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Anne Frank

1929 - 1945


Anne Frank<BR>Statue Anne Frank in Utrecht, made by Pieter d'Hont in 1959 and placed in 1960 at the Janskerkhof. Photo by Wikipedia user Brbbl

Anne Frank was born to Otto Frank and his wife Edith on June 12, 1929. They named her Annelies Marie. She had a sister Margot who was three years older. They were a Jewish family living in Germany. Their families had lived in Germany for centuries.

By 1932 Adolph Hitler had risen to power in Germany and instead of enjoying a democracy, the German people now suffered under the rule of a dictator. Hitler blamed the Jews for all the problems in the country. Otto realized it was becoming unsafe for his family in Germany and moved them to the Netherlands. He set up a company in Amsterdam making a product that the women used to make homemade jam. It was called Opekta. (Pectin* is derived from fruits and will cause jelly and jam to jell. In America you can buy a pectin product called Sure Jell.)

The family was safe for a while, but then in 1940 the Germans invaded the Netherlands and began to arrest and persecute the Jews there. They put restrictions on the Jews and made them wear an identifying yellow star on their clothes. They could not own a business. They could not ride a bicycle. Life became very hard, and the Jews feared for their lives.

Margot, Anne's sister was called to report to a work camp in Germany. The family had been planning a hiding place, but with Margot's call-up they knew they had to hide immediately. And so they did. The date was July 6, 1942.

The hiding place became known as the Secret Annex. It was located at 263 Prinsengracht. The Frank family would occupy two rooms on the first floor. A week later Mr. and Mrs. Van Pels and their son would move into the two rooms on the second floor. From Peter's tiny room they could access the attic where food was stored. There was a small bathroom on the first floor.

The first thing they did was make curtains to prevent anyone from seeing in. An eighth person, Fritz Pfeffer, an older man, a dentist, arrived in November and would share a room with Anne.

Father Voskuijl made a movable bookcase to hide the door through which they entered their quarters.

This picture shows the streetside view of the building. Otto Frank's offices were at the front of the building and the hiding place was at the rear.

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There were four people who helped them during the two years and 30 days they were in hiding. Miep Gies, Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman and Bep Voskuijl provided food for them, and at great personal risk to their own lives visited daily and brought news from the outside world.

The people in hiding must be very quiet when the warehouse workers are at work downstairs. They can move around when the men are gone for lunch, and at 5:30 in the afternoon when the workers leave the building Anne and the others are free to go downstairs into the office area. Anne calls it their "nightly freedom".

The Franks had brought school books for an extended stay and library books are brought to the group weekly. They spend a lot of time reading, studying, and working correspondence courses.

Anne writes in her diary.* She creates an imaginary friend "Kitty" with whom she shares her innermost thoughts in her writings. Sometimes she writes short stories. After hearing on a radio broadcast that there would be a collection of the diaries and writings made during the war, Anne begins to think about making her writings into a book. After a lot of thought she decides she will call it "Achterhuis" (Secret Annex).

picture3
She begins rewriting her entries, leaving out some very personal items she would rather not share. For over two months she works rewriting her diaries.

On August 4, 1944 the people in hiding were discovered. Someone, they never found out who, betrayed them and a Secret Service officer and three men of the Dutch police force came up the stairs, entered with guns, and herded them away to jail. The two men who had been helping them were also arrested and taken to the city prison. The two women helpers, Miep and Bep, were left behind. They went into Anne's small room. Her diaries were scattered all over the floor. They collected them and Miep kept them.

The eight people are taken to a transit camp, Westerbork. From that camp people are taken to extermination and concentration camps.* During the month they are there they have to break up old batteries. On September 2, 1944 their names appear on the list of people to be moved. They are put on freight cars and three days later they arrive at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. The people in the freight cars were divided. Men and women were separated and then they were divided into groups; one group would go to labor camps, and those who could not work would be killed in the gas chamber.

By the end of October Anne and her sister Margot are transferred to another camp, Bergen-Belsen. They both become ill there and died of typhus in March of 1945. They died just a few weeks before the British Army arrived and freed the prisoners.

