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The Life
Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (12 June 1929 in Frankfurt am Main – early March
1945 in Bergen Belsen) was a Jewish girl who was born in the city of Frankfurt
am Main in Weimar Germany, and who lived most of her life in or near
Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. She gained international fame posthumously
following the publication of her diary which documents her experiences hiding
during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.
Anne and her family moved to Amsterdam in 1933 after the Nazis gained power
in Germany, and were trapped by the occupation of the Netherlands, which began
in 1940. As persecutions against the Jewish population increased, the family went
into hiding in July 1942 in hidden rooms in her father Otto Frank's office building.
After two years, the group was betrayed and transported to concentration camps.
Seven months after her arrest, Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen
concentration camp, within days of the death of her sister, Margot Frank. Her
father Otto, the only survivor of the group, returned to Amsterdam after the war to
find that her diary had been saved, and his efforts led to its publication in 1947. It
was translated from its original Dutch and first published in English in 1952 as
The Diary of a Young Girl.
The diary, which was given to Anne on her 13th birthday, chronicles her life from
12 June 1942 until 1 August 1944. It has been translated into many languages,
has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis
for several plays and films. Anne Frank has been acknowledged for the quality of
her writing, and has become one of the most renowned and most discussed
victims of the Holocaust.
On the morning of 4 August 1944, the Achterhuis was stormed by the German
Security Police (Grüne Polizei) following a tip-off from an informer who was
never identified.The Franks, van Pelses and Pfeffer were taken to the Gestapo
headquarters where they were interrogated and held overnight. On 5 August,
they were transferred to the Huis van Bewaring (House of Detention), an
overcrowded prison on the Weteringschans. Two days later they were
transported to Westerbork. Ostensibly a transit camp, by this time more than
100,000 Jews had passed through it. Having been arrested in hiding, they were
considered criminals and were sent to the Punishment Barracks for hard labor.
On September 3,the group was deported on what would be the last transport from Westerbork to the Auschwitz
concentration camp, and arrived after a three-day journey. In the chaos that marked the unloading of the trains,
the men were forcibly separated from the women and children, and Otto Frank was wrenched from his family.
Of the 1,019 passengers, 549—including all children younger than fifteen—were sent directly to the gas
chambers. Anne had turned fifteen three months earlier and was one of the youngest people to be spared from
her transport. She was soon made aware that most people were gassed upon arrival, and never learned that
the entire group from the Achterhuis had survived this selection. With the other females not selected for
immediate death, Anne was forced to strip naked to be disinfected, had her head shaved and was tattooed with
an identifying number on her arm. By day, the women were used as slave labor and Anne was forced to haul
rocks and dig rolls of sod; by night, they were crammed into overcrowded barracks. Witnesses later testified
that Anne became withdrawn and tearful when she saw children being led to the gas chambers, though other
witnesses reported that more often she displayed strength and courage, and that her gregarious and confident
nature allowed her to obtain extra bread rations for Edith, Margot and herself. Disease was rampant and before
long, Anne's skin became badly infected by scabies. She and Margot were moved into an infirmary, which was
in a state of constant darkness, and infested with rats and mice. Edith Frank stopped eating, saving every
morsel of food for her daughters and passing her rations to them. On 28 October, selections began for women
to be relocated to Bergen-Belsen. More than 8,000 women, including Anne and Margot Frank, were
transported, but Edith Frank was left behind and later died from starvation.Tents were erected at Bergen-Belsen
to accommodate the influx of prisoners, and as the population rose, the death toll due to disease increased
rapidly. Anne was briefly reunited with two friends, Hanneli Goslar and Nanette Blitz, who were confined in
another section of the camp. Anne told both Blitz and Goslar that she believed her parents were dead, and for
that reason did not wish to live any longer.
In March 1945, a typhus epidemic spread through the camp and killed approximately 17,000
prisoners.Witnesses later testified that Margot fell from her bunk in her weakened state and was killed by the
shock, and that a few days later Anne died. They stated that this occurred a few weeks before the camp was
liberated by British troops on 15 April 1945, although the exact dates were not recorded.[After liberation, the
camp was burned in an effort to prevent further spread of disease, and Anne and Margot were buried in a mass
grave, the exact whereabouts of which is unknown.
Since the 1950, the neo-Nazi groups have argued that the diary was a forgery, these
arguments have not found any confirmation, and are considered of little value by
historians.
To respond to these criticisms, in 1986 the Dutch Institute for Research on World
War II has put the diary in a calligraphy expert who confirmed the authenticity of the
same and that was written by the hand of Anne Frank, with maps and Ink products
prior to the date of arrest.
Returned from captivity, Otto Frank came into possession of the notebooks of Anna
and decided to fulfill the wish of her daughter, responding to the publication of the
diaries.
The second editorial was created by Anna after listening to the radio call of the
Dutch minister in exile Bolkestein to preserve the testimonies of the war: Anna
began to review and correct the wording of the first written with the explicit intention
to publish a war ended; for example, invented pseudonyms to ensure anonymity of
all occupants of the apartment.
This editorial was written on loose-leaf collected in folders and covers the dates from
20 June 1943 to 29 March 1944.
Finally, there is a small collection of fantasy stories (tales of the secret) that are
partially joined the diary itself.
All material was recovered by Miep Gies, a Dutch who had helped the Frank during
hiding, and that a few hours after their arrest secret and went to the property brought
in all the manuscripts except that he managed to find.
In addition to the second book of the first edition, it is possible that there were other
lost manuscripts, of which however is not known to exist.
After a cool initial reception, to the extent that the public was aware of the facts of
the Shoah, the book had several translations and publications (to date is published
in over forty countries) and is an important witness to the violence suffered by the
Jews during Employment of Nazism.