“The Silent Sister” of Anne Frank

David F. Nesenoff: Who is the silent sister?

Mazal Alouf-Mizrahi: The silent sister is a name for Margot Frank, Anne Frank’s sister. Many individuals are aware that Anne Frank lived and passed away through her own diary “The Diary of Anne Frank.” Many are unfortunately unaware of her silent sister, her reticent sister. The title itself is another name for Margot herself.

DFN: Your book “The Silent Sister” is known as historical fiction. Is this a new genre when it comes to the Holocaust?

MAM: I would say it is an extraordinarily experimental genre. It’s rather new; there are two ways to usually write about the Holocaust, either through fiction such as the popular book “Sarah’s Key” or as actual non-fiction through memoirs like Elie Wiesel’s books and many, many others.

DFN: How do you write an historical fictional account when you’re presenting a topic of such magnitude such as dealing with the accuracy of the Holocaust? What goes into a book that has to contain such gravitas and some fictional imagination?

MAM: A lot of research. You cannot write about any era without doing a great deal of research. When it comes to the Holocaust, research would have to take place from primary sources and secondary sources such as diaries, documentaries, and many other available sources. I have read about the Holocaust since I was twelve years old when I read “Hitler’s Willing Executioner.” When it came to learning about Margot Frank, I have to tell you, there was not that much information about her. Most of my material came either from Anne Frank’s diary, historical documentation about what happened in Holland during that time period, and some secondary sources from women who were able to tell about what Anne Frank went through. And as a writer whatever poetic license I incorporated. For instance Mordechai, a character in the book, there is no historical basis for. But I used him as a person that I truly felt had historical basis. He was a man who was interested in the Zionist movement, and there were such individuals who left Europe through clandestine means. Did she know a Mordechai? Probably not. Was there a person such as Mordechai? Most certainly.

DFN: What does Margot bring to the table? Is there a part of the Margot story that will add to the Anne story?

MAM: Yes. When we hear from Anne, it is pretty much one sided. It is her perception of her reality. And sometimes in order to fully understand that reality, we need to hear a sister voice. So what is interesting about this book is that we understand Anne more through Margot. Why does Anne seem to feel so energetic? What is she trying to achieve? What is going through Anne’s consciousness? Margot is trying to understand her sister.

DFN: Margot was her older sister.

MAM: Yes. Margot was the older sister, but in many ways Anne was more socially adept while Margot was more into herself. So the two sisters had very different types of realities. They had different lives. But to really understand Anne, we have to hear from the more observant type. Margot was very observant.

DFN: Your book is written in the form of a diary as well.

MAM: Yes. It is a similar format, but unlike Anne’s, it is not dated. And the reason why it is not dated is because Margot writes in her diary that she feels that time is an occurrence of movement and it’s on going. The past eliminates the present and the present cannot understand the future. But time is something she doesn’t feel is necessary to indicate in her diary. She also doesn’t hide the identity of any of her compatriots such as the doctor, whereas Anne is more circumspect as to whether she should include their names. Margot feels if we’re going to get caught, we’re going to get caught together, so she doesn’t hide their names.

DFN: What are the similarities and differences in the personalities of Margot and Anne as far as how they view their future?

MAM: The main similarity is that they have a lot of fear. They have fear of the unknown, fear that they might get caught. There were a couple of instances where they had break-ins, before they were found out. And it really rattled them. They also both had confusion as to what’s going to happen to them both after the war. Is Margot going to become a mid-wife or will Anne become a journalist? Is there a real future for them? That they certainly shared. Anne was more of an individual who wanted to live the big life, whereas Margot was more interested in living internally through her own consciousness and her own world as well as sharing with others in a very intimate moment which is the moment of the delivery of a child.

DFN: Why do you think the Diary of Anne Frank made such an impact? What was it that moved people?

MAM: I think it was the transformation of Anne. When we first meet Anne in her diary she is a young girl who is very concerned with the mundane. This boy, does he like her, this girl, what’s going on in school… simple issues. And then because she is forced to grow beyond her years, her perception of life becomes so deep with such a tremendous understanding that she becomes an old soul so quickly. All of us throughout life go through a process where we learn to understand. With Anne, it was so sad that her life was cut short and the tragedy of her passing is that she wanted to live a life of depth and meaning.

DFN: Without spoiling any of the story in the book, does Margot go through any transformation?

MAM: She does. What’s interesting about Margot is that her transformation occurs first on the intellectual level and then we see it more on the emotional level. Whereas Anne was always very emotional.

DFN: Tell me a little about you, Mazal Alouf-Mizrahi, the author.

MAM: I am an individual, a mother of three children, a teacher, a hard worker, and I’ve always been fascinated with literature and writing. I have a BSA in writing and a Masters in literature. I’ve lived in Brooklyn for most of my life. I was born in Jerusalem; my parents are Israeli.

DFN: What makes you wake up one day and come up with this concept, which is rather innovative, emotional and industrious to say, “Let me write about Margot Frank.” No one has thought of that. What makes you think of such a thing?

MAM: We all go through our own emotional movements in life. Before I started writing about Margot Frank I was going through a different type of movement in my life. I just had a baby and I was questioning my career and want to go into midwifery and started to take courses at Brooklyn College. I studied chemistry, physiology and I was really very moved by the whole birth experience and I wanted to become a part of that sharing with others and become a part of that arrangement with G-d to bring new life into the world. Unfortunately with regard to my personal life, it wasn’t very practical financially. At the same time I started picking up the Diary of Anne Frank, I constantly would reread her work because Anne Frank to me is an individual who enlightens and inspires. I liked rereading it to see what she is thinking and to find some type of message for myself. While I was reading, and I think it was really from Hashem, I started noticing that Margot is silent and absent from the diary and it started to bother me a little bit. I said, “I don’t understand, I know so much about Anne, but who is this Margot? Who is she? What is she?” And then I noticed that Anne said in one of her entries in 1942, early on, that “Margot and I, we share our diaries and we like to read to each other what we write.” I thought, “Wait, that’s while she was in hiding? Are you telling me that Margot also kept a diary?” And then one thing led to another and then I thought this is the book that I always wanted to write. I relate to Margot; she was a young woman; she was Jewish; she’s interested in midwifery; let me see where this takes me.

DFN: What do you hope for from your readers? What transformation should happen to your reader?

MAM: It’s a very good question. The number one thing I would want the reader to leave with is the sense of unfathomable loss because the silent sister represents the six million silent voices. Anne Frank is the voice we actually have. But what about all those voices we will never hear again? We have lost a community of voices… doctors, lawyers, beautiful people, children with so much potential… all destroyed. That would be on the deepest level. Another message would be is the sense that we all have dreams and it is our right to try to fulfill them. There is no one individual who should take that away from anyone. Whether it is an external force, unfortunately, such as the Holocaust or an internal force such as a person against himself, we all have the right to fulfill a dream. And Margot’s dream to live in Palestine, in Israel, to become a midwife, that’s all she wanted, such a small little piece of this world, and she died without being able to take a step forward and fulfill her dreams.

“The Silent Sister” is available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com