Show Notes
Did you ever read The Diary of Ann Frank? Today we take a look at this story, but from a perspective you have probably not heard of before. This unique perspective intertwines the past with the present, revealing the profound lessons learned from one of history’s most notable figures.
Who Is This For?
This episode is for anyone seeking enlightenment and inspiration from the past—whether you’re a history enthusiast, a young adult navigating today’s challenges, or simply someone interested in resilience. Discover how the words and experiences of Otto Frank resonate in today's world, providing strength and guidance to anyone willing to stop and listen.
Looking for the Links?
Cara's Website: wordsfromcara.com
Sally Lotz Coaching: sallylotz.com
Purchase Cara's Book: Tree of Hope
Also Check out Cara's Book: Strength in Nature
What's This Episode All About?
Today's guest, Cara Wilson-Granat, sits down with host, Kevin Lowe, as she shares the story of her extraordinary relationship with Otto Frank, the father of Anne Frank, offering a unique and heartfelt perspective on the legacy of his daughter. Through her personal journey, Cara reveals how her admiration for Anne blossomed into a profound connection with Otto, who became a guiding figure in her life. Their correspondence spanned nearly two decades, during which Otto instilled hope and resilience in Cara, especially during tumultuous times in her own life.
The conversation explores the historical significance of Anne's diary and the impact it has had on countless individuals, transcending generations and backgrounds. Join us as we explore themes of hope, healing, and the enduring power of human connection through this touching narrative.
A Few Key Highlights:
- Cara Wilson-Granat shares her personal connection with Otto Frank, revealing insights about Anne's legacy along the way.
- Despite facing immense tragedy, Otto Frank emphasized the importance of hope and resilience.
- The power of Anne Frank's diary continues to resonate with people of all backgrounds today.
- Cara's relationship with Otto Frank transformed her life, offering guidance and inspiration during tough times.
- Nature serves as a healing force, reminding us to find peace and hope in our surroundings.
- In moments of despair, planting a metaphorical tree symbolizes hope and renewal for the future.
If today's episode captures your attention, then be sure to not miss the next 2 episodes, which are episodes 340 and 341. Taking inspiration from today's episode, Kevin explores the power of letting go in #340, and then dives deep into the significance of actually sending someone a letter in episode 341.
Hey, it's Kevin!
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Stay Awesome! Live Inspired!
© 2024 Grit, Grace, & Inspiration
Cara Wilson-Granat, Otto Frank, Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank, relationship with Otto Frank, Holocaust stories, inspiration from Anne Frank, stories of hope, family legacy, compassion in adversity, historical interviews, lessons from Otto Frank, stories of survival, importance of hope, young people's voices, true stories of resilience, Anne Frank's diary impact, Holocaust remembrance, personal connections in history.
Show Transcript
Kevin LoweDid you ever read the book the Diary of Anne Frank?
Kevin Lowe
I never have.
Kevin Lowe
I know, it's crazy.
Kevin Lowe
I guess my teachers never had it on the reading list, but therefore, I was so excited when I got the opportunity to interview Cara Wilson, Granite.
Kevin Lowe
Because Cara, she has a story about Anne Frank from a perspective you've probably never heard before, even if you have read the book, because, see, Kara, she developed an amazing relationship with the father of Anne Frank, his name, Otto Frank.
Kevin Lowe
And today, you're gonna get to hear that entire story, Kara's story, Anne Frank's story, Otto Frank's story.
Kevin Lowe
You're gonna get to hear it all inside of today's episode.
Kevin Lowe
And I am so excited to get to bring it to you.
Kevin Lowe
So, my friend, I welcome you to episode 339.
Speaker B
Yo, are you ready to flip the script on life?
Speaker B
Cause those bad days, they're just doors to better days.
Speaker B
And that's exactly what we do here at Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.
Speaker B
Your host, Kevin Lowe, he's been flipping the script on his own life, turning over 20 years of being completely blind into straight up inspiration, motivation, and encouragement just for you.
Speaker B
So kick back, relax, and let me introduce you to your host, Kevin.
Speaker B
Hello.
Kevin Lowe
I am in the studio today with Cara Wilson, Granite.
Kevin Lowe
Cara, welcome to the podcast.
Cara Wilson
Thank you so much, Kevin.
Cara Wilson
I'm very happy to be here.
Kevin Lowe
Oh, my goodness.
Kevin Lowe
I am so excited to get to explore your story.
Kevin Lowe
And I was trying to think, where's the best place for us to begin?
Kevin Lowe
And I know that a big part of your story is going to revolve around kind of the story of Anne Frank and specifically her father.
Kevin Lowe
And I don't want to assume that anybody listening to the podcast, which I have, people from all over the world that everybody knows the story of Anne Frank.
Kevin Lowe
And I was hoping, if you wouldn't mind, to just take a few minutes to share a little bit about her and her story.
Kevin Lowe
So it kind of gives the rest of our conversation some context.
Cara Wilson
Of course, I would love to do that.
Cara Wilson
Anne Frank was a little girl.
Cara Wilson
She was a German child in the 30s in Germany.
Cara Wilson
And that was a time when it was a terrible time for so many people, but in particular for the Jewish people.
Cara Wilson
A chancellor named Hitler took over.
Cara Wilson
He wanted to ethnically cleanse all of Europe of Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, people who disabled, people of color, people who are political politically against him.
Cara Wilson
It was a really horrible time.
Cara Wilson
But especially, especially the Jewish people.
Cara Wilson
He made them the target, the scapegoat of why people in Germany had lost their war and they were Hungry.
Cara Wilson
And everything bad that was happening to them, he said, was the Jewish people.
Cara Wilson
And so it was a time that it was horrible.
Cara Wilson
And so basically the father, Otto Frank, and the mother, Edith Frank, took their children, Anna and Margot out of Frankfurt, Germany, where they had lived all their lives.
Cara Wilson
Otto Frank had been a top ranking lieutenant in the World War I.
Cara Wilson
He didn't, they had a very beautiful life there.
Cara Wilson
They were, he considered himself a German, even over being a Jew.
Cara Wilson
But now their lives were very dangerous.
Cara Wilson
Quickly they, he tried to get them escape and they could not get out of the country, out of Europe.
