication.

If you want the story, you will have to wade through the detail but if the documentation satisfies your need to know then this is the book for you.