The story of Anne Frank

Compiled by Ayesha Umar

It was 6th of July 1942; Anne Frank, with her parents, was walking the streets of Amsterdam. They were wearing heavy layers of clothing since they couldn't carry luggage with them. The yellow Star of David stitched to their jackets was catching unusual attention and they were trying hard to conceal their nervousness. The Nazi forces had taken over Netherlands and the anti-Jewish laws were forcing many Jews to flee the country. The general notion was that the war would soon end and that is why many families chose to go into hiding; the Frank family was one of them.

Annelies Marie Anne Frank was born on 12th June 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany, to Jewish parents. Like any other teenager, she too was vivacious, sharp and full of life. In 1933 the Frank family immigrated to the Netherlands; Anne was just four then and remembered little about her early years in Germany. On her 13th birthday, she received a notebook as a gift from her father. She was quite fond of voicing her opinion and immediately started writing down about herself, her family, friends, and her school life in that small notebook. She even penned down her concerns regarding the increasing oppression against Jews and the discriminating laws.

One day Anne Frank's elder sister Margot Frank received a notice to report to the Nazis. That was an alarming situation indeed and the Frank family wasted no time in going into hiding. Otto Frank chose an apartment above his company's office premises. No one knew about the apartment except the trusted employees, Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman, Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl. They not only kept that secret for two years, but also provided the family with food, commodities and other help. These loyal employees could have faced a death penalty if they had been caught sheltering Jews. Later on, the Frank family was joined by three members of Van Pals family and their dentist friend, Fritz Pfeffer.

These two years in confinement provided ample time to Anne for writing a diary. She would write about her everyday activities, her emotions and her future plans. The last entry in her diary was dated 1st August 1944.

On the morning of 4th August 1944, the German security police invaded their apartment on a tip-off from a person whose identity is still shrouded in mystery. All of them were arrested and taken to the Gestapo station for investigation. On September 3rd, they were deported to the concentration camp at Auschwitz, Poland. On 28th October, Anne and her sister Margot were sent to the Bergen-Belsen camp. The rampant epidemic in the camp and the freezing cold was killing the prisoners. In March 1945, Margot and Anne, suffering from typhus and starvation, lost their lives shortly after each other. Just two weeks later the British troops liberated the camp on 15th April 1945.

The only survivor from the Frank family was Anne's father, Otto Frank. When the war was over, he came back to Amsterdam. One of the servants, Miep Gies handed him over Anne's diary along with countless papers that she had strewn over the floor after the police invaded and searched the annexe. Otto Frank read each and every page and decided to publish it. The diary got published in 1947 and the American edition titled 'Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl' was released in 1952. It has sold more than 30 million copies and has been translated into more than 60 languages. In the Western world, after the Bible, it is the most widely read non-fiction book. In 1999, Time magazine included Anne Frank in its list of 100 Heroes and icons of the 20th century for raising her voice in the fight for human dignity.

Help has been taken from the official website about Anne Frank www.annefrank.org  and from the preface of the book, Anne Frank; The Diary of a Young Girl.