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Anne Frank - Biografie und Hintergründe

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Steckbrief: Anne Frank

• Name: Anne Frank
• Lebensdaten: 12. Juni 1929 bis März 1945
• Nationalität: deutsch
• Zitat: "Ich finde es sehr komisch, dass erwachsene Menschen so schnell, so viel und über alle möglichen Kleinigkeiten Streit anfangen; bis jetzt dachte ich immer, dass Zanken eine Kindergewohnheit wäre, die sich später geben würde."

Das junge Mädchen musste mit ihrer Familie vor den Nationalsozialisten fliehen. 1944 wurde die Familie entdeckt und in ein Konzentrationslager gebracht. Dort stirbt Anne Frank im März 1945 - kurz vor Kriegsende - an Typhus. Ihr Vater überlebt und veröffentlicht ihr Tagebuch nach dem Krieg.

Der Lebenslauf von Anne Frank

Anne Frank wurde am 12. Juni 1929 in Frankfurt am Main geboren. Ihre Familie lebte schon immer in Deutschland und pflegte den jüdischen Glauben. Als im Jahr 1933 die nationalsozialistische Partei von Adolf Hitler an die Macht kam, wurde das Leben der Juden in Deutschland aber immer schwieriger.

Vieles wurde ihnen verboten. So durften sie zum Beispiel nicht Fahrrad fahren, nicht die Straßenbahn benutzen und mussten einen Judenstern tragen. Sie wurden von vielen anderen Deutschen gedemütigt und ausgegrenzt. Die Juden hatten in dieser Zeit große Angst und viele flüchteten ins Ausland.

Auch Anne Franks Familie beschloss 1933 - als Hitler an die Macht kam - Deutschland zu verlassen. Als Anne vier Jahre alt war, wanderten die Eltern mit ihr und ihrer Schwester Margot in die Niederlande aus. In Amsterdam konnte die Familie zunächst einige unbeschwerte, glückliche Jahre verbringen.

Wahre Geschichten aus dem 2. Weltkrieg

Anne franks familie findet ein versteck.

Am 10. Mai 1940 jedoch marschierten deutsche Truppen in den Niederlanden ein. Anne und ihre Familie waren erneut in Gefahr. Im Juli 1942 wurden die ersten jüdischen Familien aufgefordert, sich in so genannte "Arbeitslager" zu begeben. Das war eine Falle, denn es handelte sich in Wahrheit um Konzentrationslager.

Annes Familie hatte vorerst Glück: Sie versteckten sich gemeinsam mit einer weiteren jüdischen Familie im Hinterhaus des ehemaligen Geschäfts von Annes Vater - das ging nur mit der Hilfe der Angestellten des Geschäfts. Die Angst, entdeckt zu werden, war allerdings ihr ständiger Begleiter. Anne, zu dieser Zeit zwölf Jahre alt, begann, ihre Gedanken, Gefühle, Ängste und Erlebnisse in ihrem Tagebuch niederzuschreiben. Sie nannte es liebevoll "Kitty".

Am 9. Oktober 1942 schrieb sie: "Unsere jüdischen Freunde und Bekannten werden in Mengen weggeholt. Sie werden in Viehwagen geladen und ins Judenlager Westerbork gebracht. Westerbork muss grauenhaft sein. Für Hunderte von Menschen sind viel zu wenige Waschgelegenheiten und WCs vorhanden. Flüchten ist unmöglich. Die meisten Leute aus den Lagern sind gebrandmarkt durch ihre kahl geschorenen Köpfe..."

Buchtipp Mutige Menschen. Widerstand im Dritten Reich

Wie anne frank die welt veränderte.

Anne war ein kluges Mädchen, die die Hoffnung nicht aufgeben wollte. Doch am 4. August 1944 wurde das Hinterhaus, in dem sich die acht Flüchtlinge versteckten, von der Polizei gestürmt. Die Nazis brachten sie ins nächst gelegene Lager. Von dort aus ging es dann weiter in das berüchtigte Vernichtungslager Auschwitz in Polen.

Anne Frank, ihre Mutter und ihre Schwester Margot gelangten zunächst nach Bergen-Belsen bei Celle. Hier starben täglich Tausende Menschen durch Hunger, Kälte und Krankheit.

Inzwischen stand die deutsche Armee kurz vor der Niederlage. Hoffnung auf ein baldiges Ende des Krieges kam auf. Nur wenige Wochen, bevor der Krieg zu Ende war und die Gefangenen aus den Konzentrationslagern befreit wurden, bekamen Anne und Margot jedoch Typhus. Beide starben kurz nacheinander im März 1945 im Lager an dieser schweren Krankheit.

Der einzige Überlebende der Familie war Otto Frank, Annes Vater. Er nahm nach Kriegsende Kontakt zu einer der mutigen Helferinnen des Hinterhausverstecks in den Niederlanden auf. Sie war auch diejenige, die Annes Tagebuch aufbewahrt hatte. 1947 veröffentlichte Otto Frank die Aufzeichnungen seiner Tochter. Anne hatte sich das so gewünscht.

