AIbert Abraham Cauvern

Who was AIbert Abraham Cauvern?

An old friend of Otto's: husband of his former secretary, Isa. Anne put a copy of their daughter, Ruth's, birth announcement in her diary. He was one of the people Otto asked to edit the diary manuscript known as Typescript I. In 1947, he took in Otto and the Gies, in his large apartment, where Otto apparently stayed until moving to Basel in mid-1952. (CE86 p. 63-4, 193; HLOF p. 213, 228, 238; AFR p. 249)

He was born in Amsterdam. Prior to the anti-Jewish laws, he did bookkeeping and payroll at a Hilversum radio station. (Louis Cohen had also worked there, in the music department.) Ab was the only member of his family to survive the war. It is likely he was in hiding during part of the war. His mother (Roosje), father (Emanuël), and brother Joseph died in the camps. (His other brother, Leonard, died before the occupation.) (An Anne Frank researcher sent this information. The italicized links are to the Joodsmonument pages which back this up.)

Regarding his first name, a researcher explained how it is that many references mistakenly call him "Albert" when his real name was Abraham: "Cauvern called himself Ab. Anyone thought it was short for Albert, as usual in Holland. The Critical Edition took it over … due to the fact that the NIOD at that time did not have any information on Abraham Cauvern … Using his real name Abraham would be dangerous in wartime, because Abraham is a Jewish name. He then could be easily recognized [as Jewish]."