Marijke Ellen Jacoba Delmonte (*1938) was born in Amsterdam. Her Jewish family went into hiding in Laren in 1941. In 1942, a year after the birth of Marijke’s sister Saskia, separate hiding places were found for both girls. All family members survived the war, but the parents separated, and the girls were raised in another family. After finishing school, Marijke first worked in office jobs, and later ran a second-hand shop.
When Marijke was three years old, the well-known photographer Maria Austria took pictures of her. One of these photos appeared in the magazine Libelle on 26 September 1941. Anne Frank, who had received this magazine from her father, cut out the small photo, and it ended up on the photo wall in the Anne Frank House. Many decades later, when Marijke visited the Anne Frank House with her husband Daniel Otten, they discovered the little photo in Anne’s room during the tour. At this point, their stories crossed: Daniel’s mother had been deported on the last train from Westerbork to Auschwitz together with the Frank family. All perished, except Otto Frank.