Jannie Brandes-Brilleslijper, a member of the Jewish resistance during World War II, died on Aug. 15 of heart failure. She was 86.
Before she was deported, Brandes-Brilleslijper forged identification papers to help Jews escape the Nazis in occupied Netherlands. She survived the Westerbork and Auschwitz concentration camps, then in 1945, was transferred to Bergen-Belsen where she worked as a nurse.
Brandes-Brilleslijper was believed to be the last person to see diarist Anne Frank alive. After the war, she told Otto Frank of his daughter's death.
In her memoirs, Brandes-Brilleslijper described her time in the concentration camps: "We were stripped in an icy room with the wind billowing through it. Five women under one trickle of water. No towels. Tattooed, shaved ... we were totally confused and unable to understand anything."
Posted on August 20, 2003 12:44 AM