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Her name is Anneliese Marie Frank, better known as Anne Frank. She was born to Otto and Edith Frank on June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, three years after her sister Margot.
The Frank family moved into a house in southern Amsterdam in 1933 to free from the Germans, afraid of what hitler might do. Anne began to attend a Montessori school, where she was a very good student and made many friends.
Anne Frank as a schoolgirl at her Montessori school.Seven years later the Nazis invaded the Netherlands and in five days Holland gave in to Germany. Otto Frank had already begun to make the annex of his company into a hiding place for the Franks to live in if they had to escape the Nazis. He moved the things that the family would need little by little so that no one would become suspicious. The two upper floors and the attic of the Annex would become their home, with a bookcase on hinges covering the staircase.
On Anne's thirteenth birthday she received a diary from her parents, which she called Kitty. She felt that she needed someone to tell her deepest thoughts to, since neither her friends nor her family seemed interested in hearing or understanding them. On the front page, she wrote, "I hope I will be able to confide everything to you you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support."
On June 20, 1942, two and a half weeks before going into hiding, Anne wrote, "Anti-Jewish decrees followed each other in quick succession. Jews must wear a yellow star, Jews must hand in their bicycles, Jews are banned from trams and forbidden to drive. Jews must be indoors by eight o'clock and cannot even sit in their own gardens after that hour. Jews may not take part in public sports. Jews may not visit Christians. Our freedom was strictly limited. Yet things were bearable."
By the second year of occupation, it was clear to the Franks that the Jews would be deported unless they found places to hide. So on Monday, July 6, 1942 the Frank family moved into the annex. The Van Pels, former employees of Mr. Frank's business, joined them a week later. Their family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Van Pels and their fifteen-year-old son Peter. Much later, on November 16th, Dr. Fritz Pfeffer, a dentist, joined them, making a total of eight people crammed into the secret annex.
Even in hiding, Anne did not shut herself away in a dream world. On January 13, 1943 she wrote, "And as for us, we are fortunate. It is quiet and safe here, and we are, so to speak, living on capital. We are even so selfish to talk about 'after the war', brighten up at the thought of having new clothes and new shoes, whereas we really ought to save every penny to help other people, and save what is left from the wreckage after the war."
As an energetic young girl, Anne did not like being indoors all the time, but she made the best of it. One day she wrote, "I don't think I'll ever feel at home in this house but that doesn't mean I hate it... The annex is the ideal place to hide in. It may be damp and lopsided, but there's probably not a more comfortable hiding place in all of Amsterdam. No, in all of Poland."
The hideaways tried to lead as normal a life as possible. For Anne, Margot, and Peter, this meant studying and doing homework. They were not allowed to get behind wither their schoolwork. They had to be careful so that no one would hear them, as not all the people in the office knew that they were there.
On October 19, 1943 Anne wrote in her diary, "Our many Jewish friends are being taken away by the dozens. These people are treated by the Gastapo without a shred of decency, being loaded into cattle trucks and sent to Westerbork, the big Jewish camp in Drente."
By May 1944, Anne's diary was full and she was writing on pieces of paper. On May 3rd, she wrote down her thoughts about the war. Anne wrote, "What, of what is the point of the war? Why can't people live togetheer peacefully? Why are people so crazy?"
On Augest 4, 1944, after twenty-five months of hiding, the Nazi police found the Franks' hiding place and arrested them. They brought the hideaways to Westerbork, a transit camp in Holland. Then on September 2, 1944 they were sent to Auschwitz, a concentration camp in Poland. It would be the last shipment of prisoners from Westerbork to the camp. If they had been arrested a few weeks later the Franks would have been safe. On October 30, 1944, Anne and Margot weere sent to Bergen-Belsen, another concentration camp. THeir mother was not sent with them.
In the end, Edith Frank died of starvation in Auschwitz. Mr. Van Pels died in the gas chambers soon after he arrived at Auschwitz. Peter was carried off with the SS when the approach of the Russians forced the Germans to evacuate Auschwitz and died a few days before liberation. Mr. Pfeffer and Mrs. Van Pels both died in the concentrtion camp. Margot and Anne both came down with Typhus. Margot died towards the end of March 1945 and Anne died in April, a few weeks after her. Otto Frank was the only survivor of the people who lived in the secret annex.
When Mr. Frank returned to Amsterdam her recieved Anne's diary from Meip, one of the people who had helped the Franks while in hiding. She had found it on the floorafter the Germans ad left the annex and kept it unil the end of the war. With encouragment from a friend, Mr. Frank decided to publish the diary. It has been published in over twenty-five languages.
When Anne was a girl she had dreamed of one day being famous. She did not know that one day her name would be known all over the globe.
The montessori school where Anne went is now named the Anne Frank School.
This is what Anne might have looked like had she lived.Links