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Anne Frank


Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (June 12 1929March 1945) was a Jewish female who wrote a diary while hiding with her family from the Nazis in Amsterdam during World War II. Her family was betrayed and they were transported to Nazi concentration camps, and by the end of the war all but Anne's father Otto had died. After the war, her diary was published. It eventually became one of the world's most widely read works, and made her one of the most renowned and discussed victims of the Holocaust.

Contents

History

She was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, the second daughter of Otto Heinrich Frank (May 12 1889 - August 19 1980) and his wife Edith Hollander (January 16, 1900 - January 6, 1945) of a family of German patriots that had served in World War I. She had an older sister, Margot Betti Frank (February 16 1926 - March 1945). She and her family later had to move to Amsterdam to escape persecution by the Nazis. There she received a diary book for her thirteenth birthday. Still barely 13 years old, her family went into hiding in the Achterhuis, a small two-story space behind Otto Frank's company space. (This Achterhuis was located in a rather typical - and old - building on the Prinsengracht, a canal on the western side of Amsterdam, about a block from the Westerkerk, which was called the Westertoren in the play.) The door to the Achterhuis was hidden behind a bookcase. They lived there from July 9 1942 until August 4 1944, during the Nazi occupation. During this period, friends of the Frank family provided them with food and other necessities.

There were 8 people in the hiding place: Otto and Edith Frank (Anne's parents); Anne and her older sister Margot; Fritz Pfeffer, a Jewish dentist (named Mr Dussel in the diary); and Mr and Mrs van Pels with their son Peter from Osnabrück (named van Daan in the diary). During those years Anne wrote her diary, in Dutch, describing with considerable talent her fears of living in hiding for years, the awakening feelings for Peter, the conflicts with her parents, and her aspirations to become a writer. A few months before they were discovered, Anne started to rewrite her diary with the idea to have it published after the war.


After more than two years, a tip from a Dutch informer led the Gestapo to their hiding place. They were arrested by the Grüne Polizei and on September 2 1944 Anne Frank and her family were placed on the last transport train from Westerbork to Auschwitz. They arrived three days later. Meanwhile Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl (Elly Vossen in the diary), two of the people who cared for them during the hiding years, found the diary and saved it.

Anne, Margot and Edith Frank, the van Pels family and Fritz Pfeffer did not survive the German concentration camps (in Peter van Pels' case, the death marches between concentration camps). Margot and Anne spent a month in Auschwitz-Birkenau and were sent on to Bergen-Belsen, where they died of typhus in March 1945, shortly before the liberation. Only Anne's father Otto made it out of the concentration camps alive; he died in 1980. Miep gave him the diary and he edited it for publication under the title The Diary of Anne Frank. It has since been published in 55 languages.

Margot Frank was also known to have written a diary during her period in hiding. No trace of it was ever found, and it is assumed to have been destroyed after the family were captured.

A recent critical edition Anne Frank's diary compares her original entries with her father's edited versions. The house where Anne and her family hid is now a museum. It is at Prinsengracht 263 in the city center, within walking distance of the main train station, the palace and the Dam.

In 1956 Frank's diary was made into a play that won the Pulitzer Prize, in 1959 it was made into a motion picture (see The Diary of Anne Frank (film)), and in 1997 it was made into a Broadway play with added material from the original diaries.

Though the diary's authenticity has been proven beyond a doubt, Holocaust deniers continue to question it.


In 2004 a new book was published in The Netherlands, called 'Mooie zinnen-boek' (Book of beautiful sentences). Following her father's advice, Anne copied fragments of books and short poems that especially struck her from the many books she read during her stay in the Achterhuis.

The Dutch broadcaster KRO tried to get Anne Frank posthumous citizenship as part of the company's "De Grootste Nederlander" programme. Becoming a Dutch citizen was one of Anne Frank's many unfulfilled wishes. Some controversy followed, partly because such a citizenship would be in stark contrast to the Dutch refugee policy of minister Rita Verdonk . Eventually, the Dutch authorities said that this was practically impossible.

See the BBC article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3714204.stm

Memorable Quotes

An April 11, 1944, entry in Anne's diary reads: "God never deserted our people. Right through the ages there were Jews. Through the ages they suffered, but it also made us strong."

