Anne Frank was born on June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany of an upper middle-class German Jewish family. Anne had a sister who was three years older than her.
Germany in the 1920’s and 1930’s were to produce a huge change in German Society with the upsurge of the anti-Semitic Nazi Party which advocated policies antagonistic to the Jewish population. The party did not hesitate in the use of violence and intimidation to opponents and in particular those of Jewish descent. The family led a peaceful and happy life despite the growing tensions within Germany. Her parents new full well of the impending dangers for the Jewish community and Anne, as a perceptive child, would have been aware also of the bleak future facing them.
Matters were brought to a head in 1933 when Adolph Hitler, himself a rabidly anti Jew, won control of the government. The Frank’s could not ignore the circumstances and moved to Amsterdam, Netherlands in the same year and her father became managing director of the Dutch Opekta Company and the family felt a sense of freedom at the move. Anne attended Amsterdam’s Sixth Montessori school the following year.
However, the family’s life would change drastically in 1940 when Germany easily defeated the Dutch forces in their quest to conquer Europe. As Anne wrote in her diary “ After May 1940, the good times were few and far between” (Frank.1942-1944). The Nazi occupiers forced the Jewish population to wear a yellow Star of David and a severe curfew was imposed and Jews were also banned from owning businesses. Her father however, managed to overcome this difficulty by signing the business over to Christian partners. Anna and her sister were forced to attend a segregated Jewish school. In 1942 Anne’s parents gave her a diary on her thirteenth birthday. This was to be the start of her meticulous diary-keeping which were to become perhaps, the most famous diaries of all time.
When her sister was ordered to a Nazi work camp in Germany the family readily understood urgent steps needed taken to keep the family safe so they the family moved into spare accommodation in the rear of the father’s business with another business partner and his wife. Food and news developments were supplied by employees of the firm at a massive risk to themselves. Unbelievably the families were to spend two years in their makeshift home without ever leaving it.
Anna being an intelligent and somewhat restless girl spend much time writing daily entries in her diaries (Frank, 1942-1944). (The work is sometimes referred to as The Diary of Anne Frank or alternatively The Diary of A Young Girl). It was for her a way to cope with the extreme circumstances the families were forced to live in. The diaries do not make happy reading and Anna was to record “I’ve reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die.” This contains an example of the life a teenager was being forced to live. It must have taken a great deal of self discipline, courage and perseverance to keep up the diaries. Anna was also a scholar and had a notebook which she filled with quotations by her favourite authors. She also began some original work of her own.
The families terrible luck was to continue when German secret police followed up a tip-off raided the families scanty quarters. The family were sent to a concentration camp in the north east of Holland and eventually the concentration camp at Auschwitz on September 3, 1944. the father was separated from the rest of the family and he never saw his wife or daughters again. Anne and her sent to Bergen-Belsen where the sisters suffered typhus and both died in March 1945 ironically days before the camp was liberated. The sisters were only two of some one million Jewish children to suffer such a fate. The father was the only member of the family to survive.
On his return to Amsterdam the father was to find that Anne’s diaries had been saved by a friend and he resolved that they should be published. The father find on reading the diaries now understood the real depth and feeling of his daughter. The diaries are a remarkable testament to a young woman’s writing skills and talent with happiness mixed with despair and sometimes even hope. The diaries have inspired many thousands of people and are a fitting tribute to a remarkable young woman and indeed her family for their courage and perseverance in terrible circumstances. Truly, Anne herself can be described as a real heroine and well worthy of the posthumous praise she has rightly received from all over the world.
