Anne Frank
Anne Frank was a Jewish girl who was forced into hiding at age 13 in an attempt to escape Nazi persecution. Together with her parents, sister and four additional Jewish inhabitants, she was confined to a concealed annex at the back of a building on the Prinsengracht in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
After more than two years in hiding they were discovered and deported to concentration camps. Anne’s father, Otto Frank, was the only one of the eight people to survive. After her death Anne became world famous because of the diary she wrote while in hiding.
The Diary
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, more commonly known as The Diary of Anne Frank, is one of the most translated books in the world. On her thirteenth birthday, just before the Frank family went into hiding, Anne was presented with a diary. During more than two years of secrecy and confinement, Anne wrote about events and experiences in the Annex, and also about her feelings and thoughts while growing up. The immediacy, charm and poignance of Anne’s writing resulted in her diary becoming a source of inspiration to people all over the world.
The Hiding Place
In July 1942, Anne Frank (aged 13), her parents, Otto and Edith Frank, and her sister, Margot Frank (aged 16), went into hiding in the annex at the back of her father’s place of business. The Van Pels family (Hermann, Auguste, and their 15-year-old son, Peter) followed the next week. Four months later, they were joined by Fritz Pfeffer. The eight people in the Secret Annex hid away for 671 days, helped by Otto’s office staff. Then they were betrayed, discovered and deported to concentration camps.
The Holocaust
Anne Frank is one of the 1.5 million Jewish children who were murdered at the hands of Nazi officials and their collaborators. Through Anne Frank The Exhibition, the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam offers insights into how this could have happened and what it means for us today. In the course of the Second World War, the Nazis murdered nearly six million European Jews. This genocide is called the Holocaust. Here, you can read about its causes and backgrounds, the stages of the Holocaust, and the perpetrators, victims and survivors.