Anne Frank (1929-1945) achieved world fame after her death
from typhus in March 1945 in the Nazi concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen through the publication of her diary in which she
described the lives of eight Jews in hiding in the city of
Amsterdam between June 1942 and August 1944.
Anne Frank was born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt, Germany.
Her father, Otto, was the son of wealthy parents. He attended the
classical gymnasium and served as a lieutenant of the German
army in World War I. Following the loss of his parent's fortune
during the 1920s' inflation in Germany, he was able to establish
himself as a businessman in Frankfurt specializing in banking and
in the promotion of name brands. Anne's mother also came from
a well-to-do family. Anne had a close and warm relationship with
her father and a more distant one with her mother. Anne's sister
Margot, a pretty and feminine girl, was born in 1926 and also
died in Bergen-Belsen.
Following the Nazi takeover of Germany in January 1933, the
Franks emigrated to Amsterdam, Holland, where Otto Frank
became the managing director of a food company with a
warehouse and office on the Prinsengracht, one of the city's
canal/streets. Anne attended the Montessori school in
Amsterdam. When the Nazis occupied Holland in May 1940 they
began to institute anti-Jewish regulations which forced Anne to
leave her school and to attend a Jewish secondary school. Jews
were forced to wear the yellow Jewish star of David, and
deportation of Jews from Holland to the Auschwitz extermination
camp commenced. Margot received an order to report for
deportation in early July 1942. Otto Frank, who had prepared for
this eventuality by setting up a hiding place for his family,
decided that the time had come. He moved his family into the
hidden rear portion of the warehouse where he had prepared two
apartments. He was joined there by Mr. van Daan, a co-worker,
with his wife and 16-year-old son Peter. Eventually an eighth
person joined them, an elderly Jewish dentist named Dussel.
The friends of the hidden Jews who worked in the office of the
firm, Mr. Koophuis (real name, Johannes Kleiman), Victor Kraler
(real name, Victor Kugler), Miep (de Jong) van Santen (real
name, Miep Gies), Henk van Santen (real name, Henk Gies), and
Elli Vossen (real name, Elisabeth [Bep] Voskuijl), supplied them
with food, black market ration cards, and other necessities. They
were quiet during the day when the normal business of the firm
was conducted downstairs. Life for the hidden began in the late
day and evening hours.
Following a denunciation, probably by another member of the
firm or by a night-time burglar, the police discovered the hidden
persons and arrested them and two of their helpers.
The two helpers-Victor Kraler and Mr. Koophuis-were held by
the Gestapo for a period.
Mr. Koophuis was
released shortly after
being arrested due to his
poor health. Kraler
escaped his guards
several months after his
arrest and eventually
made his way to
Toronto, Ontario,
Canada. The Franks, van
Daans, and Dussel were
transported to the Dutch
transit camp
Wersterbork and from
there to the extermination camp Auschwitz. It was the last major
transport of Jews from Holland. When the Russians threatened to
conquer the camp, Margot and Anne Frank were sent to BergenBelsen where they perished. Of the eight Jews who were in
hiding, only Otto Frank survived. (He died in 1980.)
Although Anne wrote a few short stories and started on a novel
during her period in hiding, her most important literary
achievement was a diary of the events taking place in
Prinsengracht. When the German police raided the hiding place
they scattered the pages of the diary on the floor. They were
collected by Elli Vossen and Miep van Santen and handed to Otto
Frank upon his return to Amsterdam.
The diary was forcefully written and tells the story of the living
together of the eight persons in the Achterhuis, or the hidden
back part of the house, in Prinsengracht. This was often done in a
humorous way, displaying considerable talent of observation,
originality, and description. Anne was well able to convey to the
reader the fears about discovery and the hopes about an end to
the war. She described the quarrels between the older van Daans
and of the van Daans and the dentist, which often ended in the
latter's refusal to further communicate with the van Daans for a
week.
Anne's diary, originally published as Het Achterhuis, will be
valuable to many readers for various reasons. Not the least of
these is the story of a young girl growing up under the confining
conditions on the Prinsengracht. She described the generation
gap between the adults and their silly quarrels and how they
tended to combine their forces in castigating her for all sorts of
shortcomings. She told about her somewhat distant relationship
with her mother and the close one with her father.
Her special attention was given to a budding puppy love with
Peter van Daan. The harmless affair ended soon because it was
difficult to maintain in the confined space of the hiding place and
because she had a talk with her father who suggested ending the
affair. But mainly it was because she was intellectually and
emotionally the superior of Peter, a nice but rather colorless boy.
A good part of the chronologically-arranged diary entries, all
addressed to a Kitty, are concerned with food, its preparation,
hygiene, birthday parties and presents, and educating children in
such adverse conditions. The cheerfulness of Anne's writing in
such dangerous circumstances, as well as her sensitivity and
talent to describe difficult circumstances and the tragedy of her
short life, made her diary an instant success. The book was
translated into over 30 languages, and a pocket book edition in
Germany alone sold 900,000 copies, while several million copies
of a United States publication of the diary were sold.
Today the house in Prinsengracht is an international youth center
known as the Anne Frank House. There are Anne Frank centers
devoted to her memory in several places, including Philadelphia
and New York City.