Cara Wilson
So Otto Frank found a hiding place that I'm, I'm.
Cara Wilson
It's an abridged version, I'm telling you right now.
Cara Wilson
Of course, above his spice factory, he was an import, export, spice and preserve factory in Holland.
Cara Wilson
And in time he tried for his family to be as normal as possible, but the world was closing in on them and they had to go into hiding.
Cara Wilson
And they went into hiding above his spice factory with his family and in time his business partner and their son and a dentist, eight of them in hiding above the spice factory, hidden by his office workers, four of them who helped them.
Cara Wilson
And it was, it was amazing.
Cara Wilson
For two years and one month these people survived by the help of their non Jewish friends below who worked below.
Cara Wilson
But somebody betrayed them.
Cara Wilson
And in that time that Anne, they were in that hiding and they had tried to have as much normalcy as possible.
Cara Wilson
You know, try to be quiet while the factory workers were working below.
Cara Wilson
And Anna would write in her diary.
Cara Wilson
And she wrote nonstop.
Cara Wilson
She was there, she was 13 when she went in to the annex.
Cara Wilson
And she lived to be not even 16, but she was writing in her diary.
Cara Wilson
And she wrote after that.
Cara Wilson
When the diary is filled up.
Cara Wilson
Miep, who was the assistant to Otto Frank, gave her notebooks and notebooks.
Cara Wilson
She wrote prolifically.
Cara Wilson
Nobody knew what was in this because she was very private, she was funny.
Cara Wilson
She drove them crazy.
Cara Wilson
You know, she was a teenager trapped with a bunch of adults and her sister and Peter.
Cara Wilson
She wrote about them.
Cara Wilson
And in the most incredible way.
Cara Wilson
And bottom line, somebody betrayed them.
Cara Wilson
And they were captured.
Cara Wilson
August 4, 1944.
Cara Wilson
They were sent to the concentration camps and the only one who returned was Otto Frank.
Cara Wilson
It was a ghastly, ghastly story of their deaths and dying.
Cara Wilson
And when you read her the Miep, her, the assistant found the diary after the Nazis had left, there was her diary and all her writings across the floor.
Cara Wilson
Miep retrieved them, saved them, and she was going to save it for Anne when She returned.
Cara Wilson
But when that wasn't going to happen, she gave everything to Otto Frank and said, this is your daughter's legacy.
Cara Wilson
It was a devastating time for him because it was like a double death.
Cara Wilson
He really had.
Cara Wilson
He didn't really know is he was so close to Ann, but he didn't know that side of her.
Cara Wilson
And it's extraordinary.
Cara Wilson
And what's amazing, and I've talked to people, so many students from all over, and they all relate to her, no matter who they are, no matter what religion, no matter what race, she talks the voice of young people, and you can't believe that she didn't survive with her sister Margaret.
Cara Wilson
So, you know, the diary is like, she.
Cara Wilson
She told her father, I want to live on even after my death.
Cara Wilson
And that was why he had Her Words published in Time.
Cara Wilson
That's the story, you know.
Kevin Lowe
Yeah, yeah.
Kevin Lowe
Such a.
Kevin Lowe
Such a powerful story.
Kevin Lowe
And for, I think, so many of us have read that book in school.
Cara Wilson
Yes.
Kevin Lowe
Like elementary or middle school.
Kevin Lowe
Absolutely.
Kevin Lowe
Now, you ended up developing a relationship over a long period of time with her father, with Otto.
Kevin Lowe
How did that even begin?
Cara Wilson
By the time the book the Darry Van Frank was published, that was the early 50s, it became a Broadway show.
Cara Wilson
It became so popular all over the world.
Cara Wilson
It was, like, amazing.
Cara Wilson
And then 20th Century Fox sent out talent scouts because they were going to do the movie the Diary Van Frank.
Cara Wilson
And they went all over the country trying to find someone who looked like a young Anne.
Cara Wilson
And I was at 12 years old.
Cara Wilson
I looked a lot like her.
Cara Wilson
And somebody said, would you like to audition for the part?
Cara Wilson
Of course, I went crazy.
Cara Wilson
I mean, you know, here I was in Southern California.
Cara Wilson
I wanted to be a dancer and an actor and all of that.
Cara Wilson
I was thrilled.
Cara Wilson
And it was the first time at age 12, that I even read the Diary of Anne Frank.
Cara Wilson
And I was so devastated.
Cara Wilson
I.
Cara Wilson
I'd never read anything about her.
Kevin Lowe
It.
Cara Wilson
To me, it kept saying, did she die?
Cara Wilson
Is she alive?
Cara Wilson
And, you know, it was so wrenching to me.
Cara Wilson
And they said, no, this is a true story.
Cara Wilson
And no, she did not survive.
Cara Wilson
And so I did an audition.
Cara Wilson
I went to 20th Century Fox.
Cara Wilson
Well, of course, I didn't get the part.
Cara Wilson
I keep saying, oh, well, oh, well, you know, beautiful Millie Perkins got the part.
Cara Wilson
But I said, is Otto Frank still alive?
Cara Wilson
And they said, yes, he's still alive.
Cara Wilson
He's in Basel, Switzerland.
Cara Wilson
Well, could I write to him?
Cara Wilson
And they said, yes.
Cara Wilson
And they gave me his address.
Cara Wilson
And that was the beginning.
Cara Wilson
And he and his second wife, Fritzi, who he met Coming back from the camps, became his wife.
Cara Wilson
And she was somebody very important in my life as well.
Cara Wilson
I started writing to him, and basically it became not just, you know, his first letter to me was, thank you.
Cara Wilson
Very short and sweet.
Cara Wilson
I can't, you know, thank you for writing to me.
Cara Wilson
I'm very busy writing to, you know, young people all over, but please do good in Anne's name.
Cara Wilson
It was that sort of bye, bye.
Cara Wilson
And I wrote him back right away, that's okay, Mr.
Cara Wilson
Frank.
Cara Wilson
You don't have to write to me.
Cara Wilson
I just want to write to you.
Cara Wilson
And so I think he realized in time, this kid's not going away.
Cara Wilson
I'm going to write to her.
Cara Wilson
And so he did.
Cara Wilson
He became like a grandfather.
