This is not a whodunnit, true crime style book. It is a poignant exploration of intricate family dynamics and the complexities of wartime life in The Netherlands. An unflinching look at the collaborators as well as the resistors. 

It was interesting to read another side to the Anne Frank story 

This was a really powerful and impactful read that brings in another perspective to Anne Frank and the secret annex. This insight was valuable and definitely one I would discuss with my students completing the Holocaust unit for History.

Five things about The Last Secret of the Secret Annex by Joop van Wijk-Voskujil and Jeroen de Bruyn
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1. This is the story of Bep, the youngest of the helpers that hid and cared for the Frank family in the Secret Annex. It is written and researched by her youngest son and a young journalist. 
2. This is not the story you expect. So brace yourself. It’s fascinating, factual, heart-wrenching, and honest. I’m a Humanities teacher and often feel like I’ve read everything in the English language there is available to read about Anne Frank. My interest began, as for so many, as a young girl who just happens to pick up her diary. It’s all downhill from there for some of us. We never can quite stop waiting and looking for Anne in one way or another and there have been so many books and movies and memoirs and investigations…This book is not that. Though Anne is here it is NOT about Anne. 3. This book is very much about all that weighs upon the war generations and their children. The losses that must somehow be carried through life….the rifts and loyalties based in matters of ethics so deep they cannot even be talked about let alone explained. It’s about the complicated relationships we have as people no matter what and how the anxiety and neurosis birthed in war complicate the already complicated, deep into a dichotomy of existence where you’re trying to participate in the present while never having left the past. What can those in the present do? Try to join you in the past. It doesn’t work. They don’t belong there. 
4. So many questions left unanswerable but still…as this book assures…worth the effort of asking. 
5. A beautiful and personal story that adds so much to the legacy of all involved…which is everyone…there is not a soul upon this planet untouched by the Holocaust. Not. One. Soul. Thank you for this labor of love. May it being some peace.