Anne Frank: family, diary, hiding place, homage

Anneliese Marie Frank, known as Anne Frank, was a Jewish teenager who lived in Amsterdam, Holland, during the period of Holocaust. The girl became known worldwide after the publication of O dAnne Frank's Story, a book that chronicles the two years she and her family spent in a hideout trying to escape persecution Nazi during the Second World War.

Anne Frank was born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt, Germany, and died at age 15 in Bergen-Belsen, a Nazi concentration camp located in the city of Celle, Germany. There is no official date of her death, but it is believed that it happened in March 1945, after she contracted an illness known as typhus (caused by bacteria that affect the immune system).

Anne Frank's family

With a lot of personality, Anne was a young woman discovering herself in her teens. Much studious and in love with books, had how dream of becoming an artist and writer famous.

Anne dreamed of seeing her texts published. [1]

The Frank family consisted of four people: Anne, her parents, Otto Frank and Edith Frank, and her sister, three years older, Margot Frank.

Frank family: parents and sister of Anne [2]

The Jewish teenager had always been remembered for her outgoing way of life, this side highlighted in the first excerpts of her diary. Teachers used to scold her for talking too much, for being “chatty” and curious. However, the young woman also captivated everyone, as she liked to please her friends.

When she was four years old, the family decided that she should leave Germany to escape the attacks of adolf hitler against the Jews. Initially, Anne, her sister and mother stayed at her maternal grandmother's house, in Aachen, still in Germany, while her father Otto moved to the Netherlands to start over.

The father de Anne opened a company that supplied fruits and ingredients for the production of jams and, with that, managed to stabilize financially. The next step was to bring the family to Amsterdam, where Anne and Margot would have access to a good education.

Upon moving to the Netherlands, Anne was enrolled at the Montessori School, where she demonstrated writing skills from the start. Despite her talent, Anne felt inferior to her sister, according to several accounts in her diary. Anne considered Margot to be very intelligent, reserved and more polite.

In 1940, Holland was invaded by the German Nazis commanded by Hitler, and the Jewish population of the country began to be persecuted. The Nazi regime imposed restrictions on Jews, such as a curfew at dusk and a ban on attending the same places as other citizens. That is why, Anne and her sister were forced to move to a specific school for Jews.

Another determination made by the Nazi regime was to force the Jews to wearing a yellow Star of David on their garments so they could be identified. Anne also had to wear one.

Yellow star used to identify Jews [3]

Anne Frank's diary

In your 13th birthday, Anne was surprised by her father with a notebook for notes. The object had a red cover, with some details, and the teenager was very pleased, who made it her diary.

THE first entry in the diary was dated June 14, 1942. In its first pages, she tells her routine, talks about friendships, school, family, missing her grandmother who died during the period, and also narrates the invasion of Germany in the first countries.

On June 20 of that same year, Anne decided that the diary would be a kind of friend and decided to name it kitty. From that day forward, she referred to the diary with affection. See part of the passage where Anne names him:

“That's why I write a diary. I'm supposed to pretend I have a great friend. This diary, which will be my great friend, I will name Kitty.”

Detail in the diary of December 22, 1943 [4]

In early July, the girl she started to narrate the feeling of fear she started to feel, alongside his family, of the situation of invasion by the Germans. It was at this time that she reported the family plans for a hideout.

In conversation with her father, he tells her that he was already storing clothes, furniture and food elsewhere, which would probably be where they would hide for a while. At the time, the Germans were already invading and taking European countries, and millions of foreigners, including Jews, were enslaved and forced to work for the Nazis. As a result of the conditions in which they lived, under torture, malnutrition and ill-treatment, many died in concentration camps.

Anne's father was already spending more time at home, as he could no longer be director of commerce (another imposition of the Germans), and a few days later a convocation at the Franks' house. Initially, they thought it was for Otto, but the call was so that Margot was taken to a labor camp. The family refused to send it, and at that point Otto and Edith decided that it was time for them to hide.

