«I'm blessed with many things: happiness, a cheerful disposition and strength.»
Diary, 3 May 1944
Annelies Marie Frank was 13 years old when she had to go into hiding with her family to escape from the National Socialists. She lived in a secret annex for 25 months with her family and other acquaintances. She recorded her experiences, observations, and feelings in her diary.
Annelies Marie Frank was born in Frankfurt am Main on 12 June 1929, the second daughter of Otto and Edith Frank. Her sister, Margot, was her senior by three and a half years.
Margot with Anne, Frankfurt, 1929. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel
Edith and Otto Frank kept a secular Jewish household. Otto worked for the family business, the Michael Frank banking business. At the time of Anne’s birth the family lived in a spacious rented apartment in Marbachweg, a residential neighbourhood.
Margot, Edith, and Anne (from left to right.), Frankfurt, 1929. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel
Anne shortly after her birth, Frankfurt, 1929. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel
Anne grew into a lively, strong-willed and bright little girl who was called «Frauenzimmerchen» (little woman) by her paternal grandmother Alice. The parents furthered their daughters’ development, treating them with great respect and playing an attentive role in their lives. While Margot was described as a sweet-natured, reserved and uncomplicated child, Anne was lively, constantly on the go, and in need of a great deal of attention.
Anne, Frankfurt, around 1932. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel
In 1931, due to the difficult economic situation, the family first moved to a smaller and more reasonably priced apartment in Ganghoferstrasse, and in late 1932 back to Otto’s parents’ house in Mertonstrasse.
Edith and Anne in Ganghoferstrasse, around 1931. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel
Otto with his two daughters, Anne and Margot, around 1930. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel
On 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of the Reich. One month later the Nazis unleashed the state terror against opponents, left-wing proponents, liberals, intellectuals and Jews. Otto no longer had any professional prospects under the Nazis. As the parents could no longer provide their daughters with a carefree childhood and good schooling in Germany, they decided to emigrate.
Edith with Anne and Margot shortly before the move to Amsterdam, Frankfurt,1933. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel
While Otto established a branch of Opekta company in Amsterdam and thus created a new existence for his family, Edith, Margot and Anne temporarily moved in with Edith’s mother, Rosa Holländer, in Aachen. In late December 1933, Edith followed her husband together with Margot. Anne stayed with her grandmother until February, when the family was reunited in the Netherlands.
Extract from a letter:
«We had Margot with us at Christmas, and Anne has just come. Both children are full of fun. Anne a little comedian», wrote Edith in a letter to Germany in February 1934.
Anne was four years old when she arrived in Amsterdam.
Anne, Amsterdam, May 1937. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel
The family moved into an apartment on a large, modern estate south of the old town of Amsterdam. Numerous Jewish families, mainly emigrants from Germany and later also from Austria, lived in the area from 1933 onwards.
In May 1934, Anne got a place at the kindergarten of the Montessori school. She soon felt at home and met children of her own age, like Hannah Goslar, who would later become one of her best friends, along with Jacqueline van Maarsen.
Hannah Pick Goslar speaks about how she got to know Anne. © Anne Frank Fonds/AVE
Jacqueline van Maarsen about her friendship with Anne. © Anne Frank Fonds/AVE
The following year, Anne started in the first class of the Montessori school. The Montessori method of education provided her with the freedom her character required. In retrospect, her teacher would say that Anne was «no prodigy. She was likeable, …in many things she was very mature, but on the other hand, in other things she was unusually childish».
Kindergarten of the Montessori school, Anne is sitting in the middle of the back row, Amsterdam, 1935. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel
Despite the anxiety about her mother’s relatives who are still in Germany, Anne enjoyed a sheltered childhood. She attended school, met friends in her spare time, and spent her holidays with her family, visiting relatives in Switzerland or travelling to the seaside. In the winter she loved to ice-skate.
Anne with Sanne Ledermann in Merwedeplein, Amsterdam, 1935. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel
Anne (far right) with Sanne Ledermann and Eva Goldberg, Amsterdam, 1936. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel
Hannah Gosslar, Anne, Dolly Citroën, Hanna Toby, Barbara Ledermann (from left to right), Sanne Ledermann (standing), Amsterdam, 1937. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel
Anne (fourth from the right) with friends, Amsterdam, around 1937. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel
Margot, Anne, and Edith with Mrs Schneider at the beach, Zandvoort, 1934. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel
Anne with her friends on her 10th birthday. Lucie van Dijk, Anne, Sanne Ledermann, Hannah Goslar, Juultje Ketellapper, Kity Egydi, Mary Bos, Letje Swillens, and Martha von den Bergh (from left to right), Amsterdam, 1939. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel
In the night of 9 to 10 November 1938, the «Kristallnacht» organised by the Nazi regime took place all over the Reich. In Aachen, as in other German cities, shops owned by Jews were smashed and synagogues set alight. Anne’s uncle Walter Holländer was deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. After his release, he fled to his brother’s in the USA. In March 1939, Anne’s maternal grandmother, Rosa Holländer, was able to move to Amsterdam to be with her daughter Edith’s family.
