C

Introduction

In the forty-six years since it was first published and the fifty since it was written, the diary
of Anne Frank has taken a kind of mystical quality for the adolescents who first encounter
it and the adults are left with it's aftertaste.
I have not actually read Anne Frank's diary myself because it is very hard to get a hold of,
I would imagine all the time that just looking at pictures of the actual diary, shows that it
holds enormous power, so much that, with it's plaid cover and impotent little lock, I cannor
believe how much of a relic Anne Frank's diary is considered now.
The struggle for identity, the fears, the doubts, above all the everydayness in the diary entries, the worries about outgrown shoes, the romantic yearnings, and the ever-present
conflicts with Mama and Margot reflect, mirror, and elevate the lives of millions who went about the business of studying, romancing, cooking, sewing, and struggling to live in the
world until the Nazis ended their millions of ordinary, individual lives.
We know Anne Frank the victim and Anne Frank the fugitive. This is Anne Frank the free,
the living, the person who was able to write what has become a life lesson for millions of
us in the years since: 'In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart''.
We see the diary with all it's teenage blemishes, not transcribed neatly on the page but packed with pasted pictures, scribbled and haphazard, the work of a girl, not a symbol,
not a metaphor. As we grew and as the legend grew as well, Anne Frank had in some essential way ceased to be an ordinary person.
The pictures that were taken of her, make her whole again: one little Jewish girl, one life growing, thriving, struggling to break the surface of it's soil like a seedling just at the time
that the soil was poisoned. The failed flowering means more with the seeds. Seeing the
baby Anne, the smiling Anne, the free Anne, makes her life all that much more ordinary.
And that much more heroic and heartbreaking.
- Laura Ward.

The Frank Family.

Members of the Frank family have lived in Frankfurt am Main since the 17th century.
Otto Frank is born on 12 May 1889 In the city's Westend, a well - to - do neighbourhood.
After attending high school, he briefly studies art at the University of Heidelberg.
Then, via a friend, he is offered and accepts a job from 1908 to 1909 in the United States,
at Macy's Department Store in New York. After the death of his father, a banker, Otto returns to Germany and works for a metal engineering company in Dusseldorf until 1914.
During World War I, Otto and his two brothers serve in the German army, where Otto attains the rank of lieutenant.
After the war he works in his father's bank, but banks are not doing well at that time. It is
during this period, however, that Otto meets his future wife, Edith Hollander, the daughter
of a manufacturer. Edith is born in 1900 and grows up in Aachen. In 1925, Otto and Edith
marry and settle in Frankfurt.
Their first daughter, Margot Betti, is born on 16 February 1926.
Her younger sister, Anne, whose full name is Annelise Marie Frank, is born in Frankfurt am Main on 12 June 1929.
Otto Frank is an enthusiast amateur photographer. He takes dozens of photographs of Anne
and Margot playing in the street with their friends, visiting their granparents in Aachen, or
going to the countryside.

The Frank Family in Amsterdam, 1933-40.

Following Hitler's rise to power and the anti-Jewish boycott, Otto Frank leaves Frankfurt
for Amsterdam in 1933. He starts a Dutch branch of the Opekta Company there, manufacturing products used in jam-making, such as pectin.

Soon Edith, Margot, and Anne join him.
The Frank family moves into a house on Merwedeplein in the southern part of the city.
The girls attend the Montessori School nearby and make lots of friends - photographs document their many outings.
The family also becomes close friends with other Jewish immigrants who settle in their neighbourhood.
The Opekta Company is doing rather well. However, this relatively carefree life is suddenly
interrupted by the German invasion in May 1940.

The Frank Family Goes Into Hiding.

Formally Otto Frank turns his business into a non-Jewish firm but he remains in charge
behind the scenes. Until the summer holidays of 1942, Anne and Margot attend the Jewish
Lyceum, a school for Jewish children banned from other schools.
The Franks get ready to go into hiding in 1941. Thanks to the help of his staff at the Opekta
Company (Victor Kugler, Jo Kleiman, Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl), Otto Frank is able to
prepare a secret place for his own family and that of another employee Hermann van Pels -
in the two upper back floors of the old building his firm occupies.

On 5 July 1942, Margot Frank receives the notorious call to report to a 'labour camp'.
The Franks move into the Secret Annex - concealed behind a movable bookcase - at 263 Prinsengracht the following day.
One week later, they are joined by Mr and Mrs van Pels and their son Peter, and finally,
in November, by Fritz Pfeffer, a dentist.
In her diary, given to her by her father on her 13 birthday, 12 June 1942, Anne Frank movingly records the experiences of everyday life in hiding.
After a while, she decides to write her diary entries in the form of letters, addressed to
'Kitty' - a character in a novel she had once enjoyed. Later, after hearing a radio broadcast
saying that letters and diaries about life under German occupation might be published
after the war, Anne decides to edit and revise her diary.
She makes it more like a novel, changing the names of her 'characters'. Kugler and Kleiman
become Kraler and Koophuis, the van Pelses become the van Daans, Pfeffer becomes Mr Dussel, and Bep Voskuijl becomes Elli Vossen.

The Last Months of the Frank Family.

On 4 August 1944, the Secret Annex is raided by SS Sergeant Karl Josef Silberbauer, with
several Dutch Nazis. Everyone is arrested and sent to Westerbork transit camp and then
on the final train that leaves for Auschwitz on 3 September 1944.

The Best Birthday Present.

Anne Frank awoke at six o'clock in the morning on Friday, June 12. She could hardly wait
to get out of bed. That she was up so early was not surprising, since today was her thirteenth
birthday. It was wartime, 1942. Anne was living with her father and mother and her sister,
Margot, who was three years older than Anne, in a housing development in Amsterdam,
the capital city of the Netherlands. The Netherlands had been occupied for two years by the
Germans, who has launched a campaign of discrimination and persecution against the Jews.
It was becoming increasingly difficult for Jews such as the Frank family to lead ordinary lives, but Anne was not thinking about that on her birthday.
At seven o'clock Anne went up to her parents' bedroom. Then the whole family gathered in
the living room to unwrap Anne's presents.
Anne received many gifts that day, including books, a jigsaw puzzle, a brooch, and candy.
But her best present was one given by her parents that morning:
A hardcover diary. bound in red and white checkered cloth. She had never had a diary before
and she was delighted with the gift. Anne had many friends, both boys and girls, but with
them she talked only about everyday things.
But now Anne's diary would be her very best friend, a friend she could trust with everything.
She called her new friend ''Kitty''.
On the first page of her diary Anne wrote:
I hope I shall be able to confide in you completely, as I have never been able to do in anyone
before, and I hope that you will be a great support and comfort to me.
Anne Frank (June 12, 1942).
On the side of the cover she stuck a photograph of herself.
Anne started writing to kitty two days later, on Sunday, June 14. She would continue filling
it for over two years with her thoughts and feelings, and stories about all the things that
happened to her. But on that first day, she could not suspect how her life was suddenly to
change completely.
Nor could she imagine that later millions of people throughout the world would read her
diary.

From Frankfurt to Amsterdam.

Anne Frank was born in the German city of Frankfurt am Main on June 12, 1929.
In 1939 Anne's Interests were different from those she had when she was younger they
were laughing, history, movie stars, Greek mythology, writing, cats, dogs, and boys.
She had a large circle of friends and enjoyed going to parties with them and to the ice-cream
parlor called Oasis in her neighbourhood. Anne attended the Montessori school in 1941,
it was her last year in grade school.
After the summer holidays in 1941, Jewish children learned that they would no longer be
allowed to go to the school of their choice. From then on, schools were segregated between
Jewish and non-Jewish children.
Anne and Margot now went to a Jewish school with only Jewish teachers. But this was only
the beginning. Anne later wrote in her diary: There have been all sorts of Jewish laws.
Jews must wear a yellow star; Jews must hand in their bicycles. Jews are banned from trams
and are forbidden to use any car, even a private one; Jews are only allowed to do their shopping between three and five o'clock, and then only in shops which bear the placard
Jewish shop; Jews may only use Jewish barbers; Jews must be indoors from eight o'clock
in the evening until six o'clock in the morning . . .
But life went on in spite of it all. Jacque used to say to me: 'You're scared to do anything
because it may be forbidden''.

''Dear Kitty''.

Anne was given her diary on her thirteenth birthday, June 12, 1942. Two days later, she
began writing in it about her family, her friends, and her school. That June she had a new
friend to write about: Hello Silberberg. He was sixteen and Anne thought he was very handsome. Anne was enjoying life and preferred not to dwell on the war. But such thoughtlessness was dangerous for Jews, as an incident on Monday, June 29, made clear.
Toward the end of that afternoon, Hello came to visit Anne at home and meet her parents.
In October 1, 1942, the Frank family moved into the Annexe, it was on the same floor as
most of the office buildings, there hiding place behind the walls.
Days passed, turned into weeks and then months. During the daytime when the staff of the
office was working, the Franks and Van Pelses could only whisper and had to walk around
very softly in their stocking feet.
No one in the Secret Annexe was allowed to use the faucet or toilet between the office hours
of nine o'clock in the morning and seven o'clock in the evening.
Anne would spend a lot of time studying her schoolbooks, a large pile of which had been
taken along.
Anne, too, found her new life difficult. She had lost everything: Her friends, her school,
her freedom. Sometimes she rebelled, and sometimes sadness would overtake her and she
often cried at night. But during the day she was different: lively and boisterous, and usually
surprisingly cheerful.
She had something to say about everything and everyone, and was always ready with a quick answer.
Anne felt truly alone and misunderstood. Her diary had become her one really good friend.
Most of the time life in the Annex was simply boring. Yet there was also moments of great
excitement and great fear.
One evening at eight o'clock the bell suddenly rang loudly. Everyone was terrified. They thought it might've been the German police, or the Gestapo? They were worried that it
would never end? They would all hold their breaths. But there was no more noise.
Three weeks later, a more frightening experience occurred.
From the landing opposite the bookcase came the sound of hammering. All talk inside the
Annex immediately ceased.