The members of the Jewish group in hiding, together with Mr. Kraler and Mr. Koophuis, were taken to Gestapo headquarters in Amsterdam and locked in a room with other people who had been arrested. Later in the day, the Jewish prisoners were separated from the rest, and after being kept at headquarters for a few days for questioning, they were taken to the railroad station and transported to the Westerbork reception camp. They rode in a regular passenger train, and, according to the evidence of Mr. Frank, they were relatively cheerful. They were together. Moreover, they knew where they were going, although they did not know if they would be permitted to remain there for long, and they were aware that there was the possibility of deportation to Poland and the concentration camps there. But they also knew that the Allies were advancing, and they hoped that luck and faith would keep them out of the death camps until the war was over.
Throughout the journey, Mr. Frank relates, Anne remained glued to the window, seemingly absorbing as much as she could of the scenery of the summer countryside. Remember, Anne had not been outside for two whole years.
When the group arrived at Westerbork, they were made to stand in a long row in the mustering square while one of the clerks entered their names on a list. The conditions were bad, but not unbearable. Westerbork, after all, was merely a reception camp, and although there was overcrowding, deprivation, and undernourishment, there were no gas chambers or crematoriums, as there were at the concentration camps.
An eyewitness who was at Westerbork says, "I saw Anne Frank and Peter Van Daan every day in Westerbork. They were always together, and I often said to my husband: 'Look at those two beautiful young people.' . . . In Westerbork, Anne was lovely, so radiant that her beauty flowed over into Peter. She was very pallid at first, but there was something so intensely attractive about her frailty and her expressive face."
