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Charlotte Kaletta

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Celebrity's Relative

The Resume

    (1910-1985)
    Born in Ilmenau, Thuringia (Central Germany)
    Birth name was Martha Charlotte Kaletta
    Common-law wife of dentist Fritz Pfeffer
    Separated from her first husband, Ludwig Lowenstein, who maintained custody of their son, Gustaf
    Met Mr. Pfeffer in 1936, moved in with him soon after
    Fled to Amsterdam to get around Germany's anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws prohibiting the two from marrying (Dec. 1938)
    Nazis' invasion of Holland sent Pfeffer into hiding with the Frank and Van Pels families in The Secret Annexe (1942-44)
    Later received news of his death in a German concentration camp, around 1944-5
    Married Mr. Pfeffer posthumously, in 1950, with Otto Frank taking care of formalities
    Husband's time in hiding was later made public, following the publication of 'Hecht Achterhuis,' or 'The Secret Annex' (later 'The Diary of a Young Girl')
    Portrayed by Branka Katic in ABC's 'Anne Frank: The Whole Story' miniseries (2001)

Why she might be annoying:

    She was romanced by Fritz Pfeffer while she was still married.
    Much of the tension between Anne Frank and Pfeffer, while in hiding, was due to his anxiety over their separation (although worries about his son's safety in Britain also made him irritable).
    She had a bitter estrangement from Fritz's son from his first marriage, Werner (the two exchanged heated correspondences back and forth, forcing Otto to act as their mediator and pen out individual responses).
    She stopped speaking to Otto Frank because she blamed him for Fritz Pfeffer's poor characterization in the stage play and film adaptation of the Diary (even though the playwright team of Hackett & Goodrich was responsible, whom she threatened with a libel suit).
    Even more shockingly, she cut off ties with her husband's and the Frank family's longterm protector Miep Gies, embittered that - as Anne Frank's fame grew - her late husband's reputation suffered exponentially.
    In later decades, she withdrew from public life completely; refusing interview requests and declining to share any memories about her late husband.
    Her anger at Otto came off as particularly unfair, considering how remarkably attentive he had been to her after Pfeffer's death was confirmed (visiting her almost daily, soliciting clothing donations on her behalf, etc.)
    Melissa Muller, author of the first major Anne Frank biography, went so far as to suggest that her main reason for shutting out Otto was not over the depiction of Pfeffer at all - but rather over his decision to remarry to someone else over her.

Why she might not be annoying:

    She looked like Gloria Grahame.
    Anne, whose family house parties she frequented, greatly admired her beauty and wrote about it in her early diary entries.
    She and Fritz fled to Amsterdam after Kristallnacht; however the Nazis' encroaching on that territory killed their hopes of being married.
    Nazi co-habitation laws forbade her and Fritz from even living together, and they were forced to register under separate addresses.
    Their plan was to flee to South America where they could officially join as husband and wife, but the government's rounding up of Jews for deportation made this impossible.
    She had no knowledge of where he was hiding, and her only contact with Fritz remained Miep, who exchanged letters between the two at great personal risk.
    Her first husband and her son were killed in a Nazi concentration camp (presumably their estrangement was also the result of the Nuremberg Laws' anti-Semitic policy).
    She was left penniless after the war, finding work sewing gloves for low wages before receiving compensation from the government (in the form of a small monthly pension).
    Her anger over the characterization of 'Mr. Dussell' was about the only point on which she and Frtiz's son could find agreement ('Dussell' incidentally means 'nitwit' in German).
    Her biggest problem with the play and film's depiction was that Fritz was portrayed as ignorant about Jewish traditions, when the man she knew had been a devout Jew who was well versed in Hebrew.
    A collection of letters between herself and Pfeffer, along with a box of photographs and some of her personal belongings, were discovered at an Amsterdam flea market, in 1987.
    She was prevented from being with the man she loved on racist grounds, and lost him to the Holocaust. (their love story is heartbreaking).

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 8 Votes: 37.50% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 4 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 9 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 3 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 12 Votes: 50.0% Annoying