Cara Wilson
I poured out my heart.
Cara Wilson
I told him everything about my life and questions and everything.
Cara Wilson
And he guided me throughout my life, nearly 20 years of my life.
Cara Wilson
And we did finally meet in person.
Cara Wilson
But it was a very, you know, he's very transformative.
Cara Wilson
And what he gave me is what I want to share with others.
Cara Wilson
He was a man of hope and a tremendous amount of hope.
Cara Wilson
And I'll tell you, Kevin, that the key letter that changed my soul and lifted me was in the 60s when Martin Luther King was assassinated and Robert Kennedy was assassinated and President Kennedy was assassinated.
Cara Wilson
We had the Vietnam War, we had race riots.
Cara Wilson
I couldn't believe what was going on in our world, and I was devastated.
Cara Wilson
And I wrote to him and I said, I don't know why you speak of hope so much, Otto Frank, because I have none.
Cara Wilson
And I will never bring a child into a world this cruel.
Cara Wilson
And he wrote back to me and he said, even if you believe the end of the world would be imminent, Kara, you still plant a tree today.
Cara Wilson
Never give up hope.
Cara Wilson
And he had two trees planted in my name to punctuate that.
Cara Wilson
And it meant more to me than anything because he knew nature means so much to me.
Cara Wilson
But it does mean so much.
Cara Wilson
It's sort of like even when we go through the hopeless times that we're facing in this world today, to me, Mother Nature is the great healer, and we cannot give up hope.
Kevin Lowe
Yes.
Cara Wilson
You know, we can't.
Kevin Lowe
Yeah, absolutely.
Kevin Lowe
Hope is everything.
Cara Wilson
It is everything.
Cara Wilson
Kevin.
Kevin Lowe
Yes.
Kevin Lowe
Now, out of curiosity, I mean, you were just a teenage girl, a young teenage girl.
Kevin Lowe
What made you.
Kevin Lowe
I mean, especially.
Kevin Lowe
You didn't get the part.
Kevin Lowe
But what made you want to write, to reach out to her father?
Cara Wilson
I fell in love with him.
Cara Wilson
He was like, you know, my father was a good man.
Cara Wilson
As a kind person, I wanted that relationship that Anne had with her father.
Cara Wilson
I wanted this man.
Cara Wilson
I wanted his full attention.
Cara Wilson
I wanted his time.
Cara Wilson
I never knew my grandfather's.
Cara Wilson
To me, he represented everything that a father was.
Cara Wilson
And of course, looking at it later in as an adult, I realized of course he was all of that Fred.
Cara Wilson
He was trapped inside, you know, they were hiding.
Cara Wilson
And so he had been a businessman, he wouldn't have had the time either.
Cara Wilson
But because he was there with them.
Cara Wilson
He was their teacher, he was their confidant.
Cara Wilson
He was everything.
Cara Wilson
And to me he was their everything.
Cara Wilson
And I loved his relationship with.
Cara Wilson
And it really moved me.
Cara Wilson
He was like To Kill a Mockingbird is also one of my favorite.
Cara Wilson
He was my Atticus, you know, it's just that I loved his compassion, his caring and I just, I felt I needed to talk to him.
Kevin Lowe
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Kevin Lowe
Now, during the time that you spent this time writing back and forth, did you ever tell your family, your friends about this?
Cara Wilson
I did, you know, some of them and some of them understood.
Cara Wilson
It wasn't until really recently when I start have been giving talks all over that people, you know, really, really care about this story.
Cara Wilson
At the time, my father didn't really know.
Cara Wilson
He was busy.
Cara Wilson
Later on he felt a little, I think a little jealous.
Cara Wilson
But it's sort of like, that's fine.
Cara Wilson
I had this wonderful relationship.
Cara Wilson
It was just a very special relationship.
Cara Wilson
And I felt I could tell him anything.
Cara Wilson
And he was so patient and kind with me.
Cara Wilson
The way he.
Cara Wilson
And he validated it didn't, you know, later when I saw my letters, you know, it was almost embarrassing.
Cara Wilson
I every.
Cara Wilson
Everything was exclamation points and blah, blah, blah.
Cara Wilson
And I thought, oh my God, you know, this man was so kind.
Cara Wilson
But it was only later, later, later Kevin, when I finally met him in person, would I realize how much he validated not only myself, but the world of children that reached out to him.
Cara Wilson
He gave us.
Cara Wilson
When he opened up this cupboard door when we finally were together and I saw from ceiling to floor, boxes and boxes and boxes, thousands of letters from young people all over the world.
Cara Wilson
And he answered every one of us.
Cara Wilson
And then he took this huge box, put it in front of me and said, these are your letters.
Cara Wilson
And so he saved, he validated me, saved me.
Cara Wilson
And you know, and that's what he did for all of us.
Cara Wilson
I mean, one of the, one of them, two of them are like, I call them my brothers.
Cara Wilson
The long time correspondence with Otto Frank.
Cara Wilson
One became an artist and the other one became a priest.
Cara Wilson
And so, yeah, they're my brothers.
Cara Wilson
Father John Neiman and Ryan Cooper, and I love them dearly.
Cara Wilson
And they have their own extraordinary stories about Otto Frank.
Kevin Lowe
Yeah.
Kevin Lowe
Wow.
Kevin Lowe
Now tell me the story about finally getting to meet Otto.
Cara Wilson
Oh, well, that's good.
Cara Wilson
You know, I've told that story so many times, and each time it's going to make me cry.
Kevin Lowe
I'm sorry.
Cara Wilson
You're going to make me cry, Kevin.
Cara Wilson
Well, you know, coming from Hollywood, you know, that world, everything in my life, it still is scene A and scene B.
Cara Wilson
Scene A is the way I wish life would be.
Cara Wilson
And scene B is the backup scene.
Cara Wilson
It could never be that good, but, you know, oh, well, I'll do that.
Cara Wilson
And so finally, when I was heading first to Amsterdam to meet Miep, you know, Miep was his assistant, and Kevin, she's a story all on her own.
Cara Wilson
Miep Gies is a hero.
Cara Wilson
And she would get upset.
Cara Wilson
No, I'm not.
Cara Wilson
I said, oh, yes, you are.