Das Buch wurde bisher in 55 Sprachen übersetzt und ist eines der meistgelesenen Werke der Welt. Erst 2009 wurde es von der UNESCO in das Weltdokumentenerbe aufgenommen. Noch heute wird es als Anregung für Film, Musik, Theater und Literatur genutzt.

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Who was Anne Frank?

Jewish Anne Frank hid in 1942 from the Nazis during the occupation of the Netherlands. Two years later she was discovered. In 1945 she died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

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.

Nazi Germany invades the Netherlands

Before long, Anne felt right at home in the Netherlands. She learned the language, made new friends and went to a Dutch school near her home. Her father worked hard to get his business off the ground, but it was not easy.  Otto also tried to set up a company in England, but the plan fell through. Things looked up when he started selling herbs and spices in addition to the pectin.

On 1 September 1939, when Anne was 10 years old, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, and so the Second World War began. Not long after, on 10 May 1940, the Nazis also invaded the Netherlands. Five days later, the Dutch army surrendered. Slowly but surely, the Nazis introduced more and more laws and regulations that made the lives of Jews more difficult. For instance, Jews could no longer visit parks, cinemas, or non-Jewish shops. The rules meant that more and more places became off-limits to Anne. Her father lost his company, since Jews were no longer allowed to run their own businesses. All Jewish children, including Anne, had to go to separate Jewish schools.

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. 

Anne keeps a diary

On her thirteenth birthday, just before they went into hiding, Anne was presented with a diary. During the two years in hiding, Anne wrote about events in the Secret Annex, but also about her feelings and thoughts. In addition, she wrote short stories, started on a novel and copied passages from the books she read in her Book of Beautiful Sentences . Writing helped her pass the time. 

When the Minister of Education of the Dutch government in England made an appeal on Radio Orange to hold on to war diaries and documents, Anne was inspired to rewrite her individual diaries into one running story, titled Het Achterhuis ( The Secret Annex ). 

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. 

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By: History.com Editors

Updated: July 1, 2020 | Original: November 9, 2009

Anne Frank (1929-1945), a young Jewish girl, her sister, and her parents moved to the Netherlands from Germany after Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came to power there in 1933 and made life increasingly difficult for Jews. In 1942, Frank and her family went into hiding in a secret apartment behind her father’s business in German-occupied Amsterdam. The Franks were discovered in 1944 and sent to concentration camps; only Anne’s father survived. Anne Frank’s diary of her family’s time in hiding, first published in 1947, has been translated into almost 70 languages and is one of the most widely read accounts of the Holocaust.

Who Was Anne Frank?

Anne Frank was born Annelies Marie Frank in Frankfurt, Germany, on June 12, 1929, to Edith Hollander Frank (1900-45) and Otto Frank (1889-1980), a prosperous businessman. Less than four years later, in January 1933, Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany and he and his Nazi government instituted a series of measures aimed at persecuting Germany’s Jewish citizens.

Did you know? In 1960, the building at Prinsengracht 263, home to the Secret Annex, opened to the public as a museum devoted to the life of Anne Frank. Her original diary is on display there.

By the fall of 1933, Otto Frank moved to Amsterdam, where he established a small but successful company that produced a gelling substance used to make jam. After staying behind in Germany with her grandmother in the city of Aachen, Anne joined her parents and sister Margot (1926-45) in the Dutch capital in February 1934. In 1935, Anne started school in Amsterdam and earned a reputation as an energetic, popular girl.

In May 1940, the Germans, who had entered World War II in September of the previous year, invaded the Netherlands and quickly made life increasingly restrictive and dangerous for Jewish people there. Between the summer of 1942 and September 1944, the Nazis and their Dutch collaborators deported more than 100,000 Jews in Holland to extermination camps during the Holocaust .

Anne Frank’s Family Goes into Hiding

Margot Frank received a letter ordering her to report to a work camp in Germany in July 1942. Anne Frank’s family went into hiding in an attic apartment behind Otto Frank’s business, located at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam, on July 6, 1942 . In an effort to avoid detection, the family left a false trail suggesting they’d fled to Switzerland.

A week after they had gone into hiding, the Franks were joined by Otto’s business associate Hermann van Pels (1898-1944), along with his wife Auguste (1900-45) and their son Peter (1926-45), who were also Jewish. A small group of Otto Frank’s employees, including his Austrian-born secretary, Miep Gies (1909-2010), risked their own lives to smuggle food, supplies and news of the outside world into the secret apartment, whose entrance was situated behind a movable bookcase. In November 1942, the Franks and Van Pels were joined by Fritz Pfeffer (1889-1944), Miep Gies’ Jewish dentist.

Life for the eight people in the small apartment, which Anne Frank referred to as the Secret Annex, was tense. The group lived in constant fear of being discovered and could never go outside. They had to remain quiet during daytime in order to avoid detection by the people working in the warehouse below. Anne passed the time, in part, by chronicling her observations and feelings in a diary she had received for her 13th birthday, a month before her family went into hiding.

Addressing her diary entries to an imaginary friend she called Kitty, Anne Frank wrote about life in hiding, including her impressions of the other inhabitants of the Secret Annex, her feelings of loneliness and her frustration over the lack of privacy. While she detailed typical teenage issues such as crushes on boys, arguments with her mother and resentments toward her sister, Frank also displayed keen insight and maturity when she wrote about the war, humanity and her own identity. She also penned short stories and essays during her time in hiding.

