Video: 'The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank - English Subtitles' (Auschwitz arrival at 31:07)

(Wednesday, September 6, 1944, approximately 2:00 a.m. Central European Summer Time; part of The Holocaust during World War II) — Following a two-and-a-half day journey crammed into a packed cattle car with little water or fresh air and no facilities except for a bucket, Jewish diarist Anne Frank, 15, was among 1,019 Jews ordered to disembark from their cattle cars early this morning upon arrival at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau extermination camp in German-occupied Poland.

Upon arrival on what would turn out to be the last transport from Westerbork in Holland, the SS forcibly separated men from women and children, permanently splitting Otto Frank from his family.

Those deemed able to work were admitted into the camp, while those unfit for labor were immediately killed. Of the 1,019 passengers, 549 — including all children under 15 — were sent directly to the gas chambers.

Anne Frank, having turned 15 just three months earlier, narrowly escaped this fate, being one of the youngest spared from her transport.

Soon, Anne learned that most new arrivals were gassed upon arrival. She never discovered that the entire group from the Secret Annex had survived this selection (including her father,
Fritz Pfeffer, Hermann van Pels, and Peter van Pels). Assuming her father had been killed due to his age and physical condition, she prepared for the harsh reality of camp life.

With other women and girls not selected for immediate death (including her mother Edith, sister Margot, and Auguste van Pels), Anne was forced to strip naked, be disinfected, have her head shaved, and be tattooed with an identifying number.

Video: 'Anne Frank (The Whole Story)' (arrival Auschwitz, at 2:18:23)

By day, they were used as slave labor; Anne hauled rocks and dug rolls of sod. By night, they were crammed into overcrowded barracks.

Witnesses later testified that Anne became withdrawn and tearful at the sight of children being led to the gas chambers. However, many also reported that she often displayed strength and courage, using her gregarious nature to obtain extra bread rations for her mother, sister, and herself.

Disease was rampant in the camp. Before long, Anne’s skin became badly infected with scabies. She and her sister Margot were moved to an infirmary, which was in constant darkness and infested with rats and mice.

Their mother, Edith Frank, stopped eating, saving every morsel of food for her daughters, passing her rations to them through a hole in the infirmary wall.

In October 1944, the Frank women would be scheduled for transport to the Liebau labor camp in Lower Silesia.

Bloeme Evers-Emden, an Amsterdam native who had befriended Margot and Anne in the Jewish Lyceum in 1941, also scheduled for this transport, went on without them as Anne was prohibited from going due to her scabies infection. Her mother and sister chose to stay behind with her.