Cara Wilson
You know, you see, they've done movies about her and documentaries.
Cara Wilson
She was extraordinary human being, and she was the one.
Cara Wilson
She and her husband Jan, took me through the Anne Frank house and told me everything.
Cara Wilson
So many of the things I know now are because of me.
Cara Wilson
And so we had this wonderful time together.
Cara Wilson
She says, well, you better get to Basel because Otto and Fritzi are waiting for you.
Cara Wilson
And so I practiced on this train going to Basel, Switzerland, after riding Basel a million times, it seems on this train.
Cara Wilson
And I'm practicing.
Cara Wilson
Scene A was I wanted him to be everything I wanted him to be, you know, that we would hug each other and it would be so emotional, and he would be this beautiful soul that I love so much.
Cara Wilson
But scene B was, you know, I'm a busy man, Cara, you know, let's have some tea.
Cara Wilson
And I, you know, I must go.
Cara Wilson
It was that, you know, I thought, oh, it can't be that.
Cara Wilson
I want it to be seen.
Cara Wilson
A And finally, Basel station doors open, trains open.
Cara Wilson
And there's Fritzie.
Cara Wilson
And we recognized each other right away.
Cara Wilson
Oh, my God.
Cara Wilson
We were hugging each other.
Cara Wilson
And I said, where's.
Cara Wilson
Where's Otto Fritzi?
Cara Wilson
She says, there he is.
Cara Wilson
And there he was, Kevin, standing on the platform.
Cara Wilson
A very tall man.
Cara Wilson
You could see where he could have been a Prussian soldier.
Cara Wilson
He carried himself so tall and erected, you know, very elegant with his suit and tie and shirt.
Cara Wilson
And everything about him had class and elegance.
Cara Wilson
And he turns to me, arms outspread.
Cara Wilson
K.
Cara Wilson
At last.
Cara Wilson
It was CN it was scene A.
Cara Wilson
It was incredible.
Cara Wilson
I'll never.
Cara Wilson
We just.
Cara Wilson
It was so emotional.
Cara Wilson
And we went back to their place.
Cara Wilson
And I was talking, talking, talking, talking nonstop.
Cara Wilson
And he showed me the family albums that Meep had recovered as well, and of the children.
Cara Wilson
And we were saying everything there was.
Cara Wilson
You know, I asked him a million questions, the two pivotal ones, and I wish I had more time with him and more things to talk to him about, but I was so overwhelmed.
Cara Wilson
But there was two things that stand out in my mind.
Cara Wilson
One, he showed me this picture, this little snapshot, and they were.
Cara Wilson
I said, who is that, Otto?
Cara Wilson
And he said, ah, those little boys in a sandbox.
Cara Wilson
Adorable, little golden haired boys in a sandbox.
Cara Wilson
They were my friends.
Cara Wilson
That is me as a child.
Cara Wilson
And all of those little boys grew up to become Nazis.
Cara Wilson
And that was like a gut punch, because those children were not Nazis.
Cara Wilson
They learned that.
Cara Wilson
They became that.
Cara Wilson
You know, that's something.
Cara Wilson
You know, you learn cruelty, you learn fear.
Cara Wilson
But those beautiful little children were not that.
Cara Wilson
And it really, really affected me.
Cara Wilson
And the other part, when I.
Cara Wilson
Not only the extraordinary, seeing all the letters, which was just floored me, but when I asked him, otto, do you know who betrayed you?
Cara Wilson
And he turned to me and he just said, it doesn't matter.
Cara Wilson
And I've learned since that he probably did know who it was.
Cara Wilson
But at the time I met him, it was three years before he died.
Cara Wilson
He.
Cara Wilson
When it first.
Cara Wilson
When he was first liberated, it mattered extraordinarily.
Cara Wilson
He did everything he could to find out, what is it?
Cara Wilson
Somebody he knew.
Cara Wilson
There were many suspects, and he went to trials, he tried to find out who did this.
Cara Wilson
And by the time I met him, there was peace.
Cara Wilson
You could see the pain in his eyes.
Cara Wilson
But he had let it go.
Cara Wilson
It wasn't going to do anything any good, and it would have destroyed the innocent people around, whoever it was who betrayed them, and mostly the children of this person.
Cara Wilson
So he just said to me, it doesn't matter.
Cara Wilson
And that doesn't matter has resonated with me throughout my life, because everything in my life is, oh, my God, this matters.
Cara Wilson
This matters.
Cara Wilson
It matters that now I can hear Otto saying, does it really.
Cara Wilson
Does it really matter?
Cara Wilson
Can you let it go?
Cara Wilson
And most of the time, we can.
Kevin Lowe
Wow.
Kevin Lowe
I mean, is there not such wisdom in that very statement alone?
Cara Wilson
Isn't it true?
Kevin Lowe
I mean, talk about setting you free, you know, to acknowledge, does it really matter?
Cara Wilson
That's right.
Kevin Lowe
Wow.
Kevin Lowe
Now, speaking about the thing of who betrayed them, I actually read, preparing for our interview day, that all these letters, years later, would actually be used in some type of investigation into this.
Cara Wilson
That's true.
Kevin Lowe
Yeah.
Kevin Lowe
Talk to Me about that.
Cara Wilson
That was a recent discovery, Let me tell you.
Cara Wilson
I had no idea.
Cara Wilson
I was contacted by.
Cara Wilson
His name is Vince Pankoc.
Cara Wilson
He's absolutely become a very dear friend of mine, a very.
Cara Wilson
He was retired FBI agent and he was part of this investigation.
Cara Wilson
He had been retired, and it was a cold case investigation that he was asked, would you help us see if we can find who the betrayer was?
Cara Wilson
So he was involved in extensive.
Cara Wilson
I mean, we're talking about years of trying, you know, uncovering every single.
Cara Wilson
There's so many people I could talk to you about who are suspect even now that they have very good cases.
Cara Wilson
There's many of them who you'd say, well, he has to be.
Cara Wilson
A wonderful book by.
Cara Wilson
Carol Ann Lee wrote the Hidden Life of Otto Frank, who.
Cara Wilson
Absolutely.
Cara Wilson
The family believes this is Tony Allers, a Dutch Nazi who was blackmailing Otto Frank.
