Annelies Marie Frank (1929-1945) , better known as Anne Frank, is world famous for her “Diary of Anne Frank” which chronicles the months her family spent in hiding from Nazism. Deported to Germany, Anne Frank died a few months before the German surrender.
Moving to Amsterdam
Born June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Annelies, quickly nicknamed "Anne" by her relatives, is the 2nd daughter of Edith Frank-Holländer and Otto Heinrich Frank. Her parents, Reform Jews, encouraged Anne and her sister Margot to read and learn very early.
In 1933, the Nazi party won the municipal elections in Frankfurt and anti-Semitic demonstrations broke out. Fearing for the family's safety, Edith takes the children to Aachen in Germany while Otto leaves for Amsterdam to start a business. In February 1934, the rest of the family moved to Amsterdam and the two little girls resumed their schooling there.
A refuge in the Annex
Both are gifted for studies and Anne discovers reading and writing skills. Following a decree, they are forced to leave their school to join the Jewish high school. On June 12, 1942, for her birthday, she received a notebook which she used as a diary, writing about her life, her family, her friends... Among the description of the life of a typical schoolgirl, she slipped references to restrictions and to the persecutions suffered by the Jewish population.
On July 5, 1942, Margot received a mobilization notice from the Central Bureau of Jewish Immigration ordering her to report to be sent to a labor camp. His parents had already devised a plan in case of trouble, and the next day the Franks left their accommodation to hide in the Annex, rooms above and behind the offices of Otto's company. Their apartment is left in a mess in such a way as to make it seem like a hasty departure and a note indicates that they have gone to Switzerland. Thus begins for Otto, Edith, his mother, Margot and Anne a reclusive life in the Annex.
Life in the Annex
Several Otto employees – Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman, Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl – are aware of the Franks' presence and tend to their every need. Anne Frank describes in her diary their dedication despite the risks they take. Life in the Annex turns out to be heavy. During the day, the illegal immigrants must remain very quiet so as not to be heard by the other employees. On July 13, 1942, they were joined by the Van Pels – a couple and their 16-year-old son, Peter – and then in November by a family friend. Tensions arise between the occupants of the Annex, forced to live in a cramped space. Anne, however, grows closer to her sister, as well as to Peter, with whom she falls in love.
Anne spends a lot of time reading and studying, as well as writing her diary in which she describes their daily life, the relationships between the illegals and her own feelings, fears and beliefs. In the spring of 1944, hearing the Minister of Education of the Dutch government in exile speak of the publication, after the war, of the memoirs of the sufferings of the Dutch people during the war, she began to rewrite her diary. She hopes to publish her writings after the war.
Deportation
On the morning of August 4, 1944, on an anonymous tip or perhaps following an unrelated search, the Frank family's hideout was discovered and its occupants arrested. On September 3, 1944, after passing through a prison camp, they were deported to Auschwitz where they arrived in three days. None of the occupants of the Annex are sent directly to the gas chambers. Edith, Anne and Margot find themselves in the same barracks, forced to work all day, locked up all night in inhuman conditions. On October 28, 1944, Anne and Margot were moved to the Bergen-Belsen camp, where they worked recycling shoes. The camp is overcrowded and mortality from disease is high.
The winter of 1944-45 was harsh and very painful in the camp. Anne and Margot are sick and regularly deprived of food. They are too weak to stand up. In March, a typhus epidemic kills 17,000 prisoners. Between the end of February and mid-March, Margot succumbed to the disease, perhaps following a shock, and Anne survived her only a few days. The Bergen-Belsen camp was liberated on April 15, 1945.
The Diary of Anne Frank
Of the occupants of the Annex, Otto Frank is the only one to survive the war. Thanks to Miep Gies, his former employee, he recovers his daughter's diary and, knowing that Anne hoped to become a writer, entrusts it to a historian for publication. The diary was first published in 1947. It remains today without doubt the best-known testimony to the Second World War and the sufferings of the occupation.