The Diary of Anne Frank

I Still Believe “In Spite of Everything, I still believe people are

really good at heart.”

Anne’s Diary Kitty “I hope I shall be able to confide in you completely, as I have never been able

to do in anyone before, and I hope that you will be a great support and comfort to me”.

So begins the diary of a 13 year old Jewish girl named Anne Frank. Anne’s diary opens in 1942 with stories of boyfriends, parties, and school life. It

closes two years later, just days before Anne is captured and imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp.

I Still Believe

One girl. One diary One voice

One person can make a difference

Anne was born on June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany. Her parents were Edith and Otto Frank.

Anne’s Early Life

When Anne was 4 years old, her family moved to the Netherlands to escape the anti-Jewish laws being introduced in Germany. Anne and her older sister Margot enjoyed a happy, carefree childhood until 1940 when Hitler invaded the Netherlands.

Anne and her sister Margot

“After May 1940, good times rapidly fled: first the war, then the capitulation, followed by the arrival of the Germans, which is when the sufferings of us Jews really began.”

Margot’s call up notice

Adolf Hitler

Chancellor of Germany and Founder and Leader of the Nazi Party

1933 - 1945

Hitler was born in Austria on April 20, 1889. Spoiled by a domineering mother he had tantrums when he didn’t get his own way and was subject to hallucinations. He was a high school dropout, wanted to be an artist, but failed the art school entrance exam, and he refused to work. He fled Austria when they were going to draft him into the army.

Since Hitler thought of himself as German instead of Austrian he moved to Germany and when WWI started he happily served in their army . He found he loved war and won 4 medals for bravery. When Germany lost the war he went into a deep depression and blamed the loss of the war and Germany’s greatness on the Jews. His greatest lie to the German people was when he told them he would rule Germany with equality and justice for all. As he said that he was carrying out his plan for world domination and German superiority by eliminating the Jewish people.

For some unknown reason Hitler discovered he could attract loyal followers. His maniacal ranting and raving appealed to the crowds of people who shared his hatred of the Jews. As he spoke Hitler had already written “Mein Kampf”, his biography in which he wrote his plan for world domination. Unfortunately he was a terrible writer and nobody paid attention to his book, so few people read the chilling words of Hitler who publically documented his “final solution "for the Jewish problem.

Had he been as good a writer as a public speaker the world might have been alerted to the devastation he planned for humanity.

The Jewish Laws Jews must wear a yellow star of David Jews must hand in their bicycles Jews cannot ride the bus or train and can’t own a car Jews can only shop in Jewish shops between 3-5PM Jews must be indoors by 8PM & cannot sit outside after that , even in their own patios. Jews are forbidden to visit theatres, movies, and other places of entertainment. Jews may not take part in public sports, swimming pools, tennis courts, hockey fields, and other sports grounds. Jews may not visit Christians Jews must go to Jewish schools, and many more restrictions of a similar kind.

“So we could not do this and were forbidden to do that. But life went on in spite of it all.” Anne Frank

The Situation Gets Worse

As in other German-occupied countries, the Nazis began rounding up Jews and transporting them to concentration and death camps, where prisoners died from overwork, starvation, disease, or were murdered in gas chambers or crematoriums. Escaping Nazi-occupied territory became nearly impossible.

The Holocaust

The Holocaust Memorial Mass grave of Jews with Nazi’s looking on

The word Holocaust means complete destruction of life, usually by fire. In World War II it came to mean the deliberate massacre of 6 million Jews by Hitler and his Nazis. In the concentration camps they were murdered by using cyanide or carbon monoxide gas, electrocution, phenol injections, hanging, shooting, incinerating and many other methods. The concentration camps have come to stand for the worst that humans can do. The Nazis were proud of their efficiency in murder.

The Concentration Camps

Auschwitz Death Camp

The Franks Go Into Hiding

Like many other Jews trapped in Europe at the time, Anne and her family went into hiding to avoid capture. Others were not so lucky, as Anne knew.

The Residents of the Secret Annex and Their Helpers

Mr. Dussel The Frank family

Mr. Van Daan

Peter Van Daan

Mrs. Van Daan Miep Gies The Helpers

Living in Hiding

The Frank family and 4 other Jews lived for more than 2 years hidden in a few cramped rooms, the Secret Annex, behind Mr. Frank’s office and warehouse.

