A Father’s Fight for Justice: Unpublished letter from Otto Frank to the British press discovered in University of Northampton’s Searchlight Archive

A discovery has been made deep within the University of Northampton’s archives which casts a new spotlight on a father’s fight for justice in the shadows of the Holocaust.

During a routine archival process led by the University’s Searchlight Archivist, Dr Daniel Jones, the lid was lifted on a box of VHS cassette tapes – under which a miscategorised letter from Otto Frank to the British press was unearthed.

Written one month before the 32nd anniversary of Anne Frank’s death at Bergen-Belsen, the letter illustrates Otto Frank continuing his work to prove the Holocaust took place and took the life of his daughter, ultimately challenging the words of Holocaust deniers.

The letter shows him lobbying, from his home in Switzerland, to the British press – notably The Sunday Mirror and The Observer – to reveal the true identity of Richard Harwood as Richard Verrall, British Holocaust denier and former Deputy Chairman of the British National Front.

This unexpected discovery comes as a result of continued cataloguing efforts of the active archive, with these latest additions reaching the University of Northampton in February 2022 and has waited – previously misfiled and buried beneath tape cassettes – to be found ever since.

With 400 boxes of material currently on catalogue, and more coming online every day, the Searchlight Archive features material and documents related to the history of the extreme right. All students at the University can access the collection, and since opening in 2013, the archive has hosted many visiting researchers from a range of other universities, as well as forming the basis of research for several several doctoral students.

The discovery of Otto Frank’s letter is best described in the words of Dr Jones: “It is easy for most to dismiss Holocaust Denial and extreme right talking points as harmless fringe ramblings. That the Holocaust happened is self-evident to almost everyone, even to members of the extreme right who deny it. Yet for many this denial was deeply personal and sparked an emotional response. It is easy to read emotion into the letter, a man desperate to stop the denial of the murder of his child.

“This letter represents a father, about to remember 32 years without his daughter, about to remember 32 years since his own liberation at Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 27th, 1945. He is spending his energy at 80 years old to try and lobby press across Europe to challenge lies told about that tragedy – which is truly inspirational.”

This poignant discovery follows in the footsteps of this year’s 80th anniversary of Bergen-Belsen’s liberation on 15 April 1945, the concentration camp where Anne Frank and her sister, Margot Frank passed away only weeks before liberation took place.

The Searchlight Archive is a major collection of material documenting the activities of British and international fascist and racist organisations. It is also a unique collection, and is one of the most extensive and significant resources of its type in Europe.

The archive is made possible by an ongoing partnership with Searchlight magazine, and the collection has been held on long-term loan to the University of Northampton since Summer 2013.