Anne Frank was born June 12, 1929 at 7:30 a.m. in Frankfurt am Main in Germany to Edith and Otto Frank. Although we call her Anne Frank her real name is Anneliese Marie Frank. Anne is not an only child though, she has a sister named Margot Betti Frank who was born in 1926. Margot was three when Anne was born to the Frank family.
Anne and Margot Frank.
In 1933 the anti-Jewish Nationalist Socialist party came to power led by Adolf Hitler. The same year Edith and Otto Frank decided to leave Germany and flee to the Netherlands hoping to have a better life and fulfill Otto's business plans.
From 1933-1942 the Franks lived in a new apartment complex on the Merweidepein in Amsterdam. They lived there for about ten years. The Frank children enjoyed going on vacations to the beach and just being outdoors. Anne also enjoyed her school and had many friends.
In the 1940's Germany invaded the Netherlands. The Franks were forced to live under Nazi rule, something that they had not expected to happen any time soon.
Anne went to a Montesori school as a regular attender as kids do now. One day was going great like any other summer day to Anne. She was out at recess in 1941 when she was forced to leave because she was a Jew and they were not to be around Christians or Germans.
The year of 1942 was when the work camps began. Germans so often took Jews to these camps it became a regular routine to them. Around this time Jews of age six and older had to wear a yellow star on
their clothes everywhere they went so people could separate the Germans from the Jews.
On June 12, 1942 Anne Frank's parents gave her a diary as a gift for her thirteenth birthday. Soon after Anne received her diary Margot received a letter from the Nazi SS to go work at labor camp. The Frank's were forced into hiding a few weeks later.
July 5, 1942 was the day the Frank family moved into a hiding they call the " Secret Annex." It was the attic of Otto Franks' business building the Dutch Opekta Company that he partnered with Herman Van Pels.
In this crowded attic Anne had only one person to confide in her diary "Kitty". In her diary Anne speaks of her struggles to live with seven other people in the attic. The seven other people are Edith, Otto, and Margot Frank. The others consist of people who are not in her family they are a dentist named Pfeffer, Herman, Auguste, and their son Peter Van Pels.
In August of 1944 everyone in the "Secret Annex" was arrested and sent into Westerbork Camp. Scared, tired , and hungry everyone managed Westerbork Camp.
Soon to be separated without notice was Otto Frank, and Herman and Peter Van Pels. They were sent to Auschwitz. Auguste and Edith were also separated leaving Anne and Margot to struggle together to live in Bergen- Belsen.
In this camp were thousands of Jews dying from a fast spreading disease called typhus and many were dying from the lack of food and water or starvation from the concentration camps.
Anne needing someone to confide in had brought a long a notebook which was a continued part of Kitty. Anne wrote some of her deepest thoughts in her diary she called Kitty. It became one of Anne's closest friends.
Every Jew received one roll to last eight days, and got one cup of coffee, one cup of soup every day. Very seldom the younger children got a little bit of extra cereal.
Margot Betti Frank soon caught typhus. Anne was very scared and told of the happenings almost everyday in Kitty. Margot died soon after she caught typhus. Anne scared because she had caught the awful decease her sister had, died from it a few days later in the year 1945 in the concentration camp Bergen- Belsen a few weeks before the liberation.
Otto Frank the only Frank family survivor went home and was shown Anne's diary writings that had been on the floor of the "Secret Annex." Two years later Otto had his daughter journal made into a book as she had written to Kitty as she wanted it to be.
A Anne Frank House was made in 1947 in memory of Anne and to keep the building from being demolished. Prisengracht 263 is a very popular museum that is visited by thousands every year. Over 25 million books were sold of Anne's and are still one of the best selling books.
Kylee Templer
7th Grade Rossville Junior High
Spring 2001
