Thread: Anne Frank's one true love

Anne Frank's 'one true love' pictured | NEWS.com.au - see link for photo.

THE face of Peter Schiff, described as "my one true love" by Anne Frank in her Nazi-era diary, is to be shown to the public for the first time by the museum dedicated to her life in Amsterdam.

A picture of the boy, 13 when his adolescent romance began with the 11-year-old Frank, was handed over by childhood friend Ernst Michaelis, who visited the Anne Frank museum with his children and grandchildren last month.

It is signed "your friend Lutz Peter Schiff" and dates from 1939.

Like Frank, Schiff - who would pick her up after classes in 1940 - later died in a concentration camp, at Auschwitz.

Frank's entry for Friday 7 January 1944 states: "I'm such an idiot. I forgot that I haven't yet told you the story of my one true love.

"I can still see us walking hand in hand through our neighbourhood."

Frank called Schiff "the ideal boy: tall, slim and good-looking, with a serious, quiet and intelligent face.

"He had dark hair, beautiful brown eyes, ruddy cheeks and a nicely pointed nose. I was crazy about his smile, which made him look so boyish and mischievous."

Annemarie Bekker, spokeswoman for the Anne Frank Foundation, which runs the museum, said: "We are really very pleased to have received this picture."

The Frank family fled Nazi Germany to Amsterdam in 1933. They moved into a secret annex above her father Otto's canal-side office building in July 1942 after the Nazis invaded the Netherlands and set about exterminating its Jews.

The family was ultimately betrayed and arrested in 1944, and Anne died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp the following year at age of 15.

Her diary has been published in more than 67 languages.

Looking forward to visiting the museum again in April, last visit was a bit brief, got a bit behind schedule and nearly missed our plane home. Going on our first day this time.!!!!!