On 1 September 1939, the Second World War broke out when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. In May 1940, the Netherlands were also invaded by the German Army. Under Nazi occupation, the situation became increasingly threatening for Jews in Amsterdam. Already in the first pages of her diary, which Anne was given for her 13th birthday on 12 June 1942, she described how her radius of movement had been increasingly restricted since spring 1940.
«After May 1940 the good times were few and far between: first there was the war, then the capitulation and then the arrival of the Germans, which is when the trouble started for the Jews. Our freedom was severely restricted by a series of anti-Jewish decrees: Jews were required to wear a yellow star; Jews were required to turn in their bicycles; Jews were forbidden to use trams; Jews were forbidden to ride in cars, even their own; Jews were required to do their shopping between 3.00 and 5.00 p.m.; Jews were required to frequent only Jewish-owned barbershops and beauty salons; Jews were forbidden to be out on the streets between 8.00 p.m. and 6.00 a.m.; Jews were forbidden to go to theatres, cinemas or any other forms of entertainment; Jews were forbidden to use swimming pools, tennis courts, hockey fields or any other athletic fields; Jews were forbidden to go rowing; Jews were forbidden to take part in any athletic activity in public; Jews were forbidden to sit in their gardens or those of their friends after 8.00 p.m.; Jews were forbidden to visit Christians in their homes; Jews were required to attend Jewish schools, etc. You couldn’t do this and you couldn’t do that, but life went on.»
Diary, 20 June 1942
Hannah Pick-Goslar on Anne's personality. © Anne Frank Fonds/AVE
«But it is bearable, despite the star, segregated schools, curfews, etc., etc. Margot and I have attended the Jewish Lyceum since October 1941, she started in the fourth class and I started in the first class. The four of us are still doing well», writes Anne in her diary on 20 June 1942.
Anne and her friends played in their families’ apartments and in Merwedeplein, visited ice-cream parlours that were still open to Jews, and occasionally their parents even organised film afternoons for the children.
Anne set up a table tennis club with four friends.
«Der Club heisst «[The club is] called «The Little Dipper Minus Two». A really silly name, but it’s based on a mistake. We wanted to give our club a special name; and because there were five of us, we came up with the idea of the Little Dipper. We thought it consisted of five stars, but we turned out to be wrong. It has seven, like the Big Dipper, which explains the «Minus Two».»
Diary 20 June 1942
Anne often was the centre of a large group of friends: with her charming talkativeness, her liveliness, her varied interests and her imagination, she was a source of fascination to those around her.
Anne described her surroundings as follows:
«I have loving parents and a sixteen-year-old sister, and there are about thirty people I can call friends. I have a throng of admirers who can’t keep their adoring eyes off me and who sometimes have to resort to using a broken pocket mirror to try and catch a glimpse of me in the classroom. I have a family, loving aunts and a good home.»
Diary, 20 June 1942
Avraham Rinat, a childhood friend of Anne's, on the fun they had playing Monopoly together. © Anne Frank Fonds/AVE
At the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, the Nazi dictatorship took the definitive decision to eliminate the entire Jewish population from Europe. Early summer saw the start of the systematic deportation of Jews from the Netherlands. On 5 July 1942, about three weeks after Anne’s 13th birthday, Margot received the summons for “labour duty in Germany”. Otto and Edith reacted immediately: on 6 July, the Frank family moved into the prepared hiding place in the secret annex of Otto Frank’s company building. They are joined by Hermann, Auguste and Peter van Pels and, in November, by the dentist Fritz Pfeffer, who are all also Jews.
For more than two years, Anne lives in the darkened rooms of the secret annex with her family and the other four people in hiding.
Anne in May 1942, shortly before going into hiding. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel
Anne writes about the hiding place on 11 July 1942:
«The Annexe is an ideal place to hide in. It may be damp and lopsided, but there’s probably not a more comfortable hiding place in all of Amsterdam. No, in all of Holland.»
