Sanne Ledermann
Susanne "Sanne" Ledermann (October 7, 1928 – November 19, 1943) was a German Jewish girl who was killed by the Nazis in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Susanne is best known for her friendship with the famous diarist Anne Frank and her sister Margot Frank.
Sanne was born in Berlin, the younger of two daughters of Franz Ledermann, lawyer and musician, and Ilse Citroën-Ledermann, a pianist. In 1933, Adolf Hitler's Nazi party came to power. The Ledermanns, faced with the threat of death because they were Jews, emigrated to Amsterdam, Netherlands.
| 6e Montessori school in Amsterdam | |
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 Montessori School in Amsterdam in which Anne Frank and Sanne Ledermann learned |
Sanne was admitted to a Montessori School, where she befriended Anne Frank and Hanneli Goslar. In 1940, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands, and Sanne had to shift to a Jewish school. Sanne moved to a Jewish school, but Hanneli and Anne moved to a different Jewish school. However, Sanne still kept good contacts with both Anne and Hanneli, and was a member of the pingpong club Little Dipper Minus Two (they had thought the little dipper had 5 stars for the 5 girls that were in the club – while there was actually 7 stars thus calling it Little Dipper Minus 2), which was formed by her friends. In July 1942, Anne and her family (Margot, Otto, and Edith along with the van Pels family and Fritz Pfeffer) went into hiding, although Sanne didn't know about this.
On June 20, 1943, the Ledermanns were arrested by the Nazis. They were transported to the Westerbork transit camp, and in November were deported to the Auschwitz death camp. Immediately upon their arrival, Sanne and her parents were murdered in the gas chambers of the camp.
Sanne's sister, Barbara, was able to escape the Nazis through her contacts with the Dutch underground. Barbara emigrated to the United States and later married the Nobel prize winning biochemist Martin Rodbell.[1]
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