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De kamergenoot van Anne Frank
Dutch, German
- GenresHolocaust
104 pages
First published January 1, 1990
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 29, 2015
Really?
If I wasn't reading this book for research, I would have been furious. It sheds light on Anne Frank's caricatured roommate Mr. Dussel (Fritz Pfeffer) and it's told in a fictionalized narrative where the author interviews Mr. Dussel's wife, Charlotte.
And the book is horrible.
The translation for one thing, is riddled with so many mistakes and stylistic infelicities that I laughed at them and at the miracle that it got published AT ALL (the translator seems to not know the past tense of "send," for example, or the difference between "loose" and "lose," or how to use the present perfect tense, etc. etc. etc.)
Even more infuriating, the book's actual content is all of 42 pages. And the fictionalized "interview" abounds with random jumps in conversation and repeated interruptions as the characters get their tea and play a record again and again (to supposedly add realism to the whole "interview," though all they did was make it all artificial & hopelessly clumsy). After one of the interruptions in which Lotte tries to get up from her chair for the umpteenth time, I finally figured out the real purpose of the interruptions: to fluff up the content. Because if you subtract the interruptions as well as the direct block quotes from Anne Frank's diary and excerpts from Pfeffer's 4 letters (which are reproduced in full at the back, so there really isn't any reason for the author to excerpt them in such large chunks), I'd estimate the "interview" to be about 30 pages—hardly a book length. Then there are tons of pictures (which I appreciated), followed by the facsimiles of Pfeffer's letters IN LANDSCAPE, which is followed in turn by their transcriptions IN GERMAN, THEN finally their hopelessly inept English translations.
So all told, the meat of this book consists of 30 pages + 4 pages of Pfeffer's letters + 10 pages of photographs = 44 pages. And the most infuriating part about it is: it cost $20. To put that price in perspective, this book is more expensive than, say, Hemingway's COMPLETE SHORT STORIES or the complete poems of Emily Dickinson.
An Amazon reviewer said it was significantly overpriced. I'd say it's a blatant rip-off. An outrageous swindle of a book.
But I did get some useful information out of it, so the book wasn't completely worthless. Those who are curious about Pfeffer, however, should be aware of how meager the content is and try to find it at a library.
If I wasn't reading this book for research, I would have been furious. It sheds light on Anne Frank's caricatured roommate Mr. Dussel (Fritz Pfeffer) and it's told in a fictionalized narrative where the author interviews Mr. Dussel's wife, Charlotte.
And the book is horrible.
The translation for one thing, is riddled with so many mistakes and stylistic infelicities that I laughed at them and at the miracle that it got published AT ALL (the translator seems to not know the past tense of "send," for example, or the difference between "loose" and "lose," or how to use the present perfect tense, etc. etc. etc.)
Even more infuriating, the book's actual content is all of 42 pages. And the fictionalized "interview" abounds with random jumps in conversation and repeated interruptions as the characters get their tea and play a record again and again (to supposedly add realism to the whole "interview," though all they did was make it all artificial & hopelessly clumsy). After one of the interruptions in which Lotte tries to get up from her chair for the umpteenth time, I finally figured out the real purpose of the interruptions: to fluff up the content. Because if you subtract the interruptions as well as the direct block quotes from Anne Frank's diary and excerpts from Pfeffer's 4 letters (which are reproduced in full at the back, so there really isn't any reason for the author to excerpt them in such large chunks), I'd estimate the "interview" to be about 30 pages—hardly a book length. Then there are tons of pictures (which I appreciated), followed by the facsimiles of Pfeffer's letters IN LANDSCAPE, which is followed in turn by their transcriptions IN GERMAN, THEN finally their hopelessly inept English translations.
So all told, the meat of this book consists of 30 pages + 4 pages of Pfeffer's letters + 10 pages of photographs = 44 pages. And the most infuriating part about it is: it cost $20. To put that price in perspective, this book is more expensive than, say, Hemingway's COMPLETE SHORT STORIES or the complete poems of Emily Dickinson.
An Amazon reviewer said it was significantly overpriced. I'd say it's a blatant rip-off. An outrageous swindle of a book.
But I did get some useful information out of it, so the book wasn't completely worthless. Those who are curious about Pfeffer, however, should be aware of how meager the content is and try to find it at a library.
December 8, 2024
https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-room-mate-of-anne-frank-by-nanda-van-de-zee/
This is the story of Fritz Pfeffer, known to the world as Dussel the dentist, who shared a bedroom in the Secret Annex in Amsterdam with the diarist Anne Frank for twenty uncomfortable months from November 1942 until they were arrested in July 1944 and sent to their deaths. (Fritz Pfeffer died in Neuengamme that December, Anne Frank in Belsen probably in February 1945.) I have written before about the editing of Anne’s original words about him, here and here; I think even her biggest fans (and I count myself as quite a big fan) would need to admit that her writing about him does not show her at her best, and it’s actually rather redeeming to read about him in his own terms.
