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Otto Frank desperately sought help to escape Nazi-occupied Holland, but was unsuccessful in obtaining US or Cuban visas due to tightened regulations. The Frank family went into hiding in 1942 and were eventually sent to concentration camps, where Anne and Margot died.
About a year before Anne Frank began writing in her diary in June 1942, her father was writing fervently to family and friends in the United States, asking for help. Otto Frank hoped that someone could help his family escape their perilous situation in Nazi-occupied Holland. In 2007, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City released 65 documents — typewritten letters, handwritten notes, and a telegram — detailing Otto Frank’s ultimately unsuccessful efforts to obtain U.S. visas. and, later, Cuba. By June 1940, the US State Department had tightened the visa application process. Applicants had to show “a good reason” to seek admission, not just a desire to leave Europe.
A family desperate for a place to go:
The State Department has tightened regulations to reduce the number of immigrant visas granted. In the early 1940s, there were national security concerns, fear of foreigners, and, by some accounts, anti-Semitism.
Although he was unable to obtain visas for his family to travel to the United States, Otto Frank received a Cuban visa for himself on December 1, 1941. Ten days later, Germany declared war on the United States and the visa was cancelled.
The Frank family went into hiding in 1942. They were eventually discovered and sent to concentration camps, where Anne Frank and her sister, Margot, died of typhoid fever and their mother, Edith, starved to death.
