1940 The Netherlands is occupied

Peter van Pels and his parents thought they were safe in the Netherlands until Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940. When Rotterdam was bombed, the American consulate was destroyed as well. The Van Pels family had filed a visa application for the United States that lay in the consulate. Everything inside the consulate was destroyed. And so, Hermann had to reapply for their visas, but the long waiting list and the consulate’s closure made it impossible to get them.