“

‘It was about half past ten. I was upstairs in the van Pels’s part of the house, in Peter’s room, doing schoolwork with him. Suddenly someone came running up the stairs. Then the door flew open and a man stood before us holding his pistol aimed at my chest. Downstairs all the others were already assembled. My wife and the children and the van Pels family were standing there with raised hands. Then Fritz Pfeffer came in, followed by another stranger. The policemen ordered us to hand over our valuables. Silberbauer took Anne’s briefcase. He shook everything out, dumping the contents on the floor, so that Anne’s papers and notebooks and loose sheets lay scattered all over the floorboards.’