Anne Frank

Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1929. She moved to Amsterdam in 1930, where her father worked, because anti-Jew laws were put into place in Germany. In Holland Jews were treated as equals. These rules were put in because Hitler had an image of a perfect German in his head (Aryans), and Jews, gypsies, and other races were treated differently because the Aryans were considered the best. Jews had to wear a special star if they were over the age of 6 to show what they were.

On May 10th 1940 Holland was invaded by Germany. Shortly after the invasion Anne and her family tried to emigrate to Britain and the U.S.A but failed. It eventually became too dangerous for them in Holland, so they went into hiding. The secret hiding place was in an attic above Otto Frank’s (Anne's dad) work. It wasn't only for the Franks but for the Van Daan family (Hermann, Petronella and their son Peter) and Albert Dussel. Hermann Van Daan worked for Otto Franks business.

Otto Frank told a few people he worked with that they were going into hiding and many agreed to help them. One of them, called Miep Gies, worked as an office assistant and became really good friends with the Frank family. When they went into hiding she agreed to them food and offered friendship, even though she knew she could be killed if they were caught. When the Franks were caught she went straight to the annex where they were hiding and found and kept Anne’s diary.

On the 4th August 1944 the secret annex was raided by the Germans and they were sent off to concentration camps. Anne went to Westerbork transit camp and then to Auschwitz-Birkenau with her sister Margot, her mother Edith, Peter Van Daan, Hermann Van Daan and Petronella Van Daan. Albert Dussel also went with Anne but was then deported to Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg and died. Otto went to  Auschwitz-Birkenau and managed to avoid selection for the gas chambers and survived until the camp was liberated in January 1945. Anne and her sister Margot died of Typhus a few weeks before the camp was liberated by British troops.

Otto was the only survivor of the camps and when he came back, Miep gave him Anne’s diaries. He the decided to get them published, not thinking that a diary of a young girl would ever be this big. Anne’s diaries are sold in 67 different languages and 10 years after publication in 1947 over 30 million had been sold.