Friedrich "Fritz" Pfeffer was a German dentist and Jewish refugee who hid with Anne Frank and her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
17 Facts About Fritz Pfeffer
2.
Fritz Pfeffer perished in the Neuengamme concentration camp in Northern Germany.
3.
Fritz Pfeffer served in the German army during the First World War.
4.
In 1926, Fritz Pfeffer married Vera Bythiner, who was born in Posen in Imperial Germany.
5.
Fritz Pfeffer was granted custody of the boy and raised him alone until November 1938, when the rising tide of Nazi activity in Germany, as well as the Kristallnacht, persuaded him to send his son into the care of his brother, Ernst, in England.
6.
Werner Fritz Pfeffer emigrated to California in 1945 after his uncle's death and changed his name to Peter Pepper, later establishing a successful office supplies company under that name.
7.
Fritz Pfeffer's mother had died in 1925, and his father remarried and remained in Germany, only to be arrested and was murdered in Theresienstadt in October 1942.
8.
In 1936, Fritz Pfeffer met a young woman, Charlotte Kaletta, born in Ilmenau, Thuringia in central Germany, who shared his history of a broken marriage.
9.
Fritz Pfeffer was estranged from her first husband, Ludwig Lowenstein and had a son, Gustav, both of whom were deported on 26 September 1942 from Berlin to Raasiku, Estonia and were murdered in the Holocaust.
10.
Fritz Pfeffer consulted Otto Frank, whose family Gies had been hiding in secret rooms in the Franks' office building along with the Van Pels family.
11.
Fritz Pfeffer felt his age gave him seniority over Anne and wrote off her writing activities as unimportant compared to his own studies.
12.
Anne's irritations and growing dislike of Fritz Pfeffer led to complaints and derisory descriptions of him in her diary, against which his son Werner and wife Charlotte defended him once the book was published.
13.
Fritz Pfeffer noted that while Fritz could be strict at times, he was a caring person.
14.
Fritz Pfeffer left a farewell note to his wife and they stayed in touch through Gies, who met her on a weekly basis to exchange their letters and take provisions from her.
15.
Fritz Pfeffer pointed out that her husband was a devout Jew and master of Hebrew, but the character of "Mr Dussel" remained unchanged.
16.
Embittered by the unrepresentative portrait, Charlotte Fritz Pfeffer severed her links with Otto Frank and Miep Gies as Anne Frank's fame grew in the decades after the war, and refused interview requests.
17.
Werner Fritz Pfeffer remained in touch with Otto Frank and had the opportunity to meet Gies shortly before dying of cancer in 1995, to thank her for her attempt to save his father's life.