Cara Wilson
Very good case against him.
Cara Wilson
There's so many that I could talk about.
Cara Wilson
But the main thing was that why my letters were integral is that they felt that they found.
Cara Wilson
Otto Frank was given the name when he came back.
Cara Wilson
When he was liberated in 45, somebody gave him a name of somebody who was the betrayer.
Cara Wilson
And it was not somebody who knew them, but he was head of the Jewish Council.
Cara Wilson
And he basically was given a list of buildings, if I understand it clearly, it's a little complicated for me, but where there might be Jews hidden.
Cara Wilson
So I think what I understand is that he gave this to the Nazis that he worked with to protect his own family.
Cara Wilson
He was a father also.
Cara Wilson
But his name was given to Otto Frank by a friend of Otto's.
Cara Wilson
And Otto typed that name down and hit it, put it away.
Cara Wilson
It was one of those things.
Cara Wilson
But why Vince contacted me was that he said, would you mind?
Cara Wilson
Would you be able to.
Cara Wilson
If we promise that we will take good care of your letters, would you send your first letters to us in Europe for us to analyze?
Cara Wilson
Because we believe, would Otto Frank type this name?
Cara Wilson
It would have been on a typewriter with the same font as your letters had.
Cara Wilson
They wanted to assess the timing, the date, the font, the typewriter was all essential.
Cara Wilson
But he didn't tell me the details.
Cara Wilson
He just said, may we analyze your letters?
Cara Wilson
And I said, yes, he says, I will register them.
Cara Wilson
And he was so nervous when he went to Amsterdam.
Cara Wilson
He waited for this plane, which was delayed because my letters were on there.
Cara Wilson
And he was absolutely freaking out.
Cara Wilson
Oh, my God, we've lost her letters.
Cara Wilson
They arrived and they sent them off to us, you know, this specialist in Germany to analyze Those early letters.
Cara Wilson
And when Vince wrote back to me, he was beyond excited.
Cara Wilson
Thank you so much.
Cara Wilson
We have what we need, and I cannot tell you what it is, you know.
Cara Wilson
And so it was much later that I learned it was.
Cara Wilson
It was the font, it was the typewriter, it was that what they were looking at.
Cara Wilson
And they felt that they had what they needed.
Cara Wilson
Now, again, there are many, many theories going around, but I feel Rosemary Sullivan's book was brilliant and Vince Van Koch is extraordinary.
Cara Wilson
You'll want to talk to him sometime, Kevin, because he's walking atlas.
Cara Wilson
He's a scholar on this, and the work that he put into this is amazing.
Cara Wilson
So ultimately they feel that that is it.
Cara Wilson
But again, you can't 100% say anything, you know, that this is definitively.
Cara Wilson
But he has some very good proof.
Cara Wilson
And apparently my letters had something to do with it, which was beyond anything I could even fathom.
Kevin Lowe
Yeah, absolutely.
Kevin Lowe
How many years after, maybe after Otto passed away, did this happen where they contacted you about the letters?
Cara Wilson
This was recently.
Cara Wilson
This was a few years ago.
Kevin Lowe
Okay.
Kevin Lowe
Wow.
Kevin Lowe
Wow.
Kevin Lowe
Even more crazy that it was that long.
Cara Wilson
That's right.
Cara Wilson
That's right.
Cara Wilson
Well, his ids, the cold case, I don't know the dates.
Cara Wilson
He was working on it maybe 10 years.
Cara Wilson
But as they were going through and going through that, then they thought, okay, they were zeroing in on the fact that he typed this down, he wrote it down, and that's where they were just zeroing in, zeroing in.
Cara Wilson
And so when he found me, it was, you know, so we have, since we've all met, we have Father John and Ryan and Vince and I, we call ourselves the Automobilers.
Cara Wilson
We've given talks together and they each have amazing points of view.
Cara Wilson
We all have our own perspective of Otto Frank and how we did that.
Cara Wilson
But, yes, I mean, we have our own theories.
Cara Wilson
And after a while, you know, you think this person could absolutely have done it.
Cara Wilson
Or that person.
Cara Wilson
Or that person.
Cara Wilson
And Otto Frank said, you know, there were at least two hundred and fifty people who knew they were in hiding.
Cara Wilson
It could have been, you know, an accident.
Cara Wilson
Some people say it was an absolute accident that they were discovered.
Cara Wilson
One of the things that Vince said, and I found it profoundly fascinating, was when the Nazis and the Dutch, the Dutch Nazis, they call them the Green Police.
Cara Wilson
And the head Nazi, Silber Bauer, on August 4, were.
Cara Wilson
Went to the office workers and said, give us the key.
Cara Wilson
Show us, you know, they knew.
Cara Wilson
Now they found out that there were Jews hiding.
Cara Wilson
What they would have noticed.
Cara Wilson
And as an investigator, Vince said they would have noticed immediately because, you know, the door where the family was hiding was now a bookcase was in front of it.
Cara Wilson
Nobody would have known that there was a door behind it.
Cara Wilson
Unless you look down on the floor.
Cara Wilson
What was called a witness sign.
Cara Wilson
You know, a witness.
Cara Wilson
It was like, you saw this.
Cara Wilson
It's a crescent shape on the floor that says that this bookcase opens and closes.
Kevin Lowe
Yes.
Cara Wilson
And they would have seen that right away.
Cara Wilson
So it's a fast.
Cara Wilson
It's a story that keeps on.
Cara Wilson
Each time I think the story has been told one more, one more thing, you know, so that witness sign was just phenomenal.
Cara Wilson
And yeah, Vince went into much detail about it and that, you know, the capture itself is just horrible.
Cara Wilson
But reading.
Cara Wilson
I'm working on another project about Otto Frank.
Cara Wilson
And it takes me back there in those camps.
Cara Wilson
And he was a man.
Cara Wilson
He identified more than anything in the world of being Papa Frank, being a father.
Cara Wilson
And that's the thing that kept him alive, the very, very thing.
Cara Wilson
He was nearly near his death and he said to this young man with him when they were in Auschwitz, he says, let's just talk about literature and music, not about food.
Cara Wilson
There was death and stench all around them.
Cara Wilson
He says, talk, let's talk about what we love music.
