The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

The Diary of a Young Girl
by Anne Frank

Anne Frank was a young Jewish girl who lived and died during the Holocaust. The Frank family hid in a secret annex at the back of a warehouse from the Nazis for two years.

During this time, Anne kept a diary. Anne Frank wrote in her Diary about everyday problems of being a teenager and about the horrors of war and Hitler's anti-Jewish laws.

The Secret Annex are betrayed and they are arrested August 4, 1944. Anne Frank the other prisoners are moved in a sealed cattle car to Auschwitz where they are separated, between males and females and those who would work - and those who would die.

Anne Frank and her older sister Margot had friends of many nationalities and had been taught to respect and tolerate others, die in March of 1945, within days of each other.

More than a million innocent kids under the age of sixteen, like Anne Frank were killed in the Holocaust.

Life and times of Anne Frank.

Anneliese Marie Frank, born June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany

Father: married at 36 Otto Frank, who a German Jew. Had been an 
officer in the German army on WW1.

Mother: married at 27 Edith Hollander Frank, who was a German Jew.

Sister: first daughter Margot Born Feb 16 1626

Anne's parents were a respected German family. Otto was an officer 
in the German Army during World War I.

Hitler's anti-Semitic policies affected the Jews more and more. In 
the summer of 1933, Otto Frank left Frankfurt to Amsterdam to set 
up a new business called the Dutch Opekta Company. A year later, 
Edith, Margot, and Anne joined them.

By the middle of the 1930s they settling into a normal routine 
living in an apartment at 37 Merwedeplein

Anne and Margot Frank were attending school; they took vacations 
and had a circle of Jewish and non-Jewish friends.

In 1938 Otto expanded his business, becoming a partner with 
Hermann van Pels, (also a Jewish refugee from Nazis)

Amsterdam had offered a safe haven from Nazism but in May, 1940, 
Germany invaded the Netherlands.

At first Anne and Margot socialized with their friends and attend 
school, but in the summer of in 1941, they was not allowed to 
attend school with non-Jews.

The Franks were once again forced to live under Nazi rule. In May 
1942, all Jews aged six and older were required to wear a yellow 
Star of David on their clothes.

The Nazi administration, and the Dutch Nazi Party began issuing 
anti-Jewish decrees. All Jews had to register their businesses 
and, later, surrender them to non-Jews.

Otto Frank foreseen this and turned his business over to his 
non-Jewish colleagues Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman.

About 1938 many of Anne's relatives and other Jews left for 
America to avoid the NAZI tyranny

May 10, 1940 - The Germany invaded the Netherlands.

By 1942 Jews were being arrested. Many were sent to German force 
labor camps.

June 12, 1942 Anne receives a diary for her 13th birthday and 
starts to keep a diary (which personifies by calling it "Kitty")

The Frank family began to prepare to go into hiding at an annex 
of rooms above Otto Frank's office at 263 Prinsengracht in 
Amsterdam.

July 5, 1942 Anne's older sister, Margot is called to report to a 
forced-labor camp. The next day The family goes into hiding in a 
Secret Annex above their work place.

July 13, 1942 - Mr. Franks business partners, Hermann van Pels, 
his wife, Auguste, and their son, Peter, and later November 16, 
1942 - Fritz Pfeffer, the eighth resident join the Franks in 
hiding.

People on the office staff in the Dutch Opekta Company agreed to 
help them. Besides Kugler and Kleiman, there were Miep and Jan 
Gies, Bep Voskuijl, and Bep's father - all thought to be 
trustworthy. They agreed to keep the business operating in their 
employer's absence; they agreed to risk their lives to help the 
Frank family survive.

August 4, 1944 The residents of the Secret Annex are betrayed and 
arrested and taken to a police station and eventually to 
Westerbork transit camp.

August 4, 1944, about 10 AM, A Nazi policeman and several Dutch 
flunkies appeared at 263 Prinsengracht, and headed straight for 
the bookcase leading to the Secret Annex. (they got a secret phone 
call about Jews hiding there)

Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman, were also imprisoned for their 
role in hiding the family and both Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl 
were brought in for questioning by the police.

September 3, 1944 - The eight Jewish prisoners were transported in 
a sealed cattle car to Auschwitz At Auschwitz, the men are 
separated from the women and into two groups: those who would 
work--and those who would die.

October 1944 - Anne, Margot, and Mrs. van Pels are transported to 
the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Edith Frank remains in the 
women's sub camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

In October 1944, Anne and Margot were transported from Auschwitz 
to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Thousands died 
from planned starvation and epidemics and without food, heat, 
medicine, or sanitation.

January 6, 1945 - Edith Frank dies at Auschwitz-Birkenau

January 27, 1945 - Otto Frank is freed from Auschwitz by the 
Russian army. He is taken first to Odessa and then to France 
before he is allowed to make his way back to Amsterdam.

March 1945 Anne and Margot, already weaken from living in the 
concentration camps, contracted typhus and grew even sicker. - 
Anne and Margot Frank die at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp 
within days of each other.

After the War
--------------

Otto Frank arrives in Amsterdam, June 3, 1945, is reunited with Opekta 
staff, Miep and Jan Gies.

Otto Frank knows his wife has died and on October 24, 1945 gets a 
letter saying that his daughters died at Bergen-Belsen.

Miep had saved Anne's diary after her arrest, hoping to return it to 
Anne, now gave it to Otto Frank.

The first 1,500 copies of Anne's diary are published during the Summer 
of 1947 in Amsterdam.

After the war Otto left Amsterdam and he and his second wife, Elfried 
Geiringer, (an Auschwitz survivor), moved to Basel, Switzerland, in 
1953. Otto Frank died on August 19, 1980, at the age of ninety-one.

Over a million innocent kids under the age of sixteen died in the 
Holocaust.

Her diary, saved during the war by one of the family's helpers, 
Miep Gies, first published in 1947. Today, her diary has been 
translated into 67 languages and is one of the most widely read 
books in the world. Anne Frank was one of them.

http://www.annefrank.com/

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