Miep Gies risked her life and well-being to hide the Frank family. She died on January 11, 2011 at the age of 100.

Shortly after the arrests, Miep returns to the attic and finds Anne's diaries, as well as papers and family photographs. She collects everything and hides them in her desk drawer. She hopes to present them to Anne when she is freed. Otto Frank survives the Holocaust, returning to Amsterdam from Auschwitz in 1945. He lives with Miep and Jan Gies. After Otto learns that none of his family has survived, Miep presents him with the papers she has collected from the attic floor. The Diary of Anne Frank is published two years later. In the 50 years since its publication, the diary has been read by tens of millions of people worldwide.

Anne’s Diary

For her 13th birthday Anne received a diary from her parents. She called it Kitty and immediately started writing all about her life, including her intimate thoughts and feelings. But, a few weeks later Margot received her call up notice from the Nazi SS to report for work detail at a labor camp. On July 5th 1942, Anne and her family moved to the Secret Annex in the attic of Otto Frank’s former office building. For the 2 years she spent in hiding her diary was her solace, her confidant, her friend. What she recorded there were, in many ways the ordinary thoughts and feelings of a teenage girl. But she was a teenage girl living under extraordinary circumstances in ominous times.

Life in the Secret Annex

Eight people hid and lived in the Secret Annex. Anne, her sister Margot, her parents Otto and Edith Frank, Mr. and Mrs. Van Dann, their son Peter, and Mr. Dussel. They did not have much food. They might have oatmeal for breakfast, bread for dinner, and differently cooked potatoes. They could not make much noise because someone might hear them. They could only talk during the night so that people wouldn’t be awake to hear them. They also had very little clothes, materials like blankets, pots and pans, cooking supplies, beds and rooms, only 1 bathroom, and they almost even had no private spaces. They could not go outside or even smell fresh air. Every night they went to sleep feeling sorry for all their friends who had been captured and sent to concentration camps.. They would go to sleep hearing the sounds of bombs and gunfire. Always in their minds was the question: “ When will this war be over?”

During the group’s quiet times Anne wrote in her diary not only about the Nazi persecution and the experience of living in secret, but also about the day-to-day details about her adolescent life. She wrote about how much she hated potatoes and how her older sister was clearly her parents’ favorite. She described the jokes people made and her brief romantic flirtation with Peter. More than anything she wrote about her struggle to be an individual despite her lack of privacy.

She wrote: “Everyone thinks I’m showing off when I talk,

ridiculous when I’m silent, insolent when I answer, cunning

when I have a good idea, lazy when I’m tired, selfish when I eat

one more bit than I should, cowardly, calculating…I really am

trying to be helpful, friendly, and good, and to do everything I

can so that the rain of rebuke dies down to a light summer

drizzle.”

In 1944 she heard on the radio that people should save their war letters and diaries because they would become historical documents someday. She began thinking about trying to turn her diary into a novel. But on August 4. 1944, the annex was discovered and raided by the Nazis, and Anne and her family were captured. All of them died except for Otto. Anne and Margot died in Bergen’ Belsen of typhus just 6 weeks before the camp was liberated by the Allies.

The Diary of a Young Girl was published in 1947 and it was an immediate bestseller. It was translated into more than 50 languages. The entire first printing of the English translation sold out the day after it was reviewed in the New York Times. It was made into a play and then into a movie. To date it has sold over 25 million copies.

Otto Frank was the only member of the family to survive. He traveled back to Amsterdam and found that Miep had saved Anne{s diary. It took him several weeks to read it, because he could only bear to read a little at a time without breaking down and crying.

Remembering Anne

Anne Frank and the former camp, but Anne and her sister are buried in one of the mass graves. No one knows the exact location of their remains. In the background of the photo is on her older sister, Margot, both died of typhus at Bergen-Belsen shortly before the liberation. A tombstone for them has been placed at the site of e of the mass graves.

Anne Frank Tree

She did not leave her legacy as an ode to the past … But as a beacon of hope to the future.