Robert Barker/University Photography

Gordon F. Sander with his mother, Dorrit, at A.D. White House March 27. Dorrit was a prime source for Sander's memoir "The Frank Family That Survived."

As Anne Frank's family hid in Amsterdam, another family, also named Frank, went underground in The Hague. Both were German Jewish families who had fled to the Netherlands to escape the Nazis. They had once lived a few blocks apart, and within days of each other both families became onderduikers ("people who dive under") as the Germans moved against Dutch Jews in 1942.

"The Frank Family That Survived" (Cornell University Press) is a chronicle by Gordon F. Sander '72 of his mother's family, who were no relation to Anne Frank's family but were a "mirror image" of them, said Sander in a talk at Cornell's A.D. White House March 27. Sander discussed the narrative that made the book an acclaimed best seller in Europe and the subject of a BBC radio show.

One of Sander's primary sources of the story was his mother, Dorrit, who attended his lecture. Dorrit and her family hid in plain sight for 1,036 days in a ground-floor apartment with a picture window. Sander began work on the book in 1979, on the 50th birthday of Anne Frank. His aunt and grandmother were still alive and offered different perspectives on their experience: It was destiny; it was chance; it was God's will.

Sander describes 1941-42 as a "twilight zone" period in Holland before the Germans put restrictions on Jews. But the Germans did commission a census, which Sander cited, listing his grandparents, mother and aunt. Beginning in the summer of 1942, the Nazis used the data to hunt Jews.

In July 1942, both Frank families received notices to present their daughters to the police for "labor service." As the vice tightened, Dorrit's father, Myrtil Frank, took his family into hiding. They tore off their yellow stars and walked to The Hague apartment that was loaned to them. Unlike Anne Frank's family, they were not betrayed.

Ultimately, 80 percent of Dutch Jews were found and transported east. Of the 25,000 Jews who "dived under," 10,000 were killed, starved to death or committed suicide. Sander's mother and her family grew closer during their confinement, and he believes that family cohesion helped them to survive, noting that those who became separated from their families died in even greater numbers.

Sander, who graduated from Cornell with a degree in history, is a writer and photographer. His biography "Serling: The Rise and Twilight of Television's Last Angry Man" received a Pulitzer Prize nomination.