Anne Frank

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Lore & Background

Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1929. In 1934, when she was four-and-a-half, Frank and her family moved to Amsterdam after Adolf Hitler of the Nazi Party was elected to govern Germany. By May 1940, her family were trapped in Amsterdam due to Germany's occupation. Frank lost her German citizenship in 1941 and became stateless. Despite spending most of her life in the Netherlands and being a de facto Dutch national, she never officially became a Dutch citizen. As persecution of the Jewish population increased in July 1942, the family went into hiding in a secret annex concealed behind a bookcase in the building where Frank's father, Otto Frank, worked. The family were arrested two years later by the Gestapo, on 4 August 1944. Following their arrest, the Franks were transported to concentration camps. On 1 November 1944, Anne Frank and her sister Margot were transferred from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they died (presumably of typhus) a few months later. The Red Cross estimated that they died in March 1945, with Dutch authorities setting 31 March as the official date. Later research has alternatively suggested that they may have died in February or early March. Otto Frank, the only Holocaust survivor in the family, returned to Amsterdam after World War II to find that Anne's diary had been saved by his secretaries, Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl.

Reader's Guide

Anne Frank's diary, which she began writing on 12 June 1942 for her thirteenth birthday, documents her life in hiding from July 1942 until her arrest in August 1944. She wrote in an autograph book bound with red-and-white checkered cloth, naming it 'Kitty'. Her entries describe the restrictions placed on Dutch Jews, the sudden move into hiding after her sister Margot received a call-up notice on 5 July 1942, and daily life in the Secret Annex. The hiding place was a three-story space entered from a landing above the Opekta offices on the Prinsengracht, concealed behind a bookcase. The Franks were joined by the Van Pels family on 13 July 1942, and later by Fritz Pfeffer in November. Anne wrote of tensions with her housemates, her growing kinship with Peter van Pels, and the dedication of the helpers—Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman, Miep Gies, Bep Voskuijl, Jan Gies, and Johannes Hendrik Voskuijl—who risked death to shelter them. Moved by his daughter's repeated wishes to be an author, Otto Frank published her diary in 1947. It was translated from its original Dutch version and first published in English in 1952 as The Diary of a Young Girl.

Did You Know?

• Anne Frank was born Annelies or Anneliese Marie Frank on 12 June 1929 at the Maingau Red Cross Clinic in Frankfurt, Germany.
• On 22 July 1941, Anne was filmed watching her neighbours' marriage ceremony from her balcony—the only known footage of her taken during her lifetime.
• Anne received her diary as an autograph book for her thirteenth birthday on 12 June 1942, bound with red-and-white checkered cloth and a small lock.
• The Franks went into hiding ten days earlier than planned because Margot received a call-up notice from the Central Office for Jewish Emigration on 5 July 1942.
• Otto Frank published Anne's diary in 1947 after finding it had been saved by his secretaries, Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl.