Anne Frank

Annelies Marie Frank (12 June 1929 – February or March 1945) was a German-Dutch diarist of Jewish origin. Born in Frankfurt, Germany, she lived most of her life in or near Amsterdam, Netherlands, having moved there with her family when the Nazis gained control over Germany. Born a German national, she lost her citizenship in 1941 and thus became stateless. She and her sister, Margot, were transferred from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they died a few months later.

About Anne Frank in brief

Summary Anne FrankAnnelies Marie Frank (12 June 1929 – February or March 1945) was a German-Dutch diarist of Jewish origin. Born in Frankfurt, Germany, she lived most of her life in or near Amsterdam, Netherlands, having moved there with her family at the age of four and a half when the Nazis gained control over Germany. Born a German national, she lost her citizenship in 1941 and thus became stateless. By May 1940, the Franks were trapped in Amsterdam by the German occupation of the Netherlands. As persecutions of the Jewish population increased in July 1942, they went into hiding in some concealed rooms behind a bookcase in the building where Anne’s father, Otto Frank, worked. From then until the family’s arrest by the Gestapo in August 1944, she kept a diary she had received as a birthday present, and wrote in it regularly. She and her sister, Margot, were transferred from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they died a few months later. They were originally estimated by the Red Cross to have died in March, with Dutch authorities setting 31 March as their official date of death, but research by the Anne Frank House in 2015 suggests it is more likely that they died in February. Otto, the only survivor of the Frank family, returned to Amsterdam after the war to find that her diary had been saved by his secretary, Miep Gies, and his efforts led to its publication in 1947. It was translated from its original Dutch version and first published in English in 1952 as The Diary of a Young Girl, and has since been translated into over 70 languages.

The Franks were among 300,000 Jews who fled Germany between 1933 and 1939. They lived in an assimilated community of Jewish and non-Jewish citizens of various religions. Edith and Otto were devoted parents, who were interested in scholarly pursuits and had an extensive library; both parents encouraged the children to read. In 1938, Otto started a second company, Pectacon, which was a wholesaler of herbs, pickling salts, and mixed spices, used in the production of sausages. In January 1939, Edith’s mother came to live with the Franks, and remained with them until her death in January 1940, in Osnabrück, Germany. Anne soon felt like one of her best friends, like Hannah Goslar, who would later become one of the best friends of her own age. Anne stayed with her grandmother until February, when the family was reunited in the Netherlands, and Anne and Margot were enrolled in school—Margot became a pupil at a Montessori school. In late December 1933 Edith followed her husband together with Margot. The family moved to Ganghoferstrasse 24 in a fashionable liberal area of Dornbusch called the Dichterviertel. Both houses still exist. The family lived in a house at Marbachweg 307 in Frankfurt-Dorn Busch where they rented two floors. In 1933, after Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party won the federal election and Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of the Reich.