Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940 and established a civilian administration dominated by the SS.
After the Nazis came to power in January 1933, Otto Frank (Anne Frank’s father) left Frankfurt, Germany, for Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands. The rest of the Frank family soon followed. Anne was the last family member to arrive in Amsterdam in February 1934. In July 1942, German authorities began systematically deporting Jews from throughout the Netherlands to concentration camps and killing centers in the east. That same month, the Frank family went into hiding. They remained in hiding for the next two years. The German SS and police discovered the Frank family in 1944 and deported them to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Later that year, Anne and her sister Margot were transported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Anne and Margot died in Bergen-Belsen in February or March 1945.
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At the Wannsee Conference in Berlin in January 1942, the SS (the elite guard of the Nazi state) and representatives of German government ministries estimated that the "Final Solution," the Nazi plan to kill the Jews of Europe, would involve 11 million European Jews, including those from non-occupied countries such as Ireland, Sweden, Turkey, and Great Britain. Jews from Germany and German-occupied Europe were deported by rail to the killing centers in occupied Poland, where they were killed. The Germans attempted to disguise their intentions, referring to deportations as "resettlement to the east." The victims were told they were to be taken to labor camps, but in reality, from 1942 onward, deportation for most Jews meant transit to killing centers and then death.
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![Jews proceed to an assembly point before deportation from Amsterdam. [LCID: 45142]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/74500929-3af5-47cc-8b0d-e6c56ca6f081.jpg)
![German police round up Jews in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam, blockaded following anti-Nazi violence. [LCID: 45170]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/7095f92f-0ea1-411e-897e-9e2c6c1dd203.jpg)