Anne Frank's Death

On August 4, 1944, after 25 months in hiding, Anne Frank and the seven others in the Secret Annex were discovered by the Gestapo , the German secret state police, who had learned about the hiding place from an anonymous tipster (who has never been definitively identified ).

After their arrest, the Franks, Van Pels and Fritz Pfeffer were sent by the Gestapo to Westerbork, a holding camp in the northern Netherlands. From there, in September 1944, the group was transported by freight train to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination and concentration camp complex in German-occupied Poland. Anne and Margot Frank were spared immediate death in the Auschwitz gas chambers and instead were sent to Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp in northern Germany. In February 1945, the Frank sisters died of typhus at Bergen-Belsen; their bodies were thrown into a mass grave. Several weeks later, on April 15, 1945, British forces liberated the camp.

Edith Frank died of starvation at Auschwitz in January 1945. Hermann van Pels died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz soon after his arrival there in 1944; his wife is believed to have likely died at the Theresienstadt concentration camp in what is now the Czech Republic in the spring of 1945. Peter van Pels died at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria in May 1945. Fritz Pfeffer died from illness in late December 1944 at the Neuengamme concentration camp in Germany. Anne Frank’s father, Otto, was the only member of the group to survive; he was liberated from Auschwitz by Soviet troops on January 27, 1945.

Anne Frank’s Diary

When Otto Frank returned to Amsterdam following his release from Auschwitz, Miep Gies gave him five notebooks and some 300 loose papers containing Anne’s writings. Gies had recovered the materials from the Secret Annex shortly after the Franks’ arrest by the Nazis and had hidden them in her desk. (Margot Frank also kept a diary, but it was never found.) Otto Frank knew that Anne wanted to become an author or journalist, and had hoped her wartime writings would one day be published. Anne had even been inspired to edit her diary for posterity after hearing a March 1944 radio broadcast from an exiled Dutch government official who urged the Dutch people to keep journals and letters that would help provide a record of what life was like under the Nazis.

After his daughter’s writings were returned to him, Otto Frank helped compile them into a manuscript that was published in the Netherlands in 1947 under the title “Het Acheterhuis” (“Rear Annex”). Although U.S. publishers initially rejected the work as too depressing and dull, it was eventually published in America in 1952 as “The Diary of a Young Girl.” The book, which went on to sell tens of millions of copies worldwide , has been labeled a testament to the indestructible nature of the human spirit. It is required reading at schools around the globe and has been adapted for the stage and screen. The annex where she wrote it, known as the “ Anne Frank House ,” has a museum dedicated to her life and is open to the public.

Anne Frank Quotes

“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.”

“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!”

“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.”

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When she was growing up, Anne Frank wanted to be a writer or a journalist. Unfortunately, her life was cut short by antisemitic persecution during the Holocaust. Although she was unable to witness it, Anne Frank’s writing in her diary became one of the most recognized accounts of life for a Jewish family in Europe during World War II.

Annelies Marie Frank was born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt, Germany. She lived with her older sister Margot and her parents Otto and Edith Frank. In 1933, when Anne was about five years old, Adolf Hitler and the anti-Jewish National Socialist Party seized power. The Franks decided to flee to Amsterdam in the Netherlands in hopes of a better life. While her father left first to make arrangements, Anne Frank stayed with her grandparents in Aachen, Germany until February of 1934 when she joined the rest of her family in Amsterdam. Frank quickly acclimated to her new home and began attending a Dutch school nearby. Although Frank and her family enjoyed the safety of the Netherlands, this all changed when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and the Second World War began. Less than a year later, Nazis invaded the Netherlands. The Dutch army quickly surrendered, and the Nazi army began enforcing new laws restricting Jewish mobility. Jewish people were no longer allowed to visit non-Jewish places of business and Jewish children had to attend separate Jewish schools. Soon after, all Jews had to start wearing a Star of David on their clothes for identification.

By the summer of 1942, Jewish people in the Netherlands started receiving calls and notices to report to “work” at camp Westerbork near the German border. Many of them were unaware that Nazi officials were then transporting them to the two major Jewish killing centers, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Sobibor. On July 5, 1942, Frank’s sister Margot received a call to report to a labor camp in Germany. Suspicious of the call and fearing for their lives, the Franks decided to go into hiding instead of reporting to the camp. The very next day, the entire family began hiding in the annex behind the office the family owned at Prinsengracht 263. The family soon welcomed four Dutch Jews into the secret attic apartment to escape persecution. The group hid in the “Secret Annex” for two years, while their friends smuggled food and clothing to help keep them safe. Right before they went into hiding, Frank received a diary for her thirteenth birthday. While she was in hiding with her family, she began recording her experiences, thoughts, and feelings in her diary. She also wrote short stories and started a novel about her life.

Unfortunately, on August 4, 1944 the family’s hiding place was discovered by the Gestapo (German Secret State Police). The Franks and their four companions were arrested, along with two of the people that helped them hide. They were all sent to camp Westerbork on August 8, 1944 and prepared for transport. On September 4, 1944 they were placed on a train with 1,019 other Jews and transported to Auschwitz in Poland. Once they arrived, the men and women were separated, and Frank and her sister Margot were selected for manual labor because of their age. Over 350 of the people that arrived in the transport with the Franks were immediately taken to the gas chambers and murdered. In late October of 1944, Anne and her sister Margot were transported to another concentration camp in northern Germany called Bergen-Belsen. The living conditions at this camp were also horrific, and many died from starvation or disease. Anne and Margot both contracted typhus and died in March of 1945, a few weeks before the British army liberated the camp on April 15. Their mother Edith also died in early January 1945 in the Auschwitz camp.

When the Soviet army liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, their father Otto was the only one from the annex that survived. When he was released, he unfortunately learned that all of his family was dead. However, he returned to the Netherlands and discovered that his friend Miep Gies was able to preserve Anne Frank’s diary before the Nazis raided their hiding place. Otto read his daughters writings and saw that she wanted to become a journalist or a writer, so he published her diary in June of 1947. The book grew in popularity and was later translated into over 70 languages. In 1960, the secret annex where the family hid was turned into a museum called the Anne Frank House.

• Anne Frank House. “Who Was Anne Frank?” April 6, 2020. https://www.annefrank.org/en/anne-frank/who-was-anne-frank/.
• Jewish Virtual Library. “Anne Frank.” Accessed April 13, 2020. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/anne-frank.
• Levy, Daniel S. “Anne Frank Day: How Her Diary Survived to Become a Book.” Time Magazine, March 6, 2019. https://time.com/4803406/anne-frank-diary-anniversary/.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Anne Frank: Biography.” Accessed April 13, 2020. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/anne-frank-biography.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Anne Frank: Diary.” Accessed April 13, 2020. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/anne-frank-diary?parent=en/142.

Photograph: Public domain

MLA – Alexander, Kerri Lee. “Anne Frank.” National Women’s History Museum, 2020. Date accessed.

Chicago – Alexander, Kerri Lee. “Anne Frank” National Women’s History Museum. 2020. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/anne-frank.

• Anne Frank House.  https://www.annefrank.org/en/ .
• Official Anne Frank Youtube Channel.  https://www.youtube.com/user/AnneFrank?feature=watch .

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(1929-1945)

Who Was Anne Frank?

Fleeing Nazi persecution of Jews, the family moved to Amsterdam and later went into hiding for two years. During this time, Anne wrote about her experiences and wishes. In 1945, the family was found and sent to concentration camps, where Anne died at the age of 15.

Anne Frank's Family

Frank's mother was Edith Frank. Her father, Otto Frank , was a lieutenant in the German army during World War I , later becoming a businessman in Germany and the Netherlands. Anne had a sister named Margot, who was three years her senior. Otto was the only member of his immediate family to survive the concentration camps.

Early Life and Education

Anne was born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt, Germany. The Franks were a typical upper-middle-class, German-Jewish family living in a quiet, religiously diverse neighborhood near the outskirts of Frankfurt. But she was born on the eve of dramatic changes in German society that would soon disrupt her family's happy, tranquil life as well as the lives of all other German Jews.

Due in large part to the harsh sanctions imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I, the German economy struggled terribly in the 1920s. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the virulently anti-Semitic National German Socialist Workers Party (Nazi Party) led by Adolf Hitler became Germany's leading political force, winning control of the government in 1933.

"I can remember that as early as 1932, groups of Storm Troopers came marching by, singing, 'When Jewish blood splatters from the knife,'" Otto later recalled.

Fleeing to Amsterdam

When Hitler became chancellor of Germany on January 20, 1933, the Frank family immediately realized that it was time to flee. They moved to Amsterdam, Netherlands, in the fall of 1933.

Otto later said, "Though this did hurt me deeply, I realized that Germany was not the world, and I left my country forever."

Anne described the circumstances of her family's emigration years later in her diary: "Because we're Jewish, my father immigrated to Holland in 1933, where he became the managing director of the Dutch Opekta Company, which manufactures products used in making jam."

After years of enduring anti-Semitism in Germany, the Franks were relieved to once again enjoy freedom in their new hometown of Amsterdam. "In those days, it was possible for us to start over and to feel free," Otto recalled.

Anne began attending Amsterdam's Sixth Montessori School in 1934, and throughout the rest of the 1930s, she lived a relatively happy and normal childhood. Anne had many friends, Dutch and German, Jewish and Christian, and she was a bright and inquisitive student.

Nazi Occupation of The Netherlands

On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, igniting a global conflict that would become World War II. On May 10, 1940, the German army invaded the Netherlands. The Dutch surrendered on May 15, 1940, marking the beginning of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.

As Anne later wrote in her diary, "After May 1940, the good times were few and far between; first there was the war, then the capitulation and then the arrival of the Germans, which is when the trouble started for the Jews."

Beginning in October 1940, the Nazi occupiers imposed anti-Jewish measures in the Netherlands. Jews were required to wear a yellow Star of David at all times and observe a strict curfew; they were also forbidden from owning businesses. Anne and her sister were forced to transfer to a segregated Jewish school.

Otto managed to keep control of his company by officially signing ownership over to two of his Christian associates, Jo Kleiman and Victor Kugler, while continuing to run the company from behind the scenes.

Hiding in the Secret Annex

On July 5, 1942, Margot received an official summons to report to a Nazi work camp in Germany. The very next day, the Frank family went into hiding in makeshift quarters in an empty space at the back of Otto's company building, which they referred to as the Secret Annex.

The Franks were accompanied in hiding by Otto's business partner Hermann van Pels as well as his wife, Auguste, and son, Peter. Otto's employees Kleiman and Kugler, as well as Jan and Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl, provided food and information about the outside world.

The families spent two years in hiding, never once stepping outside the dark, damp, sequestered portion of the building.

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Concentration Camp

On August 4, 1944, a German secret police officer accompanied by four Dutch Nazis stormed into the Secret Annex, arresting everyone that was hiding there including Anne and her family. They had been betrayed by an anonymous tip, and the identity of their betrayer remains unknown to this day.

The residents of the Secret Annex were shipped off to Camp Westerbork, a concentration camp in the northeastern Netherlands. They arrived by a passenger train on August 8, 1944. In the middle of the night on September 3, 1944, they were transferred to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. Upon arriving at Auschwitz, the men and women were separated. This was the last time that Otto ever saw his wife or daughters.

After several months of hard labor hauling heavy stones and grass mats, Anne and Margot were again transferred. They arrived at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany during the winter, where food was scarce, sanitation was awful and disease ran rampant.

Their mother was not allowed to go with them. Edith fell ill and died at Auschwitz shortly after arriving at the camp, on January 6, 1945.

Anne Frank's Death

Anne and her sister Margot both came down with typhus in the early spring of 1945. They died within a day of each other in March 1945, only a few weeks before British soldiers liberated the German Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where they were interned. Anne was just 15 years old at the time of her death, one of more than 1 million Jewish children who died in the Holocaust.

At the end of the war, Anne father Otto, the sole survivor of the concentration camps, returned home to Amsterdam, searching desperately for news of his family. On July 18, 1945, he met two sisters who had been with Anne and Margot at Bergen-Belsen and delivered the tragic news of their deaths.

The Diary of Anne Frank

The Secret Annex: Diary Letters from June 14, 1942 to August 1, 1944 was a selection of passages from Anne's diary that was published on June 25, 1947, by her father Otto. The Diary of a Young Girl , as it's typically called in English, has since been published in 67 languages. Countless editions, as well as screen and stage adaptations, of the work have been created worldwide, and it remains one of the most moving and widely read firsthand accounts of the Jewish experience during the Holocaust.

On June 12, 1942, Anne's parents gave her a red-checkered diary for her 13th birthday. She wrote her first entry, addressed to an imaginary friend named Kitty, that same day: "I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support."

During the two years Anne spent hiding from the Nazis with her family in the Secret Annex in Amsterdam, she wrote extensive daily entries in her diary to pass the time. Some betrayed the depth of despair into which she occasionally sunk during day after day of confinement.

"I've reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die," she wrote on February 3, 1944. "The world will keep on turning without me, and I can't do anything to change events anyway." The act of writing allowed Anne to maintain her sanity and her spirits. "When I write, I can shake off all my cares," she wrote on April 5, 1944.

When Otto returned to Amsterdam from the concentration camps at the end of the war, he found Anne's diary, which had been saved by Miep Gies . He eventually gathered the strength to read it. He was awestruck by what he discovered.

"There was revealed a completely different Anne to the child that I had lost," Otto wrote in a letter to his mother. "I had no idea of the depths of her thoughts and feelings."

For all its passages of despair, Anne's diary is essentially a story of faith, hope and love in the face of hate. "If she had been here, Anne would have been so proud," Otto said.

Anne's diary endures, not only because of the remarkable events she described but due to her extraordinary gifts as a storyteller and her indefatigable spirit through even the most horrific of circumstances.

"It's utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death," she wrote on July 15, 1944. "I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness; I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more."

In addition to her diary, Anne filled a notebook with quotes from her favorite authors, original stories and the beginnings of a novel about her time in the Secret Annex. Her writings reveal a teenage girl with creativity, wisdom, depth of emotion and rhetorical power far beyond her years.

Anne Frank's Hidden Diary Pages & Dirty Jokes

In May 2018, researchers uncovered two hidden pages in Anne's diary that contained dirty jokes and "sexual matters," which the teen covered with pasted brown paper. “I sometimes imagine that someone might come to me and ask me to inform him about sexual matters,” Anne wrote in Dutch. “How would I go about it?”

Anne tried to answer these questions as if she's speaking to an imaginary person, using phrases like “rhythmical movements” to describe sex and “internal medicament,” alluding to contraception.

Anne also wrote about her menstrual cycle, saying it's "a sign that she is ripe," devoted space to "dirty jokes" and reference prostitution: "In Paris they have big houses for that.”