Fritz Pfeffer was from Gießen in Hesse (all eight of the fugitives in the Achterhuis were born in Germany, including both Frank girls). He was born in 1889, moved to Berlin in 1912 and opened a dental surgery there, served in the First World War, married in 1926, had a son in 1927 and divorced in 1932. He met Charlotte Kaletta (1910-1985) in 1936; she too was divorced, with a son, and although her background was Christian, her ex-husband and therefore her son counted as Jewish.
They fled together to Amsterdam after Kristallnacht in 1938, and Fritz’s son went to his brother in England and survived the war. A twist of Dutch law meant that Fritz and Charlotte could not marry; as they were German citizens, the Netherlands was not willing to let them break German law. She did marry him retroactively in 1950, with effect from 1937, but of course he had been dead for several years by then. Fritz’s mother had died in 1925, but his father and both his sisters, and Charlotte’s ex-husband and her son, all died in the Holocaust as well. It’s another grim story among so many millions.
I really hate to say it, but this is actually a terrible book. Nanda van der Zee, one of the Netherlands’ most controversial historians, decided to write it not as non-fiction but as a fictional interview with Charlotte (who had died two years before the Anne Frank House researchers came across the papers, so van der Zee never actually met her). We therefore don’t know what details are true and what are van der Zee’s creative licence. On top of that, the English translation of van der Zee’s original Dutch text, and of Fritz’s own letters to Charlotte in German, is clunky and tin-eared. We do at least get the original German text of those letters, so if you have the linguistic skills (or access to a translation engine) you can draw your own conclusions. Fritz’s German was awkward but fluent, like most repressed professional men of his time. (Anne mercilessly mocks his Dutch in the Diary.)
At the end of the book, van der Zee gives her fictional version of Charlotte a peroration about the evil of war, but this rather misses the point (though let me be clear that war usually is evil): it was not war that killed Fritz Pfeffer, Anne Frank and five of their six companions – it was the rulers of the country where they were born, declaring that they were not fully human and that they deserved only death. While the war certainly did not help, it was another result of Fascism, which was the ultimate cause of both the war and the genocide. It seems to me very strange that van der Zee chose to take a different, and demonstrably wrong, line.
On the positive side, a bunch of photos are included, mainly from Fritz’s earlier life but a few from Charlotte’s. There is one picture, and only one, of the two of them together, on a boat probably in the Netherlands in 1939 or 1940. She looks blissful; he looks pretty content too, and has a good cigar slipped between his fingers. From the number of clothes they are wearing, it was a cold day though a sunny one; they must have provided their own warmth for each other.
It is awful to think of Charlotte living another four decades, knowing that the man she loved had spent his last year and a half in the Netherlands sharing uncomfortable space with a resentful teenager – whose side of the story then became world famous, to the extent that a comic actor got an Oscar nomination for playing him for laughs in the film. She had at least had regular letters from Fritz during his time in the Achterhuis, but sadly they have not survived. I am glad that we now have some access to Fritz’s past, though it could really have been presented much much better than it is in this book.
This is the story of Fritz Pfeffer, known to the world as Dussel the dentist, who shared a bedroom in the Secret Annex in Amsterdam with the diarist Anne Frank for twenty uncomfortable months from November 1942 until they were arrested in July 1944 and sent to their deaths. (Fritz Pfeffer died in Neuengamme that December, Anne Frank in Belsen probably in February 1945.) I have written before about the editing of Anne’s original words about him, here and here; I think even her biggest fans (and I count myself as quite a big fan) would need to admit that her writing about him does not show her at her best, and it’s actually rather redeeming to read about him in his own terms.
Fritz Pfeffer was from Gießen in Hesse (all eight of the fugitives in the Achterhuis were born in Germany, including both Frank girls). He was born in 1889, moved to Berlin in 1912 and opened a dental surgery there, served in the First World War, married in 1926, had a son in 1927 and divorced in 1932. He met Charlotte Kaletta (1910-1985) in 1936; she too was divorced, with a son, and although her background was Christian, her ex-husband and therefore her son counted as Jewish.
They fled together to Amsterdam after Kristallnacht in 1938, and Fritz’s son went to his brother in England and survived the war. A twist of Dutch law meant that Fritz and Charlotte could not marry; as they were German citizens, the Netherlands was not willing to let them break German law. She did marry him retroactively in 1950, with effect from 1937, but of course he had been dead for several years by then. Fritz’s mother had died in 1925, but his father and both his sisters, and Charlotte’s ex-husband and her son, all died in the Holocaust as well. It’s another grim story among so many millions.
I really hate to say it, but this is actually a terrible book. Nanda van der Zee, one of the Netherlands’ most controversial historians, decided to write it not as non-fiction but as a fictional interview with Charlotte (who had died two years before the Anne Frank House researchers came across the papers, so van der Zee never actually met her). We therefore don’t know what details are true and what are van der Zee’s creative licence. On top of that, the English translation of van der Zee’s original Dutch text, and of Fritz’s own letters to Charlotte in German, is clunky and tin-eared. We do at least get the original German text of those letters, so if you have the linguistic skills (or access to a translation engine) you can draw your own conclusions. Fritz’s German was awkward but fluent, like most repressed professional men of his time. (Anne mercilessly mocks his Dutch in the Diary.)
At the end of the book, van der Zee gives her fictional version of Charlotte a peroration about the evil of war, but this rather misses the point (though let me be clear that war usually is evil): it was not war that killed Fritz Pfeffer, Anne Frank and five of their six companions – it was the rulers of the country where they were born, declaring that they were not fully human and that they deserved only death. While the war certainly did not help, it was another result of Fascism, which was the ultimate cause of both the war and the genocide. It seems to me very strange that van der Zee chose to take a different, and demonstrably wrong, line.
On the positive side, a bunch of photos are included, mainly from Fritz’s earlier life but a few from Charlotte’s. There is one picture, and only one, of the two of them together, on a boat probably in the Netherlands in 1939 or 1940. She looks blissful; he looks pretty content too, and has a good cigar slipped between his fingers. From the number of clothes they are wearing, it was a cold day though a sunny one; they must have provided their own warmth for each other.
It is awful to think of Charlotte living another four decades, knowing that the man she loved had spent his last year and a half in the Netherlands sharing uncomfortable space with a resentful teenager – whose side of the story then became world famous, to the extent that a comic actor got an Oscar nomination for playing him for laughs in the film. She had at least had regular letters from Fritz during his time in the Achterhuis, but sadly they have not survived. I am glad that we now have some access to Fritz’s past, though it could really have been presented much much better than it is in this book.
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January 30, 2023Ik heb dit boekje eerder gelezen, zo’n drie jaar geleden. Het is interessant om wat meer te weten te komen over Fritz Pfeffer, die vaak vergeten wordt om te vermelden als het over Het Achterhuis gaat. Alle tekst telt ongeveer 50 pagina’s, wat niet erg veel is. Charlotte, Fritz zijn vriendin/vrouw, vertelt over haar ervaringen en leven met Fritz. Ook geeft zij kritiek op hoe Anne Frank Fritz heeft neergezet in haar dagboek.
Dit boek is ook weer zo subjectief als maar kan.
Anne schreef een DAGBOEK. Daarin mag je toch nog schrijven over een persoon wat je wilt. Als je onder constante spanning en angst leeft, in een klein kamertje, in een klein huis met acht mensen, dan KAN je niet meer objectief over een persoon nadenken. Anne, een puber, en Fritz, een man van middelbare leeftijd, heb ik altijd al vreemd gevonden dat zijn twee jaar samen op een kleine kamer moesten doorbrengen. Dat is geen gezonde combinatie.
Charlotte was de geliefde van Fritz. Dan is het vrij logisch dat je ook niet objectief over hem kunt nadenken. Het is wel zeer begrijpelijk dat ze geschrokken was van Annes beschrijvingen over Fritz, maar ze kon dat moeilijk in de context plaatsen…
Besluit is dat we nu twee uiterste kanten van Fritz Pfeffer hebben gezien. Een neutraler beeld zal er denk ik niet meer komen…
Dit boek is ook weer zo subjectief als maar kan.
Anne schreef een DAGBOEK. Daarin mag je toch nog schrijven over een persoon wat je wilt. Als je onder constante spanning en angst leeft, in een klein kamertje, in een klein huis met acht mensen, dan KAN je niet meer objectief over een persoon nadenken. Anne, een puber, en Fritz, een man van middelbare leeftijd, heb ik altijd al vreemd gevonden dat zijn twee jaar samen op een kleine kamer moesten doorbrengen. Dat is geen gezonde combinatie.
Charlotte was de geliefde van Fritz. Dan is het vrij logisch dat je ook niet objectief over hem kunt nadenken. Het is wel zeer begrijpelijk dat ze geschrokken was van Annes beschrijvingen over Fritz, maar ze kon dat moeilijk in de context plaatsen…
Besluit is dat we nu twee uiterste kanten van Fritz Pfeffer hebben gezien. Een neutraler beeld zal er denk ik niet meer komen…
January 3, 2025
I thought this book was going to be about the life of Mr Pfeffer from when he was a young boy, etc. before he went into hiding, however, it was not. Out of the 94 pages, the story was only 49 pages long, and the remainder photographs and letters. Although, the 'Justification' pages, as it is referred to in the book, mentioned the author making contact with Mr Pfeffer's son and the Anne Frank House for information about Mr Pfeffer, I fail to see where it was used as the book is more of a fictional story whereby the author interviews Mr Pfeffer's wife, when they had not met in real life. One cannot know what is true and what is not. There is quite a lot of reference to Anne Frank's diary with many of her entries being included within the book. The previously unseen photographs were a nice addition, though.
The book was translated into English, but there were a lot of mistakes, and I believe a native English speaker checking the translator's work before the book went to print would have been beneficial.
The book was translated into English, but there were a lot of mistakes, and I believe a native English speaker checking the translator's work before the book went to print would have been beneficial.
March 21, 2026
I checked this book out from my school library due to personal interest in the subject. I was expecting a new point of view from het achterhuis, but literally didn’t get one. The woman who tells the story of pfeffer, his supposed wife, is nothing but bitter and depressing. No offense or anything but god does she dislike Anne, which is just strange to me seeing as she was a young girl experiencing the war. Idk interesting and short read to use as a primary source but other than that eh.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews