Who was Anne Frank?

Who was Anne Frank?

Anne Frank was a Jewish. In 1942 she hid from the Nazis during the occupation of the Netherlands.

Anne Frank was born in the German city of Frankfurt am Main in 1929. Anne’s sister Margot was three years her senior.

Unemployment was high and poverty was severe in Germany, and it was the period in which Adolf Hitler and his party were gaining more and more supporters.

The hatred of Jews by Hitler and the poor economic situation made Anne's parents, Otto and Edith Frank, decide to move to Amsterdam.

Before long, Anne felt right at home in the Netherlands. She learned the language, made new friends and went to a Dutch school near her home.

On 1 September 1939, when Anne was 10 years old, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, and so the Second World War began. Not long after, on 10 May 1940, the Nazis also invaded the Netherlands.

Five days later, the Dutch army surrendered. Slowly but surely, the Nazis introduced more and more laws and regulations that made the lives of Jews more difficult.

In the spring of 1942, Anne’s father (Otto) had started furnishing a hiding place in the annex of his business premises at Prinsengracht 263.

Anne started rewriting her diary, but before she was done, she and the other people in hiding were discovered and arrested by police officers on 4 August 1944.

In early November 1944, Anne was put on transport again. She was deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp with Margot. Their parents stayed behind in Auschwitz.

The conditions in Bergen-Belsen were horrible too. There was a lack of food, it was cold, wet and there were contagious diseases.

Anne and Margot contracted typhus. In February 1945 they both died owing to its effects, Margot first, Anne shortly afterwards.

Anne’s father Otto was the only one of the people from the Secret Annex to survive the war. He was liberated from Auschwitz by the Russians and during his long journey back to the Netherlands.

Anne's writing made a deep impression on Otto. He read that Anne had wanted to become a writer or a journalist and that she had intended to publish her stories about life in the Secret Annex.