From the Anne Frank Web site: [Archival note: the URL below is no longer valid. knm 98/09/21] http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/tdnguyen/Anne_Frank.html Introduction Page ------------------------------------------------------------- We beleive that this site will be more worth while to you if you have already read "Anne Frank: the diary of a young girl". We strongly recommend that you read the above book if you have not done so. Introduction to the life of Anne Frank ------------------------------------------ Annelies Marie Frank was born in Germany on June 12, 1929. Her family consisted of her parents, Otto and Edith Frank, and her older sister Margot. Before Anne was born, her parents lived in Frankfurt, Germany. They were married in 1925 and in the next year, their first daughter Margot was born. In 1929, the time that Anne was born, the Great Depression spreaded throughout the United States and Europe. One out of every four persons in Frankfurt was unemployed(Brown 8). These hard times made it easier for the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler to gain more support. Hitler blamed the Jewish people for most of German's problems(Kniesmeyer 22). By 1933, the Nazi party had almost complete power in Germany(Brown 9). The Nazis began to burn books that went against their ideas and built concetration camps for those people who opposed them. These camps were first used as prisons, but later on they would become camps for mass murder and torture. The Jewish people were the most targeted group by the Nazis. By April 11, 1933, the Jewish people could no longer hold any government jobs and they were forced to sell their businesses to non-Jews. Jewish teachers, lawyers and businessmen were fired from their jobs(Kniesmeyer 22). In 1935, the Jewish people no longer had any political rights. By 1938, Jews were banned from German schools and universities. From November 9 to 11, Jewish-owned shops were ransacked and burned. A total of 200 synagogues and 5,000 stores were destroyed(Brown 16). This event was known as the Crystal Night. The next day, about 30,000 Jewish men and boys were forced to goto concentration camps. Due to the increasing antisemitism and persecution of the Jewish people, in 1933, Otto Frank decided to move his family out of Germany and into Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Netherlands were a fairly safe place for the Jewish people until May 10, 1940, when Germany invaded the Netherlands. After the Germans toke control of the Netherlands, the Jewish people there were subjected to the same type of antisemitism and persecution as they were in Germany. For example, on February 22, 1941, about 400 Jewish men and boys were grabbed off the streets and from houses. They were beaten and taken away(Kniesmeyer 32). Admist these tense and tragic times, on June 12, 1942, Anne received a red-checkered from her dad as a birthday gift. In this diary, in which Anne called "Kitty", she wrote her thoughts and daily events as truthfully as she could. As she wrote in her diary, "I want to write, but more than that, I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart." (Diary, 20 June, 1942) Anne lived somewhat of a normal childhood in Amerstand. She had several good girl friends, especially Lies Goosens and Jopie de Waal. As Gene Brown, author of "Anne Frank, Child of the Holocaust" describes: "By the time she was in grade school, Anne had many friends. Anne and her friends like to play pingpong and a game similar to hopscotch. They also did handstands on the wall in a nearby playground. Anne was a bit clumsy, though, and sometimes fell over. No matter what Anne and her friends played, they usually went out for ice cream after the game." (Brown 13) As conditions got worse for the Jewish people in the Netherlands, Otto Frank began to prepare a place for his family to go into hiding. He contacted some people from his work, mainly Miep Gies, Mr. Kraler, Mr. Koophuis and Elli Vossen which helped setup the "Secret Annex". On July 5, 1942, Anne's sister Margot received a call to report to a "labor camp". Not much people knew what these camps were really like, but rumor was going around that they were killing thousands of Jews in these camps. This prompted the Frank family to go into the "Secret Annex" the next day. As noted in Anne's diary, the van Daans and Mr. Albert Dussel joined them later on. The events that occurred in the Annex are better explained in Anne's diary. On August 4, 1944, the Dutch Nazi police invaded the Annex. The police were informed by an anonymous person about Jews hiding in the back of the building. Nobody still knows who that anonymous person was. The policemen searched the hideout for valuables. While in their search, the policemen dumped out the contents of Anne's dad's suitcase, which contained her diary and works, because they needed something to hold the valuables they were taking. Fortunately, they mistakenly left Anne's diary behind. Later on, Miep and Elli went back and collected Anne's diary for safe keeping. They did not, however, read Anne's diary until after the war. Had they done so, they might have destroyed it, for safety reasons, since it contained some detailed information about how they and other people have helped in hiding the Frank family. The Franks, van Daans and Mr. Dussel were then sent on a train to esterbork in Holland. After a few months there, they were herded into freight cars like cattle. There were about 75 people to a car with only one small window for fresh air. The "train" was headed towards Auschwitz, a death concentration camp in Poland. This "train" was the last to be scheduled to leave to Auschwitz. Mr. Kroophius and Mr. Kraler were sent to a labor camp. After being stuck in the freight cars for four days without food or water, they arrived at Auschwitz. "The woman prisoners were told they would have to march for an hour to the special women's camp called Birkenau. Small children and those who were too old or ill to walk were told to get on buses. Those who got on were taken directly to the gas chambers and immediately killed. The others were put in barracks, where they were given barely enough food to keep them alive and hardly enough clothing to keep them warm in the cold Polish winter."(brown 52) Anne, Margot and Mrs. Frank were sent to the Birkenau camp, block 29, while Otto Frank, Mr. Dussel, Mr. van Daan and Peter were sent to the Barracks. Mrs. Van Daan died in Bergun-Belsem camp. In October of 1944, Anne and Margot were sent to Bergen-Belsen camp, leaving behind their mother who died from hardship and exhaustion on January 6, 1945. The living conditions in Bergen-Belsen were worse and food was scarce. There was a great amount of disease spreading. At this camp, Anne saw one of her best friends Lies Goosens. Margot and Anne both fell ill and got sick with typhus. In late Febuary or early March of 1945, Margot passed away. While unconscious, she fell off her bed and was dead when her friends tried to help her up. "Anne, who was always sick at the time, was not informed of her sister's death; but after a few days she sensed it, and soon afterward she died, peacefully, feeling that nothing bad was happening to her."(Schnabel 185) Anne died a few weeks before the War ended and before the Bergen-Belsen camp liberated. Of the eight people from the Secret Annex, only Otto Frank survived. Peter was taken away from Auschwitz in late January of 1945 and died in Mauthausen. Mr. Dussel died in the Neuengamme concentration camp. Otto Frank saw Mr. van Daan march to the gas chambers in Auschwitz. Mrs. van Daan died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Mrs. Frank died in Auschwitz. Anne and Margot both died in Bergen-Belsen camp in 1945. After the war, Otto Frank returned back to Amerstand in hopes with meeting his family. After finding out that his wife had died, he waited and searched for news of his two children. Six weeks later, he met someone who told him that his children had both perished. It was then that Miep had handed Mr. Frank Anne's diary. "It took Otto Frank many weeks to finish reading the diary, so moved was he by what his dead child had written. He copied the manuscript for his mother, who had emigrated and was living in Switzerland with relatives. He left out some passages which he felt to be too intimate or which might hurt other people's feelings. The idea of publishing the diary did not enter his mind, but he wanted to show it to a few close friends. He gave one typed copy to a friend, who lent it to Jan Romein, a professor of modern history. Much to Otto Frank's surprise the professor devoted an article to it in the Dutch newspaper, Het Parool. His friends now urged Otto Frank to have Anne's diary published as she herself had wished; in on passage she had written: I want to publish a book entitled The Annex after the war . . . my diary can serve this purpose."(Jong 19) -------------------------------------------------------
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