The pages were dated September 28, 1942, and were part of her first diary - the one she intended only for herself. “It is really interesting and adds meaning to our understanding of the diary," said Ronald Leopold, executive director of the Anne Frank House . “It’s a very cautious start to her becoming a writer.”

The Anne Frank House

After the end of World War II, the Secret Annex was on a list of buildings to be demolished, but a group of people in Amsterdam campaigned and set up the foundation now known as the Anne Frank House. The house preserved Anne's hiding spot; today it is one of the three most popular museums in Amsterdam.

In June 2013, the Anne Frank House lost a lawsuit to the Anne Frank Fonds, after the Fonds sued the House for the return of documents linked to Anne and Otto Frank. Anne's physical diary and other writings, however, are property of the Dutch state and have been on permanent loan to the House since 2009.

In 2015, the Fonds, the copyright holders of Anne's diary, lost a lawsuit against the Anne Frank House after the House began new scientific research on the texts in 2011.

In 2009, the Anne Frank Center USA launched a national initiative called the Sapling Project, planting saplings from a 170-year-old chestnut tree that Anne had long loved (as denoted in her diary) at 11 different sites nationwide.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Annelies Marie Frank
• Birth Year: 1929
• Birth date: June 12, 1929
• Birth City: Frankfurt
• Birth Country: Germany
• Gender: Female
• Best Known For: Anne Frank was a Jewish teenager who went into hiding during the Holocaust, journaling her experiences in the renowned work 'The Diary of Anne Frank.'
• World War II
• Journalism and Nonfiction
• Astrological Sign: Gemini
• Sixth Montessori School
• Nacionalities
• Interesting Facts
• Published in 1947, Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl has since been translated in 67 languages.
• Anne Frank died sometime in March 1945 from typhus, only a few weeks before British soldiers liberated the concentration camp where she was interned.
• Through a 2009 effort by the Anne Frank Center USA, saplings from a chestnut tree that Anne Frank loved were planted at 11 sites nationwide.
• Death Year: 1945
• Death City: Lower Saxony
• Death Country: Germany

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Anne Frank Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/anne-frank
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: June 9, 2022
• Original Published Date: April 29, 2014
• It's utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness; I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.
• When I write, I can shake off all my cares.
• Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.
• Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.
• A quiet conscience makes one strong!
• Although I'm only 14, I know quite well what I want. I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it might sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child, I feel quite independent of anyone.
• As long as this exists, this sunshine and this cloudless sky, and as long as I can enjoy it, how can I be sad?
• The world will keep on turning without me, and I can't do anything to change events anyway.
• The weak die out, and the strong will survive, and live on forever.
• In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.
• People can tell you to keep your mouth shut but that doesn't stop you from having your own opinion.
• Whoever is happy will make others happy.
• No one has ever become poor by giving.
• I don't think of all the misery, but the beauty that still remains.
• It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.
• After May 1940, the good times were few and far between; first there was the war, then the capitulation and then the arrival of the Germans, which is when the trouble started for the Jews.
• Because we're Jewish, my father immigrated to Holland in 1933, where he became the managing director of the Dutch Opekta Company, which manufactures products used in making jam.

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The life of Anne Frank

Learn all about anne frank and her world-famous diary….

Discover the life of Anne Frank, the young Jewish girl who was forced into hiding during World War II , in our Anne Frank facts…

All people should be treated equally, right? Well, sadly, throughout history, there have been many people who have been treated differently because of where they come from, what religion they follow, or whether they’re a boy or a girl. And sometimes, this still happens today!

Thankfully, the incredible stories that people leave behind can be used to educate and inspire people to be kinder to one another, no matter their background. One such story, is that of Anne Frank…

Anne Frank facts

Full name: Annelies Marie Frank

Born: 12 June 1929

Hometown: Frankfurt, Germany

Occupation: Jewish diarist

Died: February 1945

Best known for: Her diary entries during World War II

Also known as: Anne Frank

Who was Anne Frank?

Anne Frank was born in Germany in 1929 during a time when the country was troubled. Many people had lost their jobs and were becoming poorer and Adolf Hitler – the leader of the Nazi* party – was blaming Jews* for Germany’s problems.

Afraid for their safety, Anne’s parents moved the family to Holland when Anne was just four years old. Anne lived and went to school in Amsterdam , and had to learn  Dutch . She made lots of friends, and spent her free time reading and playing table tennis.

But when World War II broke out, life for Anne and her family became much harder. The Nazis imposed strict rules on Jews, restricting the places they could visit, the shops they could use and even the schools they went to. Anne’s father lost his company, as Jewish people were no longer allowed to run their own businesses.

Anne Frank’s house

In 1942 , the Nazis wanted to take Anne’s elder sister, Margot , to Germany, but her family refused to be separated and went into hiding. Anne’s father had spent several months preparing a hiding place, in the backhouse of his company at Prinsengracht 263. Anne later named it the ‘ Secret Annex’ .

The Secret Annex was above the warehouse. The entrance to the Annex was later hidden behind a bookcase. Anne’s father, Otto Frank , enlisted help from four of his employees who worked at the office and who became known as ‘ the helpers ‘ — Miep Gies, Bep Voskuijl, Johannes Kleiman and Victor Krugler. The helpers brought the family food, clothing and other supplies while they were in hiding. The people working in the warehouse didn’t know about the people in hiding, except for Johannes Voskuijl, Bep’s father, who made the book case.

