Reading Anne Frank’s diary for the first time can be a ground-breaking moment in any reader’s life. Since it was first published, the book has inspired generations of people around the world – from school children to world leaders.
A gift
Anne received the diary on her 13th birthday. She had picked it out herself, describing it as her favourite present that year. She wasted no time and immediately started writing in it. She enthusiastically wrote about her life until that point, and even spent time describing her honest thoughts of her school classmates!
Dear Kitty,
Anne didn’t know how much her life would change within a couple of weeks of her birthday. As Nazi persecution of Jewish people grew, Anne and her family had to go into hiding. Anne would find much comfort and support in writing her diary. She wrote the diary in the form of letters to her imaginary friend Kitty, sharing her deepest thoughts and secrets. In addition to writing about her life, she also kept detailed accounts of what was happening in the war, wrote short stories, and even started writing a novel.
The Secret Annexe
One day, the people in hiding heard a radio broadcast that got Anne really excited. It mentioned that diaries, letters and other important documents would be collected after the war. Anne longed to be a writer or a journalist, and here she saw an opportunity. She quickly started work on rewriting parts of her diary, taking parts out and adding entirely new sections. She would write a book, and call it “The Secret Annexe”!
Anne’s writing legacy
Anne’s writing came to an abrupt end in August 1944 after the people in hiding were discovered by the Nazis and arrested because they were Jewish. It is tragic that Anne never got to see her book published, or to see its success. Little did she know that movies, plays and artwork would be created out of her passion for writing. Her diary has sold over 30 million copies, and has been translated into 70 different languages. Above all, her voice continues to speak to every one of us, whoever and wherever we are, about the dangers of prejudice and hate.
Courtesy: https://www.annefrank.org.uk/
Anne’s full name was Annelies Marie Frank. She was born on 12 June 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany to parents Otto and Edith. She had an older sister Margot.
Here are more details about Anne Frank and her diary:
Anne’s first years
Anne Frank was born in the German city of Frankfurt am Main in 1929. Anne’s sister Margot was three years her senior. Unemployment was high and poverty was severe in Germany, and it was the period in which Adolf Hitler and his party were gaining more and more supporters. Hitler hated the Jews and blamed them for the problems in the country. He took advantage of the rampant antisemitic sentiments in Germany. The hatred of Jews and the poor economic situation made Anne’s parents, Otto and Edith Frank, decide to move to Amsterdam. There, Otto founded a company that traded in pectin, a gelling agent for making jam.
Anne has to go into hiding in the Secret Annex
The Nazis took things further, one step at the time. Jews had to start wearing a Star of David on their clothes and there were rumours that all Jews would have to leave the Netherlands. When Margot received a call-up to report for a so-called ‘labour camp’ in Nazi Germany on 5 July 1942, her parents were suspicious. They did not believe the call-up was about work and decided to go into hiding the next day in order to escape persecution.
In the spring of 1942, Anne’s father had started furnishing a hiding place in the annex of his business premises at Prinsengracht 263. He received help from his former colleagues. Before long, they were joined by four more people. The hiding place was cramped. Anne had to keep very quiet and was often afraid.
The hiding place is discovered
Anne started rewriting her diary, but before she was done, she and the other people in hiding were discovered and arrested by police officers on 4 August 1944. The police also arrested two of the helpers. To this day, we do not know the reason for the police raid.
Despite the raid, part of Anne’s writing was preserved: two other helpers took the documents before the Secret Annex was emptied by order of the Nazis.
Anne is deported to Auschwitz
Via the offices of the Sicherheitsdienst (the German security police), a prison in Amsterdam, and the Westerbork transit camp, the people from the Secret Annex were put on transport to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. The train journey took three days, during which Anne and over a thousand others were packed closely together in cattle wagons. There was little food and water and only a barrel for a toilet.
Upon arrival at Auschwitz, Nazi doctors checked to see who would and who would not be able to do heavy forced labour. Around 350 people from Anne’s transport were immediately taken to the gas chambers and murdered. Anne, Margot and their mother were sent to the labour camp for women. Otto ended up in a camp for men.
Anne dies from exhaustion in Bergen-Belsen
In early November 1944, Anne was put on transport again. She was deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp with Margot. Their parents stayed behind in Auschwitz. The conditions in Bergen-Belsen were horrible too. There was a lack of food, it was cold, wet and there were contagious diseases. Anne and Margot contracted typhus. In February 1945 they both died owing to its effects, Margot first, Anne shortly afterwards.
Anne’s father Otto was the only one of the people from the Secret Annex to survive the war. He was liberated from Auschwitz by the Russians and during his long journey back to the Netherlands he learned that his wife Edith had died. Once in the Netherlands, he heard that Anne and Margot were no longer alive either.
Anne’s diary becomes world famous
Anne’s writing made a deep impression on Otto. He read that Anne had wanted to become a writer or a journalist and that she had intended to publish her stories about life in the Secret Annex. Friends convinced Otto to publish the diary and in June 1947, 3,000 copies of Het Achterhuis (The Secret Annex) were printed.
And that was not all: the book was later translated into around 70 languages and adapted for stage and screen. People all over the world were introduced to Anne’s story and in 1960 the hiding place became a museum: the Anne Frank House. Until his death in 1980, Otto remained closely involved with the Anne Frank House and the museum: he hoped that readers of the diary would become aware of the dangers of discrimination, racism, and hatred of Jews.
Courtesy: https://www.annefrank.org/
10 beautiful quotes from Anne Frank’s diary:
- Writing in a diary is a really strange experience for someone like me. Not only because I’ve never written anything before, but also because it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year old school girl. Oh well, it doesn’t matter. I feel like writing.
- How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
- I know what I want, I have a goal, an opinion, I have a religion and love. Let me be myself and then I am satisfied. I know that I’m a woman, a woman with inward strength and plenty of courage.
- We aren’t allowed to have any opinions. People can tell you to keep your mouth shut, but it doesn’t stop you having your own opinion. Even if people are still very young, they shouldn’t be prevented from saying what they think.
- Women should be respected as well! Generally speaking, men are held in great esteem in all parts of the world, so why shouldn’t women have their share? Soldiers and war heroes are honored and commemorated, explorers are granted immortal fame, martyrs are revered, but how many people look upon women too as soldiers?
- Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!
- It’s difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.
- What is done cannot be undone, but one can prevent it happening again.
- I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.
- Whoever is happy will make others happy too.
Courtesy: Laura Tscherry, The Guardian, 27 Jan. 2015
Image of commemorative postage stamp on Anne Frank issued by The Netherlands in 1980, courtesy https://www.philatelicly.com/