| Annelies
Marie "Anne" Frank (June 12, 1929 – ca. March
1945) was a German Jewish girl who wrote a diary while in hiding
with her family and four friends in Amsterdam during the German
occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. Her family
had moved to Amsterdam after the Nazis gained power in Germany but
were trapped when the Nazi occupation extended into The
Netherlands. As persecutions against the Jewish population
increased, the family went into hiding in July 1942 in hidden
rooms in Otto Frank's office building. After two years in
hiding, the group was betrayed and transported to the
concentration camp system where Anne died of typhus (in
Bergen-Belsen) within days of her sister, Margot, in February or
March 1945. Her father, Otto, the only survivor of the
group, returned to Amsterdam after the war ended, to find that her
diary had been saved. Convinced that it was a unique record
he took action to have it published.
The diary was
given to Anne Frank for her thirteenth birthday and chronicles the
events of her life from June 12, 1942 until its final entry of
August 1, 1944. It was eventually translated from its
original Dutch into many languages and became one of the world's
most widely read books. There have also been many theatrical
productions, and an opera, based on the diary. Described as
the work of a mature and insightful mind, it provides an intimate
examination of daily life under Nazi occupation; through her
writing, Anne Frank has become one of the most renowned and
discussed of the Holocaust victims. |