Cara Wilson
And he says, and please, I need to be a father to someone.
Cara Wilson
I need to be a father.
Cara Wilson
That's why I'm calling me Papa Frank.
Cara Wilson
And so this young man called him Papa Frank forever.
Cara Wilson
And that's what he wanted to tell you.
Cara Wilson
Yeah, it was really extraordinary story.
Cara Wilson
Amazing.
Kevin Lowe
Wow.
Kevin Lowe
Absolutely.
Kevin Lowe
I'm curious for you, kind of your own personal life, how did this relationship affect you and impact maybe where you went with your life as you grew older?
Cara Wilson
It's a great, great question, Kevin, you know, and usually one I haven't talked because I'm so used to talking about them.
Cara Wilson
But after he passed and Fritzie and I were still writing to each other and very close.
Cara Wilson
I was close to Buddy Elias, his nephew.
Cara Wilson
This family.
Cara Wilson
My life after, you know, I was in Southern California.
Cara Wilson
I was a married woman.
Cara Wilson
My sons, Ethan and Jesse were often school grown.
Cara Wilson
I went through divorce, bankruptcy.
Cara Wilson
I lost everything that I knew in my life.
Cara Wilson
Hit the floor.
Cara Wilson
It.
Cara Wilson
It was like I was, you know, almost 50 years old.
Cara Wilson
I had never really been out on my own.
Cara Wilson
And I thought this was the end of my life.
Cara Wilson
I didn't know how.
Cara Wilson
How I was going to cope with anything.
Cara Wilson
You know, it was just.
Cara Wilson
I was a babe in the woods, you know, and just terrified.
Cara Wilson
So a friend of mine wrote to me and said she was in Monterey and said, come.
Cara Wilson
Come to us from la, my husband and I, and write, you know, do press releases and we'll find you a place.
Cara Wilson
Don't worry, you're going to be fine.
Cara Wilson
This was.
Cara Wilson
She was an angel.
Cara Wilson
She was a total angel.
Cara Wilson
And so it was the first time I really got in this funky old car and I took off.
Cara Wilson
I don't know how I did it.
Cara Wilson
And I heard this voice loud and clear in my soul that's said, you know, you're all right, you are fine.
Cara Wilson
Your children are fine.
Cara Wilson
You know, they're off in school and in college, and, you know, you're healthy, your animals are going to be fine.
Cara Wilson
I had six animals to take care of.
Cara Wilson
But this voice said, but you're not learning your lessons.
Cara Wilson
And so we've pulled the rug out from under you, and you're going to have to start all over again.
Cara Wilson
And this is what this voice.
Cara Wilson
I have some tough, tough angels, Kevin.
Cara Wilson
They're not messing with me.
Cara Wilson
You know, it's like there's no sugarcoating there.
Cara Wilson
They're just saying, get over it and get on.
Cara Wilson
Yes, I was.
Cara Wilson
So I'm not going to say it was easy.
Cara Wilson
I sat on the studio floor, this little box, after having this beautiful rustic home in the Hollywood Hills, with boxes all around me, my six animals.
Cara Wilson
I was very.
Cara Wilson
I didn't know if I wanted to go on living.
Cara Wilson
But the only thing that really kept me going, even though I knew my sons were fine, I had to feed my animals.
Cara Wilson
I mean, I love them more than anything, so who was going to take care of them if I off myself?
Cara Wilson
So I went out and had every job in the world, which turned out to be the best thing that could have ever happened to me.
Cara Wilson
I mean, it was really.
Cara Wilson
But on top of that, while I'm sitting on the floor, I had this fax machine that was.
Cara Wilson
Started pumping out just all these papers.
Cara Wilson
And what it said was, a friend of mine who was in Hollywood said, kara, I think I found a producer to.
Cara Wilson
Wants to, you know, a publisher who wants to write your story about Otto Frank.
Cara Wilson
And I went, what?
Cara Wilson
That was.
Cara Wilson
So I.
Cara Wilson
Are you what?
Cara Wilson
And there it was.
Cara Wilson
I was able to.
Cara Wilson
You know, I didn't even want to write that because it was all about going back into my past, a past that was painful.
Cara Wilson
I didn't want to talk about the house I used to have, the marriage I used to have.
Cara Wilson
I didn't know if I wanted to.
Cara Wilson
So I turned to Fritzie and Buddy and I said, is this.
Cara Wilson
Do you want me to do this, should I write about.
Cara Wilson
They said, yes.
Cara Wilson
We want people to know who Otto Frank was.
Cara Wilson
You need to write this story.
Cara Wilson
And I got in advance.
Cara Wilson
That money saved me.
Cara Wilson
And that was Otto Frank.
Cara Wilson
It was like this, you know, he was right there writing a check for me.
Cara Wilson
And on top of that, another spooky thing that would happen while I was doing all this strangest thing kept happening.
Cara Wilson
The number eight kept popping up.
Cara Wilson
You know, if eight friends would show up to go to a concert on the eighth row with eight tickets, I'd go into the forest, and there at the right, at my feet, there'd be a torn card with the number 8 on it.
Cara Wilson
It was happening all the time.
Cara Wilson
And finally somebody called me and said, kara, do you know what the number eight is in Italian?
Cara Wilson
It's auto.
Kevin Lowe
Wow.
Cara Wilson
I know.
Cara Wilson
And it's a sign of infinity and, you know, abundance.
Cara Wilson
He was again from on high telling me, you can't give up hope.
Cara Wilson
So I'm telling you, it was an extraordinary second half of my life.
Cara Wilson
That was.
Cara Wilson
And that's how I met my husband now, Peter.
Cara Wilson
But that took years.
Cara Wilson
I mean, it was.
Cara Wilson
I had to do a lot of work.
Cara Wilson
I had to grow up.
Cara Wilson
I'm still not growing up, Kevin.
Cara Wilson
I mean, I'm an older than God, but I still have not grown up.
Kevin Lowe
Oh, my goodness.
Cara Wilson
Yeah, I'll remain immature all my life, and maybe that's.
Cara Wilson
Maybe that's a good thing.
Kevin Lowe
Absolutely.
Kevin Lowe
Oh, my God.
Kevin Lowe
So your book, your memoir is Tree of Hope.