The four helpers survived the war and so did Anne's father Otto Frank. He searched desperately for word of the fate of his family. Finally in July he met two sisters who witnessed the death of Anne and Margot.

After Otto learned of the death of his daughters, Miep gave him the pages of the diary she had been saving. He was surprised at the depth of her writings. This was an Anne he never knew. He honored her wish to have her writings published as a book. First the book was published in the Dutch* language, then German, French, and English. The book was made into a stage play, then into a film.

Today when you see the word "Holocaust"* it usually refers to this time in which the German Army systematically* killed nearly 6 million Jews. People need to learn about the Holocaust and the reasons why it happened, lest periods of hatred and discrimination cause a similar genocide.* Some say it never happened at all, but we know it did because there are too many witnesses and survivors who lived to tell the world about those darkest of times.

Today if you visit the site of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp you can see a memorial to Anne Frank and her sister Margot.

picture4
This biography by Patsy Stevens, a retired teacher, was written in 2007.

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Dictionary

From Word Central's Student Dictionary
by Merriam - Webster

(Pronunciation note: the schwa sound is shown by ə)

Holocaust
'hoe-lə-cost or hau-lə-caust
Function: noun
1 : a sacrifice destroyed by fire
2 : a thorough destruction especially by fire
3 often capitalized : the killing of European civilians
and especially Jews by the Nazis during World War II

genocide
Pronunciation: 'jen-ə-side
Function: noun
the deliberate destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group

concentration camp
Function: noun
a camp where persons (as prisoners of war, political prisoners, or refugees)
are detained

systematic
Pronunciation: sis-tə-'mat-ik
Function: adjective
carried out or acting with thoroughness or regularity
sys-tem-at-i-cal-ly, adverb

Dutch
Pronunciation: 'dəch
Function: adjective
of or relating to the Netherlands, its inhabitants, or their language

diary
Pronunciation: 'die-ə-re
Function: noun
a daily record especially of personal experiences and thoughts;
also : a book for keeping such a record

pectin
'pek-tən
Function: noun
any of various substances in plant tissues that dissolve
in water and produce a gel which is the basis of fruit jellies;
also : a commercial product rich in pectins

Research Links

Anne Frank
at Bio 4 Kids

Anne Frank's History

Anne Frank Center - USA Website

Article: The Lessons of Anne Frank

Anne Frank in the World 1929 - 1945
Teacher workbook, Utah Education Network

Anne Frank
at Wikipedia

United State Holocaust Memorial Museum
watch videos of survivors of the Holocaust

English Lesson Plan on Anne Frank

A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust

Anne Frank Lesson Plan
Lesson Snips.com
(You must register. Some lessons free)

Lessons From the Holocaust
Lesson Snips.com
(You must register to access lessons.)

Anne Frank Channel on YouTube
subscribe (free) and watch videos

At biography.com search for Anne Frank.
Scroll the panel for the "Video & Audio Results".

Books
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Library

A LIBRARY OF
ONLINE BOOKS and BOOK PREVIEWS


Order the following books from Amazon.

Anne Frank
by David Colbert (selected pages) Order here

Anne Frank
by Yona Zeldis McDonough, Malcah Zeldis (selected pages) Order here

Who Was Anne Frank?
by Ann Abramson, Nancy Harrison (selected pages) Order here

Anne Frank
by Anne Schraff (selected pages) Order here

Anne Frank and the Children of the Holocaust
by Carol Ann Lee (selected pages) Order here

Anne Frank and Me (stage play)
by Cherie Bennett, Jeff Gottesfeld (selected pages) Order here

The play of the diary of Anne Frank
by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Anne Frank (selected pages) Order here

The World of Anne Frank: a complete resource guide
by Betty Merti (selected pages) Order here

Anne Frank, the Biography
by Melissa Muller (selected pages) Order here

Anne Frank, Life in Hiding
by Johanna Hurwitz (selected pages) Order here

Anne Frank: Hidden Hope
by Rita Thievon Mullin (selected pages) Order here

Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl (Scholastic Literature Guide Grades 4-8)
(selected pages) Order here

Anne Frank Remembered: The Story of the Woman Who Helped to Hide the Frank Family
by Miep Gies, Alison Leslie Gold (selected pages) Order here

