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In November 2015, debate raged on social media networks regarding the escalating plight of Syrian refugees; during that time, a circulating rumor claimed Anne Frank was denied entry to the United States before her death in the Holocaust. While most Americans were familiar with Anne Frank (and many read her diary in school), the claim labeling her a prospective refugee seemed novel. Its appearance during an ongoing debate about Syrian refugees similarly prompted some skepticism among those who hadn't before heard it, as Frank's ordeal and death are a story with which so many are familiar. On 14 February 2007 The New York Times published an article titled Letters reveal desperate plight of Anne Frank's family, reporting that documents newly uncovered by an accident of circumstance revealed the Frank family's failed attempts at entry to the U.S.: As the war in Europe intensified, so too did Otto Frank's efforts to transport his family to safety. He ultimately settled on an attempt to enter through Cuba, a plan which never reached fruition: Reuters covered the discovery on 14 February 2007, including commentary from Holocaust scholars who lamented the family's failed attempt at passage: A 2007 TIME article provided further details of Otto Frank's increasingly desperate efforts: On 4 September 2015, Anne Frank's step-sister Eva Schloss drew direct parallels between the Syrian refugee crisis and the Jewish refugee crisis of World War II: The claim that Anne Frank was a refugee confused some readers, as they hadn't heard it prior to the Syrian refugee crisis. But the extent to which Otto Frank tried (and failed) to save his family from death during World War II was only first reported in 2007, and thus didn't appear in many history lessons before that. Ultimately Frank perished (likely of typhus) at Bergen-Belsen in 1945, shortly after the deaths of her mother and sister Margot.
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