Anne Frank was a Jewish girl* who had to go into hiding in the Netherlands during World War II to escape the Nazis. Until her deportation to Auschwitz, she wrote her thoughts in a diary, which was published after her death.
Anne Frank was born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt am Main. Anne's sister Margot was three and a half years older. After Hitler and the NSDAP came to power, anti-Semitic discrimination increased in Frankfurt, prompting Anne's parents, Edith and Otto Frank, to decide to go into exile in the Netherlands. Otto Frank found a job with a company and an apartment for the family. In February 1934, Anne arrived in Amsterdam with her mother and sister.
After the outbreak of war, Jews living in exile become increasingly fearful that the Netherlands could soon become a target of Nazi expansion. On May 10, 1940, German troops finally invade the Netherlands and occupy the country shortly thereafter. Anti-Jewish laws and regulations are soon introduced here as well. Jews are increasingly banned from public life. On July 5, 1942, Margot Frank received a summons requiring her to report to a labor camp in Germany. The next day, the Frank family went into hiding in the rear building of the company at Prinsengracht 263. The van Pels family followed a week later, and in November 1942, dentist Fritz Pfeffer moved into the rear building as the eighth resident. They are able to hide in the rear building for a good two years. Office employees Johannes Kleiman, Victor Kugler, Miep Gies, and Bep Voskuijl help them, as do Miep's husband Jan Gies and Bep's father Johannes Voskuijl, the warehouse manager of the company. Shortly before, Anne had received a diary as a gift for her thirteenth birthday, which she takes with her to the rear building. She immediately began writing down her thoughts about her everyday life and about herself.
On August 4, 1944, the people in hiding, along with their helpers Johannes Kleiman and Victor Kugler, are discovered, arrested, and eventually deported to Auschwitz. After several months, Anne and Margot are taken to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they die in March 1945 from an illness that broke out in the camp.
Immediately after the arrest, Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl rescue Anne's diaries, which had been left behind in the secret annex. Despite extensive investigations, it has not yet been possible to determine who betrayed the hiding place. Otto Frank was the only one of those in hiding to survive the war. After his return, Miep Gies gave him his daughter's writings. In them, Anne had also written that she wanted to become a writer or journalist later on and publish her diary as a novel. Her father therefore decided to publish the diaries. On June 25, 1947, the first edition was published under the title “Het Achterhuis” (The Secret Annex) and immediately became a bestseller. The book has since been translated into over 60 languages, filmed several times, staged as a play, and sold more than 30 million copies.
Rodrigo Galindez - Flickr: Anne Frank Zentrum