Cara Wilson
Tree of Hope.
Kevin Lowe
Talk about the title.
Cara Wilson
Because when he, you know, told me, even if the end of the world would be imminent, you still plant a tree today.
Cara Wilson
He was my tree of hope.
Cara Wilson
He gave me that hope.
Cara Wilson
He would.
Cara Wilson
And trees, to me, are everything.
Cara Wilson
Hopeful and all of nature.
Cara Wilson
One of my other books is Strength from Nature.
Cara Wilson
But he knew that.
Cara Wilson
He knew how much that would mean to me, and he was.
Cara Wilson
That.
Cara Wilson
He was my tree of hope.
Cara Wilson
He would not let me give up hope.
Cara Wilson
And I know when I go to, I have a side of me that has a dark side, a hopelessness.
Cara Wilson
Oh, it's never going to.
Cara Wilson
You know, when I see the tragedies that are happening in the world today there, I tend to go to that place.
Cara Wilson
And yet I remember, you know, I would be calling up Otto and saying, please, please tell me again.
Cara Wilson
When I read about what he went through and then losing his beautiful daughters, all of that.
Cara Wilson
And yet he was able to give all of us young people, many of them had riveting stories of hopelessness, and he gave us all that.
Cara Wilson
And that was able to, you know, we were able to help him continuing.
Cara Wilson
Continue being the father that he was meant to be.
Cara Wilson
And he was our father figure.
Cara Wilson
I can't give up hope.
Cara Wilson
You know, I have grandchildren.
Cara Wilson
That why I looked at these young people who have.
Cara Wilson
I believe they signed on for this crazy world.
Cara Wilson
So I can't leave them or give up hope.
Cara Wilson
We're here to help each other and to teach each other.
Cara Wilson
We're all students.
Cara Wilson
We're all teachers.
Cara Wilson
Everything we go through is something to help others.
Cara Wilson
It's how we learn.
Cara Wilson
It's how we uplift each other.
Cara Wilson
I learn.
Cara Wilson
I'm an absolute survivor junkie.
Cara Wilson
I mean.
Cara Wilson
I mean, to me, your story, Kevin, is amazing.
Cara Wilson
I mean, I thrive in knowing people who are overcoming many obstacles in order to be who they are and enlighten people.
Cara Wilson
And that's what gives me hope.
Kevin Lowe
Yeah, I love it so much.
Kevin Lowe
I want to ask you about the book, writing this book, right.
Kevin Lowe
Was it difficult for you to go back and to be so open and to share this honestly, this deeply personal relationship with somebody, to then put it out into the world?
Kevin Lowe
And kind of on top of that question is, my second part is, had you.
Kevin Lowe
Besides for the letters back and forth, had you ever thought about being a writer in the first place?
Cara Wilson
I loved writing.
Cara Wilson
I don't know if I thought about being a writer.
Cara Wilson
I think more than anything, I wanted to be a performer, a dancer, an actor.
Cara Wilson
And my kids have continued that.
Cara Wilson
My grandchildren, you know, they're.
Cara Wilson
They have that gene.
Cara Wilson
But I basically.
Cara Wilson
I thought more of that.
Cara Wilson
But more than anything, I wanted to be a mother.
Cara Wilson
And I wrote.
Cara Wilson
One of the things that Otto said to me, and it affected me deeply, is he said that with tears in his eyes when he was telling me the first time he opened Ann's diary.
Cara Wilson
And he was so devastated because here he was, the closest to her of all of them, and yet he didn't know this side of her.
Cara Wilson
And it just threw him.
Cara Wilson
I didn't know my daughter.
Cara Wilson
And he said to me, know your children.
Cara Wilson
God, I know your children.
Cara Wilson
And I'm so grateful.
Cara Wilson
I didn't keep journals or diaries of myself.
Cara Wilson
I tried to, and it was just like, ugh.
Cara Wilson
But I wrote about them.
Cara Wilson
I wrote journals about my children.
Cara Wilson
And writing was something that I love doing, and I've done it.
Cara Wilson
I was a commercial writer.
Cara Wilson
I was a copywriter, marketing advertising for years.
Cara Wilson
You know, broadcast writing.
Cara Wilson
I love.
Cara Wilson
I'm a storyteller, so I love writing people's stories and telling people's stories, because everybody has A story.
Cara Wilson
But did I want to be.
Cara Wilson
See myself as a writer?
Cara Wilson
No, I don't think so.
Cara Wilson
I think I just love writing.
Cara Wilson
There wasn't, you know, it was sort of jack of all trades.
Cara Wilson
I loved doing it all.
Cara Wilson
I wanted to do it all.
Cara Wilson
The arts.
Cara Wilson
I wasn't that disciplined to do one thing.
Cara Wilson
And I had to whittle down to what kind of a writer I am since I started out.
Cara Wilson
Later, as in doing commercial writing, I realized I'm not, you know, a Harper Lee, you know, who to me is the best.
Cara Wilson
I'm a conversational writer.
Cara Wilson
I write the way I talk.
Cara Wilson
And so, no, I didn't.
Cara Wilson
I didn't see myself that way.
Cara Wilson
Writing was something that was easy for me.
Cara Wilson
I loved writing it.
Cara Wilson
I read, you know, people's letters, I write.
Cara Wilson
I read love stories, people's vows.
Cara Wilson
I've done it for all my life.
Cara Wilson
And it's just something that I enjoy immensely.
Cara Wilson
That just comes naturally to me.
Cara Wilson
But, yeah, no, I just think I never saw myself that way and I could never have imagined.
Cara Wilson
Yes, it was a very painful book.
Cara Wilson
It was like the fourth book.
Cara Wilson
There were other books before that.
Cara Wilson
This was the last one.
Cara Wilson
It's my favorite because the last part of it are the lessons I learned from Otto Frank.
Cara Wilson
And I feel those are the ones I love to talk about what he gave me and continues to give me in so many ways.
Cara Wilson
It was a hard book, and it was a hard book for me to read later on, even now, because it's almost embarrassing to see how absolutely how open I was.
Cara Wilson
But in a sense, it endeared us to each other because we had a.
Cara Wilson
A love for each other.
