The name of Anne Frank is known to many, but few are familiar with the life story of this brave girl. Anne Frank, whose full name was Anneliese Marie Frank, was a Jewish woman born in Germany on June 12, 1929, between the two world wars. During the war, due to the persecution of the Jews, Anna's family was forced to leave the country and go to the Netherlands to escape the Nazi terror. During her stay in the asylum, she wrote a memoir, which was published many years after the war under the title "The Diary of Anne Frank". This work has been translated into many languages and has gained wide popularity throughout the world. Despite the fact that the authenticity of the memoirs was in doubt, in 1981 an examination proved that they were completely authentic.
Childhood
Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt am Main to a Jewish family. The girl had a full-fledged family: father, mother and sister. Anna's parents, Otto and Edith Hollander Frank, were a simple, respectablemarried couple: he is a former officer, and she is a housewife. Anna's older sister was called Margot, and she was born only three years earlier - on February 16, 1926
After Hitler became head of state and the NSDAP won the Frankfurt municipal elections, Otto, the father of the family, was forced to emigrate due to the deteriorating political situation to pave the way for the whole family to move. Therefore, he went to Amsterdam, where he became the director of the joint-stock company. Soon, all family members managed to move to the Netherlands within six months after the father moved.
When Anne Frank moved to Amsterdam, she started attending kindergarten and then went to a Montessori school. After graduating from the sixth grade, she moved to a specialized lyceum for children of Jewish origin.
Shelter life
In 1940, the German military forces managed to break through the defense and occupy the territory of the Netherlands. As soon as the Wehrmacht appointed its government in the occupied land, an active persecution of Jews began there.
As soon as Anna was 13 years old, her older sister, Margot Frank, received a summons from the Gestapo. Two weeks later, the family went to the shelter. Anne Frank and her family were able to hide in a place equipped by employees of the company where her father worked. Otto's colleagues took a liking to the back of the office building they worked in at Prinsengracht 263. The entrance to the vacant office was decorated like a filing cabinet to eliminate any suspicion. Soon afterwhen the Frank family settled in a secret room, they were joined by the Van Pels couple with their son and the doctor Fritz Pfeffer.
A little later, Anna began to write memoirs, which subsequently made her famous, but recognition came to the young writer, unfortunately, after her death.
The Diary of Anne Frank
Reviews from critics and readers about this work only once again confirm that it deserves reading. It reflects not only the suffering suffered by the victims of the Holocaust, but also all the loneliness that the girl experienced in the cruel Nazi world.
The diary is written in the form of letters addressed to the fictional girl Kitty. The first message is dated June 12, 1942, that is, the girl's thirteenth birthday. In these letters, Anna describes the most common events that take place in the shelter with her and with the rest of the inhabitants. The author gave her memoirs the title "In the back house" (Het Achterhuis). The name was translated into Russian as "Shelter".
Initially, the purpose of writing a diary was an attempt to escape from the harsh reality. But in 1944 this situation changed. On the radio, Anna heard a message from the Minister of Education of the Netherlands. He spoke about the need to preserve any documents that may indicate Nazi repression against people, especially those of Jewish origin. Personal diaries were named as one of the most important pieces of evidence.
Hearing this message, Anna set about writing a novel based on the diaries she had already created. HoweverHowever, while shaping the novel, she did not stop adding new entries to the original version.
All the characters in the novel and the diary are residents of the asylum. It is not known for certain why, but the author chose not to use real names and came up with pseudonyms for everyone. The Van Pels family in the diary speaks under the name Petronella, and Fritz Pfeffer is called Albert Düssel.
Arrest and death
Anne Frank, whose summary of the novel shows how much she had to endure, was the victim of an informer. He reported that a group of Jews was hiding in the building. Soon, all those hiding in this shelter were detained by the police and sent to concentration camps.
Anna and her older sister Margot ended up in the Westerbork transit concentration camp and were later redirected to Auschwitz. Both sisters were then sent to Bergen-Belsen, where they died of typhus a few months later. The exact dates of their deaths are not recorded, only that the camp was liberated by the British soon after.
Proof of authorship
After the work was published and gained wide popularity, there were doubts about the authorship. Therefore, in 1981, an examination of the ink and paper of the manuscript of the diary was carried out, which became a confirmation that the document really corresponds to the time of its writing. According to other notes left by Anne Frank, handwriting analysis was also carried out, which became additional evidence that the workauthentic, and Anna is the author.
The work was published by Otto Frank, the girl's father, who, after her death, removed from the record some points concerning his wife, Anna's mother. But in subsequent editions, these fragments were restored.
Investigation
After the end of the war, the Amsterdam police began searching for a man who reported the whereabouts of the residents of the shelter to the Gestapo. In official documents, the name of the scammer was not preserved, it is only known that every Jew, including Anne Frank, brought him seven and a half guilders. The investigation into the search for the informer was terminated as soon as Otto Frank refused to take part in it. But when the diary gained wide popularity all over the world and was translated into many languages, fans of Anna's talent and just people who want revenge for the lost lives of innocent people demanded to continue searching for the culprit.
Scammer
There are several versions regarding a potential scammer. Three people are named as suspects: warehouse employee Willem van Maaren, cleaning lady Lena van Bladeren Hartog and Anna's father's partner Anton Ahlers. Researchers dealing with this issue are divided into two camps. Some believe that the cleaner Lena Hartog is the culprit, whose son was already a concentration camp prisoner, and she did not want to compromise herself, so she reported to the Gestapo. According to another version, the traitor is Anton Ahlers. There is a lot of ambiguous information about this theory. On the one hand, the brother and son of Ahlers assert that he personallyconfessed to them that he had become a scammer. On the other hand, an investigation by the Netherlands War Records Institute found that Ahlers was not involved.
Museum
The Anne Frank House Museum is located in the same house where she and her family hid in a shelter in Amsterdam. The exposition of the museum contains all the elements of everyday life that were used by the refugees. During the tour, the guides talk about the daily life of the inhabitants of the hiding place, how they washed, where they got fresh newspapers from, and how they celebrated family holidays.
In the museum you can also see the original diary, which was written by Anna. Excerpts from the memoirs tell how the girl wanted to touch the tree that grew outside the window and take a walk in the fresh air. But all the windows of the room were tightly closed, and opened only at night for fresh air.
The collection also includes a variety of items owned by Anne Frank, photos and much more. Here you can watch a film about Anna and buy one copy of the diary, which has been translated into 60 languages. Also in the exhibition you can see the statuette "Oscar", which was received by one of the actresses who played in the film, created on the basis of the diary.
Movie
The Diary of Anne Frank was filmed in 1959 by director George Stevens. The main difference from the book is the place where Anne Frank lives. The film touched upon the main motives of the memoirs, and its creators tried to reflect as accurately as possible all the hardships anddifficulties that the residents of the shelter had to face. As noted above, one of the supporting actresses was even awarded an Oscar.
Anne Frank, whose biography is filled with many hardships, suffering and pain, tried to cope with the complexity of everyday life in the shelter, and her diary was the result of these attempts. Letters addressed to a fictitious friend reflect the depth of loneliness that the girl experienced, and talk about the torture that the Jewish people were subjected to. But all the suffering she experienced only proves how strong the human will is and how much you can survive, you just have to try.