The Franks were the first family to move into the Secret Annex. Soon after, another family moved in — Hermann and Auguste van Pels , and their son Peter . Later followed by Fritz Pfeffer.

The diary of Anne Frank

Anne Frank’s first, red chequered diary. Photo Collection Anne Frank House.

On her 13th birthday , Anne was given a diary . She loved writing and dreamed of becoming a famous writer one day. She named her diary, Kitty .

Anne would write about everyday events in her diary; things that probably didn’t seem that important at the time, but that have helped us form a picture of what life was like during this incredibly difficult time in history.

She wrote about what she ate, the film stars that she admired, the books she read, and the arguments she would have with her mother. She also wrote about being in hiding, the fears and difficulties, and how she longed to go outside. 

“Footsteps in the house, the private office, the kitchen, then… on the staircase. All sounds of breathing stopped, eight hearts pounded… Then we heard a can fall, and the footsteps receded. We were out of danger, so far!”

– An extract from Anne’s diary

When in hiding, the Franks, the van Pels and Fritz Pfeffer had to be incredibly careful to ensure they weren’t discovered. For example, they weren’t allowed to flush the toilet during the day in case the warehouse workers heard them, and Anne was only rarely allowed to open a window. She could never go outside, either.

How did Anne Frank die?

On 4th August 1944 , the Nazis raided the Prinsengracht 263 and found the hiding place. They took the 8 people in hiding to Westerbork – a camp that held Jewish people and others captive – in Holland. A month later, they were sent to Auschwitz , a larger concentration camp* in Poland. Men and women were separated. Eventually, Anne and her sister Margot were separated from their mother and sent to another concentration camp Bergen-Belsen , on a crowded train.

Conditions at the camp were extremely poor. It was cold and wet, there was little food to eat and disease was common. Anne and Margot both died at the camp in February 1945 — just a few months before the end of World War II. It is believed that they died of a disease called typhus.

Anne and Margot’s mother, Edith, also died at Auschwitz. Their father Otto was the only survivor of the eight people in hiding in the Secret Annex.

Anne Frank’s story

Anne’s diary was saved by one of the helpers, Miep. When Anne’s father Otto – the only surviving member of the Frank family – returned to Amsterdam at the end of the war, he received his daughter’s diary from Miep, at the day he heard that Anne and Margot died in Bergen-Belsen. He started to read Anne’s diary and published it, making Anne’s dream of becoming a writer a reality. The diary was published in 1947, titled: The Secret Annex .

Since its publication, Anne Frank’s diary has sold millions of copies around the world and has been translated into more than 70 languages . It remains an important account of the treatment that Jewish people suffered at the hands of the Nazis. Otto hoped that his daughter’s diary would educate readers on the dangers of hatred against others, prejudice and discrimination.

In 1960, with the help of Otto, the former hiding place opened its doors as a museum, named the Anne Frank House. Each year, it is visited by more than 1.2 million people from around the world, wanting to learn more about Anne Frank’s life story.

*The Jews are people born into a Jewish family or practice the religion of Judaism.

*the nazis were a group of people who followed the ideas of a german leader named adolf hitler., *concentration camps were places where nazis held jews and others. many people lost their lives in camps due to the harsh treatment they faced, like being forced to work, and the lack of food, space and healthcare. auschwitz, the largest concentration camp complex was based in poland., what did you think of our anne frank facts leave a comment below and let us know.

Image credits: © Anne Frank House

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don't forget!

Go Anne! one day I will read that diary, it sounds so amazing

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thx i learnt something new

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very educational even though its summer and I should be reading a book this is better

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In fact it was very nice and interesting to read.

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The Nazis did not deserve to live.

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REALLY USEFULL DUDE

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Biography Online

Anne Frank Biography

“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 believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”

– Anne Frank 21 July 1944

Anne Frank, 1940

Anne Frank was born on 12 June 1929 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Her father Otto Frank was a German businessman. In 1933, at the height of the great depression, Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP (Nazi party) rose to power Germany and began instituting antisemitic legislation. Due to the hostility to the Jews, Otto Frank took his family to the Netherlands where he set up a new business that traded in pectin – an ingredient of jam.

However, after the fall of Holland to the Nazi’s in 1940, the Jewish population experienced ever-increasingly repressive measures and she had to transfer from a public school to Jewish school. As Anne mentioned in her diary.

“After May 1940…the trouble started for the Jews. Our freedom was severely restricted by a series of anti-Jewish decrees: Jews were required to wear a yellow star; Jews were required to turn-in their bicycles; Jews were forbidden to ride trams or in cars, even their own…Jews were forbidden to go to theatres, cinemas or any other forms of entertainment; Jews were forbidden to use swimming pools, tennis courts, hockey fields or any other athletic fields…You couldn’t do this and you couldn’t do that, but life went on…” – Anne Frank 20 June 1942

Reconstruction of secret passageway

By 1942, the situation for the Jewish population in Europe was deteriorating and with her sister under threat of deportation, Otto Frank took his family into forced hiding, behind one of his business premises in the heart of Amsterdam. Her family were later joined by the Van Pels family who were also trying to avoid arrest. The Jewish families were helped by non-Jewish friends, such as Miep Gies who smuggled in food and supplies into the cramped surroundings.