Another quote reads: "In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart."

Gravestone placed for Anne and Margot Frank at former Bergen-Belsen site, along with memorial tributes
Enlarge
Gravestone placed for Anne and Margot Frank at former Bergen-Belsen site, along with memorial tributes

Trivia

Anne and Margot Frank each sent a letter to Juanita Wagner and her sister in Iowa before going into hiding. Unfortunately, this was not a lasting correspondence, as the Nazis rolled into Amsterdam before Anne and Margot could get letters back from them. This, however, would eventually lead to Wagner's fifteen minutes of fame .

Death-dates

  • Edith Frank: January 6th, 1945, in Auschwitz-Birkenau from starvation.
  • Margot Frank: March 1945, in Bergen-Belsen from typhus.
  • Anne Frank: March 1945, in Bergen-Belsen from typhus, shortly after Margot's death.
  • Fritz Pfeffer: December 20th, 1944, in Neuengamme.
  • Hermann van Pels: September 6th, 1944, in Auschwitz. He was the only member of the group to be gassed upon arrival.
  • Auguste van Pels: Both her date and place of death are unknown but she is known to have been transferred from Auschwitz to Theresienstadt, and is believed to have died there.
  • Peter van Pels: May 5th, 1945, in Mauthausen during a death march. Otto Frank had protected him during their period of imprisonment together, as the two men had been assigned to the same work group. Frank later stated that he had urged Peter to hide in Auschwitz and remain behind with him, rather than set out on the forced march. Peter decided that he would have a better chance of survival if he joined the march. For this he died. He was eighteen years old.
  • Otto Frank a much older man than Peter, and weak from his months of deprivation, realized he could not survive a protracted march, so he remained with other sick prisoners in the camp. He survived Auschwitz, and returned to Amsterdam in search of his family. Reunited with Miep Gies, he received confirmation during the next few months of the deaths of his family and spent the remainder of his life protecting their memory, and speaking out against antisemitism and other forms of discrimination. For several years he lived with Gies and her husband. He sought publication of his daughter's diary, and participated in the editing process. Later he was involved in the establishment of the Anne Frank Foundation, helped save "The Achterhuis" from demolition, and was involved in the development of Anne Frank House, the musuem which incorporates "The Achterhuis". He remarried and died in Birsfelden , Switzerland from natural causes, in 1980.

See also

Further reading

  • Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank, introduction by Eleanor Roosevelt, translated by B. M. Mooyaart, Bantam, mass market paperback, 304 pages, ISBN 0553296981
  • The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition, Anne Frank, edited by David Barnouw and Gerrold Van der Stroom, translated by Arnold J. Pomerans, compiled by H. J. J. Hardy, revised and updated edition, Doubleday 2003, hardcover, 736 pages, ISBN 0385508476. Prepared by the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation. Compares several editions of the diary to the original, includes an extensive study of its authenticity, relates history of the involved people before and after the war.
  • Anne Frank's Tales From the Secret Annex, Anne Frank, translated by Michel Mok and Ralph Manheim, Washington Square Press, copyright 1949 and 1960 by Otto Frank and in 1982 by Anne-Frank Fonds, English translation copyright 1952 and 1959 by Otto Frank and 1983 by Doubleday and Company, edition of September 1983, paperback, 156 pages, ISBN 0671458574. Relates short works of fiction by Anne Frank, as well as short essays by the same author.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations by or about Anne Frank
  • Scholastic's site on Anne Frank http://teacher.scholastic.com/frank/index.htm
  • An article on the diary's authenticity by Theresien da Silva of the Anne Frank House http://www.annefrank.nl/eng/articles/authenticiteit.html
  • Site for the Anne Frank House http://www.annefrank.nl
  • An in depth study of Anne, her diary and the people around her http://www.geocities.com/afdiary/index.html
  • Site of a band whose second album is loosely based on the life, death, and reincarnation of Anne http://www.neutralmilkhotel.net/
  • Exhibition "Unfinished Story" at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/af/htmlsite/





Last updated: 02-07-2005 18:35:06
Last updated: 05-02-2005 19:44:55