Diary, 11 July 1942
They are looked after and supported by trusted former employees of Otto Frank. Anne frequently perceives herself as the main focus of disagreements in the secret annex.
«They aren’t consistent in their treatment of me. One day they say that Anne’s a sensible girl and entitled to know everything, and the next that Anne’s a silly noodle who doesn’t know a thing and yet imagines she’s learned all she needs to know from books! I’m no longer the baby and spoiled little darling whose every deed can be laughed at. I have my own ideas, plans and ideals, but am un
able to articulate them yet.
Oh well. So much comes into my head at night when I’m alone, or during the day when I’m obliged to put up with people I can’t abide or who invariably misinterpret my intentions. That’s why I always come back to my diary – I start there and end there because Kitty’s always patient. I promise her that, despite everything, I’ll keep going, that I’ll find my own way and choke back my tears. I only wish I could see some results or, just once, receive encouragement from someone who loves me.
Don’t condemn me, but think of me as a person who sometimes reaches bursting point!»
Diary, 30 October 1943
In her diary, she writes about how she deals with everyday life in the secret annex, the conflicts, and also the proximity to the others.
She writes about her memories of the carefree time before. When in spring 1943 she falls in love with Peter van Pels, who is two years older than Anne, she also writes about this. The diary is the only place in this extremely restricted world where she can give expression to her thoughts, her maturing from a child to a young woman, her fears and her hopes, without being monitored.
«When I write I can shake off all my cares. My sorrow disappears, my spirits are revived! But, and that’s a big question, will I ever be able to write something great, will I ever become a journalist or a writer?
I hope so, oh, I hope so very much, because writing allows me to record everything, all my thoughts, ideals and fantasies.»
Diary, 5 April 1944
The eight people in the secret annex follow the course of the war closely, informed by their helpers and the radio. On 28 March 1944, Anne hears the radio broadcast by Gerrit Bolkestein, Minister of education, art and science of the Dutch government in exile in London. He encourages the Dutch population to preserve records, letters and diaries about their suffering during the war and to hand these over to the government after the war. This is a decisive moment for Anne who would like to become a writer. She writes: «Just imagine how interesting it would be if I were to publish a novel about the Secret Annexe.»
Anne starts to edit her own notes and stories with a view to possible publication, while continuing to write new material.
The last entry in the diary is dated 1 August 1944; Anne Frank is unable to complete her editing work.
On 4 August 1944, SS Oberscharführer Karl Silberbauer and Dutch members of the Nazi Security Service burst into the secret annex and arrest the eight people in hiding there. They are deported to the Westerbork transit camp. In the strictly run camp, Anne spends her days dismantling old batteries with Margot and her mother. She occasionally manages to see her father and Peter van Pels who are housed in a different part of the camp. She also meets old friends. One month later, the eight from the secret annex are deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on the last transport from Westerbork.
After a three-day journey in cattle wagons, the women are separated from the men on arrival in Auschwitz. Anne is initially housed in women’s block 29 with her mother and Margot. Margot and Anne remain with their mother for the first eight weeks. Anne’s body cannot cope with the exertion for long and she is moved to the isolation block, known as the scabies block. Margot accompanies her sister and hardly moves from her side, as survivors report later.
In a selection that takes place in late October or early November, the two girls are separated from Edith and transported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Lower Saxony. Until then, Edith had fought for her daughters’ survival, obtained food for them and gone hungry herself. In the harrowing chaos at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, there is no room for the new detainees. At first, Margot and Anne sleep in tents which do not withstand the winter storms, and are hardly given anything to eat. During the day, they rip the soles off old shoes, but Anne is soon unable to continue with the labour. Through an acquaintance, she encounters Hannah Goslar, who is housed in a better-equipped part of the camp. Her friend tries to give her a few items of clothing and some food.
Hannah Pick-Goslar on her last encounter with Anne in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. © Anne Frank Fonds/AVE
Nanette Blitz, a school friend of Anne's from the Jewish Lyceum, on their encounter in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. © Anne Frank Fonds/AVE
Anne and Margot are both very weak. They develop a high fever and are moved to the sick barracks, where they lie next to each other until Margot dies. A few days later, presumably in late February, Anne dies, too. The exact dates of their death are not recorded. The sisters are buried in an anonymous mass grave in the grounds of the concentration camp. On 15 April, the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is liberated by American troops.
The International Red Cross certifies Anne Frank's death. © Anne Frank Fonds, Basel