Anne was thirteen when the family went into hiding and she began writing a diary about daily life in the secret annexe. She also used her diary to express her thoughts and emotions of growing up and living under the challenging circumstances. During the day, they had to be extremely quiet so as not to arouse any suspicion of those living below. It was an offence to hide Jewish people from the Gestapo and it was difficult to know who could be trusted to keep the secret.

Diary of Anne Frank

Anne’s diary tells of the difficulties of living in a confined space with so many people. The atmosphere was at times suffocating because small irritations could get on people’s nerves and not being able to go out, there was no release or escape from the environment. They eagerly followed news of the war and by 1944 were increasingly hopeful as they heard of the Allied landings in France and liberation of Paris.

One striking feature of the diary is how she wrote about very ordinary, everyday life-experiences of a young teenager, against the backdrop of the frightening war situation. For example, she developed a short-lived romance with 16-year-old Peter van Pels, who was also hiding in the attic. With Peter, she experienced her first kiss, but also had the self-awareness to wonder whether her infatuation was genuine love or a result of the confined situation she was in. Anne wrote about all the different people and relationships within the hiding place – she was close to her father, but often felt distant from her mother

Despite the hardships and challenges of her situation, she also expressed a natural joie de vivre and positive view of life, for example

“I long to ride a bike, dance, whistle, look at the world, feel young and know that I’m free, and yet I can’t let it show. Just imagine what would happen if all eight of us were to feel sorry for ourselves or walk around with the discontent clearly visible on our faces. Where would that get us?” (December 24, 1943) – Diary of Anne Frank

Arrest and transportation to Auschwitz

Het Achterhuis  ( The Secret Annex )

Unfortunately, on 4 August 1944 (with the Allies closing in on a retreating Germany army), an anonymous source gave a tip-off to the German secret police. The families were arrested along with two helpers and they were sent on the last convoy train to Auschwitz. After surviving the selection process (most people under 15 were sent straight to the gas chambers), Anne was sent a labour camp for women. They a few months later in November 1944, she was put on a train to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Belsen was notorious for having terrible conditions. The prisoners were starved and mistreated by sadistic guards. In the unsanitary, overcrowded conditions, disease was rife and the death rate very high. In the final months of the war, Anne contracted typhoid fever and she died – just one or two months before the camp was liberated by the advancing Allied armies.

Her diary was published in 1947 and, in the first run, 3,000 copies were printed. Following a glowing article by Jan Romein in the newspaper Het Parool , it became a best seller and was translated into 60 languages. People were fascinated by her writing and what she managed to convey in the most difficult of situations.

Her book has become an important symbol of how innocent people can suffer from intolerance and persecution.

In 1960, the family’s secret hiding place was converted into the Anne Frank Museum and is visited by thousands of people every year.

Impact of Anne Frank’s Diary

“one voice speaks for six million—the voice not of a sage or a poet but of an ordinary little girl.”

Ilya Ehrenburg (Soviet writer)

In the aftermath of the Second World War and the discovery of Nazi concentration camps, the magnitude of the horrors were difficult to comprehend. Over six million Jews perished in the holocaust, but the scale of the killing was hard to put in context. Anne Frank’s Diary was important because it gave a very human connection to the people behind the statistics. Anne’s lively and engaging writing style made it easy for readers to empathize with her situation. It also helped that the diary was a very moving and human account of experiences we can all relate to. Eleanor Roosevelt wrote of Anne Frank’s diary as.

“One of the wisest and most moving commentaries on war and its impact on human beings that I have ever read.”

The tragic discovery of their hiding place towards the end of the war, giving an added poignancy to the loss of life and potential of Anne Frank cut away before she reached adulthood.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan “ Diary of Anne Frank ”, Oxford, www.biographyonline.net, 2nd Feb 2017. Last updated 1 March 2020.

The Diary of Anne Frank

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl at Amazon

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This article was some what great and sad I have no words for it.

• February 05, 2019 5:37 PM

This was amazing!!!!!! Thanks for the help!!!

• August 17, 2018 8:17 PM
• By Nathaneal Baylon

My words have very limitations to express my feelings when I was reading the book.Then who can imagine her feelings while they lived in the hiding place and after they were caught.

• July 19, 2018 10:57 AM

Anne Frank was legacy will always be remembered

• May 28, 2018 2:21 AM

thanks for the help with my research she is so inspiring

• April 25, 2018 6:35 PM

I am so inspired,I am at a loss for words

• March 21, 2018 2:15 AM

anne frank was a wonderful person. i was extremely inspired to see how she lived with such optimism, and how she triumphed over her challenges she was truly a wonderful person

• March 21, 2018 2:09 AM
• By patricia

very helpful Anne frank was a wonderful human being

• March 12, 2018 1:32 PM
• By Arianna Hemmings

Very helpful in my research.

• January 16, 2018 6:03 PM