The historian told NPR in 2007 that the documents suggest "Anne Frank could be a 77-year-old woman living in Boston today – a writer."
Instead, she died at the age of 15 at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany.
Otto Frank tried relatively late to obtain visas to the United States, a convoluted and ultimately doomed process laid bare in the nearly 80 pages of documents unearthed by the the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Even Frank's high-level connections within American business and political circles weren't enough to secure safe passage for his family.
"The story seems to unfold in slow motion as the painstaking exchange of letters journey across continents and from state to state, their information often outdated by the time they arrive," the New York Times wrote after reviewing the YIVO documents. "Each page adds a layer of sorrow as the tortuous process for gaining entry to the United States — involving sponsors, large sums of money, affidavits and proof of how their entry would benefit America — is laid out. The moment the Franks and their American supporters overcame one administrative or logistical obstacle, another arose."
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