Anne Frank: The Young Writer Who Told the World Her Story (National Geographic)
by Ann Kramer (selected pages) Order here

Anne Frank Reading Guide
by Jenny Sime (selected pages) Order here

Anne Frank, People We Should Know (Weekly Reader)
by Jonatha A. Brown (selected pages)

Anne Frank: Young Diarist
by Ruth Ashby (selected pages)

Anne Frank, Bio Graphics
by Joe Dunn, Ben Dunn (selected pages)

A Picture Book of Anne Frank
by David A. Adler, Karen Ritz (selected pages)

The Life of Anne Frank, Graphic edition
by Nicholas Saunders (selected pages)

Anne Frank, History Maker Bios
by Laura Hamilton Waxman (selected pages)

Diary of Anne Frank, the Play
by Anne Frank, Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett (selected pages)

Credits and Solutions

Puzzles on these pages courtesy of
Songs of Praise and Armored Penguin

* Word Match Solution

Photos courtesy Wikipedia,

Photo of a replica of Anne Frank's diary courtesy of Flickr user jim 12957

Photo of the Statue Anne Frank in Utrecht by Wikipedia user Brbbl

Page Comments
Most Recent Comments
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2012-01-30
THIS WEBSITE HELPED ME LEARN A LOT ABOUT ANNE FRANKE AND WHAT HAPPEND TO HER THOUT HER LIFE AND THAT WAS SOME MEAN STUFF WHAT THEN DID TO JEWS
TALOR
2012-01-30
THAT WAS HARIBLE WHAT THEN TO ANNE FRANKE:}I FILL HORIBLE
2011-02-11
The Jews in Europe were being mistreated were being mistreated during World War II. In concentration camps, some people were put to death, some died from starvation, and some died from diseases. Hitler liked German people better than other people on Earth. Hitler hated Jews. He built up an army of Nazis. The Nazis took away the rights of the Jews. Anne's father, Otto, fought for Germany in world War I.
Gabrielle Rettinger
2010-06-09
Dear Anne Frank Foundation,

This is in reference to Anne Frank and the Jewish community and countless other communities.

Civilocity is a form of government where the people watch the ruler entirely amongst their reign. Civilocity is for the people so the people don't allow their country to attack a person because of their ethnic background, religion, race, creed, gender, or sexual orientation which has happened countless times in history, including today, resulting in millions of lives being lost.

The phonetic pronunciation of civilocity is civ-il-o-cit-y (siv'əl'ä'sit'ç). The definition of Civilocity is a form of government where the people watch the ruler entirely amongst their reign. The exact definition of “Civilocity” is, ‘literally, behaving in the dwelling’. The meaning is derived from the Latin term civilis (‘civil’), the Middle English term o (‘o‘), and the Medieval Latin term civitat (‘city’) in the early part of the 21st century to improve the political systems existing in some American city-states, notably Washington, DC. In developing this philosophy, my hope is to ensure that the ruler doesn’t usurp the power of the country for themselves at the expense of the people.

I just imagine the products of civilocity compared to the products of democracy. Having a human with law would be more intelligent than picking a human without. That's civilocity compared to democracy. Which one is the better form of government? Civilocity, as a form of government, is going to change the world.

Don't wait until it is to late.

I wonder if Anne Frank would have included civilocity in her second book if she had known what it is.

Well if she didn't she would allow what happened to her to happen to someone else. That is the same thing as a nazi. It is almost like she wrote about the wrong thing.

It is even worse thinking about all the books after hers that didn't include civilocity considering what happened in Rwanda, Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cambodia to name a handful. What does that make all those writers before me?

I don't know why I would have to send civilocity more than once to you because of what the wait does? BOSNIA

Don't hide this from the blind let alone the victims of genocide!
Nathaniel I. Wenger
Nathaniel I. Wenger
2010-02-16
Im learning more about Anne Frank as i go. I did a project for her, me and my friend chose he option to creat a myspace for her.
Kristina
2010-01-26
remember some kids are just learning about anne and don't know what a diary is so yeah great job
devin stanley
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