Dear Cara

Book excerpt: In this volume, the story told in The Diary of Anne Frank continues and expands. Through his letters, Otto, Anne's father and the only survivor in the Frank family, became a treasured wise friend to thousands of young people around the world, by giving simple, honest responses to their questions. Cara, a young American girl, kept his letters, followed his advice, and honored Otto as a surrogate father. Nearly 20 years later, as a grown woman and mother, Cara journeyed to Amsterdam to see the home where Anne had been hidden in an attic for two years before her murder. Cara listened to some of the holocaust stories from the Dutch people who had sheltered the Franks, and then traveled to Switzerland to fulfill a life-long dream: to finally meet her mentor in Switzerland. There she found Otto, who had not forgotten those who had betrayed their wartime hiding place, but neither did he wish for revenge. He had managed, through his own radiant spirit and the poignant words of his dead daughter, to embrace the best in people - and forgive those who had been the worst.