Cara Wilson
We didn't get to, you know, I didn't get to visit him as much and see him the way Father John and Ryan did.
Cara Wilson
But I had a deep love for him and his family.
Cara Wilson
Buddy Elias, the nephew.
Cara Wilson
And Fritzie was absolutely there for me and very, very painful time.
Cara Wilson
She wrote to me like a grandmother and was there guiding me.
Cara Wilson
She was very funny lady, but she was a very strong woman.
Cara Wilson
And they adored each other.
Cara Wilson
But, yeah, it was not an easy one.
Cara Wilson
And what is only easy to talk about now is I feel like I'm a channel for him.
Cara Wilson
I don't want it to be the Kara Show.
Cara Wilson
It has nothing to do with me.
Cara Wilson
I want to be the voice for those people that have passed, Anna and Margot and especially Otto, whose voice is so strong, especially now with all the horror and the tragedy that is happening in the world.
Cara Wilson
I know that he would just be devastated with it.
Cara Wilson
And would be saying the same thing.
Cara Wilson
You cannot give up hope.
Cara Wilson
We must unite.
Cara Wilson
He was a man that believed in uniting the world.
Cara Wilson
All races, all religions, Israelis, Palestinians.
Cara Wilson
He would wanted them all to be together.
Cara Wilson
And I echo that.
Cara Wilson
We must not have enemies of each other.
Cara Wilson
We're here to love each other.
Kevin Lowe
Yeah, absolutely.
Kevin Lowe
Such a beautiful story that you have.
Kevin Lowe
And I have one last question.
Kevin Lowe
But before I ask you that question, for somebody who's interested in your book and interested in everything that you do, because I would love for you even to share a little bit about what you do with writing.
Kevin Lowe
Tell everybody where people can go to learn more about you and what you do.
Cara Wilson
Thank you.
Cara Wilson
Yes, certainly my books are on Amazon, Tree of Hope and also A Strength from Nature.
Cara Wilson
But you can go on my website, which is Words from Cara c a r a dot com www wordsfromcara.com and I'm writing right now with a person that you know very well, who we introduced to Sally Lotz.
Cara Wilson
And she is an author and a speaker and a podcaster and she, and she coaches people to write their books.
Cara Wilson
She's a one and she's a longtime friend of mine, very dear woman.
Cara Wilson
And we, we are trying something new because we're, this is sort of our, our wheelhouse and we're doing 90 day turnaround books.
Cara Wilson
And so I interview them and we market them and she finds a way to do that.
Cara Wilson
But basically in 90 days we, you know, you can have your story and, and you can find her also.
Cara Wilson
Hello at Sally Lotz L O T Z.
Cara Wilson
But you can find that also on my website.
Cara Wilson
You can contact Sally.
Kevin Lowe
Yeah, amazing.
Kevin Lowe
Well, I will be sure that all of that is in the show notes for anybody interested for easy access.
Kevin Lowe
I'll do all the links, all the details.
Kevin Lowe
So amazing, so powerful.
Kevin Lowe
My last question for you is whether it's something you gain from auto, whether maybe it's something that you've gained from your own life's experience in the world today that we're going in and all these just crazy, uncertain times.
Kevin Lowe
What is that last message you would like to leave the person listening to us today who's maybe worried they're anxious, they're struggling just with the fear of the world today.
Kevin Lowe
What would you leave them with?
Cara Wilson
Oh, that's wonderful.
Cara Wilson
I would leave them with what helps me, Kevin.
Cara Wilson
Mother Nature always helps me.
Cara Wilson
And it goes back to the tree.
Cara Wilson
No matter.
Cara Wilson
Even if you believe this is all going to end.
Cara Wilson
You plant a metaphorical or a real tree, but you go out in nature and nature to me is the great healer.
Cara Wilson
To me, that is where God is.
Cara Wilson
So I would say find the hope there, find belief there.
Cara Wilson
Whatever you believe in, whomever you believe in, however you pray or wish or whatever it is, just go somewhere and breathe in nature.
Cara Wilson
And there, you mustn't give up hope, because we're here to help each other.
Cara Wilson
What a mantra.
Cara Wilson
I say all the time, my purpose is love and light.
Cara Wilson
It is to be love and light, to give love and light, to receive love and light, to communicate love and light.
Cara Wilson
When you see yourself that way, you are that way.
Cara Wilson
And whatever you're going through, the pain you're going through, the sorrow you're going through, we all go through it.
Cara Wilson
Because we wouldn't be here otherwise.
Cara Wilson
We can help others find the blessings inside us in our lives.
Cara Wilson
And they're there.
Cara Wilson
They are always there.
Cara Wilson
They're harder sometimes to dig.
Cara Wilson
They're like gems, but they're there.
Cara Wilson
And so, yes, I continue helping others through whatever you're going through, just like you are, Kevin.
Cara Wilson
And I'm grateful, very grateful to all those who are doing the very thing.
Cara Wilson
So I just.
Cara Wilson
Don't give up hope.
Cara Wilson
Plant a tree.
Cara Wilson
Don't give up hope.
Kevin Lowe
I love it so much.
Kevin Lowe
Cara, thank you so much for sharing your story, for sharing the story of Anne Frank, of Otto Frank.
Kevin Lowe
It's such a powerful message, and I just sincerely appreciate you sharing it with us today.
Cara Wilson
Thank you for giving me this opportunity, Kevin.
Cara Wilson
And it's a pleasure meeting you.
Cara Wilson
Wonderful meeting you.
Cara Wilson
Thank you with all my heart.
Cara Wilson
And they can contact me anytime they want.
Kevin Lowe
Okay?
Kevin Lowe
Yes.
Kevin Lowe
Perfect.
Kevin Lowe
Perfect.
Kevin Lowe
And for you listening today, my hope, as always, is that you've heard something today that not only you enjoyed, but more so, maybe has you thinking about life in a little bit different way.
Kevin Lowe
Because that's what it's about here.
Kevin Lowe
It's about inspiring you to look at the hard stuff, maybe from a different angle, and hopefully making tomorrow even a little bit better than today.
Kevin Lowe
Until next time, I'm Kevin Lowe, and this, of course, is another episode of Grit, Grace and Inspiration.
Kevin Lowe
Sa.
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