With the help of friends they trusted, the family hurried to the hideout. on top of a warehouse that was Anne's father's business house, located on a street along one of the canals of Amsterdam. At the Franks' house, the family left a note implying that they had moved to Switzerland, to avoid being found. Objects and dishes were also left in a mess so that everyone had the impression that the family ran away in a hurry, as well as Anne's pet cat also had to stay in place.

Location where the secret annex in Amsterdam was built [5]

Anne Frank's hideout

O secret attachment, as the hideout became known, received Anne's family on July 6, 1942. the space had three floors, and the entrance was made by an office. On the first floor, there was two small bedrooms and a bathroom. Above, there was a big roomwith a smaller one on the side, in which there was a ladder leading to the attic. To try to ensure that the place was not discovered, a bookcase was placed at the door of the hideout.

Only on the 8th, Anne went back to writing in her diary, describing the departure from home, and, on the following day, the 9th, she reported part of the family's escape.

“Dear Kitty: So we run in the rain, Mom, Dad and I, each with a school bag and a shopping bag completely full, God knows what. The workers who went to work looked at us. You could read on their faces that they felt sorry for us for being so loaded and for not letting us ride the trams. Our yellow star on the arm spoke for itself.”

In addition to Anne's family, the van Pels couple (Hermann and Auguste), with their son Peter (an important character in Anne's story), and, a few months later, Fritz Pfeffer, a dentist and friend of the Frank family, who shared a room with Anne.

When the Van Pels family arrived at the hideout, Anne was thrilled that she would have new people to talk to and enjoy. The excitement, however, did not last that long, as they had coexistence problems with Mrs. Auguste Van Pels.

With the daily proximity of the families, Anne began to spend more time with young Peter Van Pels, two years her senior. she narrates in her diary sentimental discoveries in relation to the young man, but she also highlights the fear of hurting her sister Margot, thinking that she might also be interested in the boy.

Entrance of the place where the annex was [6]

Anne got involved in a teenage romance with Peter, reporting her first kiss in the diary. To Kitty she described all her feelings, doubts about love and details of how it all happened. Anne also said that she talked about the relationship with the father, with whom she was very friendly and didn't like to hide things. With her mother, Anne always had a lot of friction, and the two did not have such a good relationship.

The isolation period lasted about two years without the families going out onto the streets to avoid being discovered. Jews captured by the Germans were immediately sent to concentration camps. With the situation, the families had to regulate the groceries and often fasted, choosing which meal would be eaten that day. The food was taken by Otto's friends. They maintained confidentiality throughout the entire period.

Inside the annex, Anne recounted the days when they were scared when they heard movement outside and even bombs dropped on the city by the Germans. too you couldn't make noises, and during the day, when the warehouse operated at the bottom of the building, not even the taps in the annex could be turned on. O radio and the few friends of the family who had access to the annex were the only means of information from the outside world.

THE last note from Anne to Kitty was made on the day August 1, 1944. The girl then narrated the struggle she had to express herself and the way she often felt she was not well understood by the people around her. See Anne Frank's last words for the diary:

“...When they treat me that way, I become even more impertinent, I feel sad, and finally I turn my heart inside out, with the bad side out, good side in, and I continue to look for a way to become the one I would like to be, that I was capable of being, if... there was no one else in the world. Your Anne"

• Discovery of the hideout

About 10 days before the Franks' hideout was found, Anne had reported that she was full of hope and that she thought the war would soon be over as she heard good news on the radio. Besides, she made a lot of plans for when she could get free.

In day August 4, 1944, the annex was discovered. It is not clear whether there were reports or whether the German police arrived at the scene by coincidence. Neither version has ever been proven.

All were arrested and taken to the biggest concentration camp in the Netherlands: Westerbork. Later, they were divided to other regions.. Edith Frank died on January 5, 1945, in Auschwitz, Poland. Anne and Sister Margot were sent to Bergen-Belsen, Germany, died probably in March 1945, with Typhus, and were buried anonymously in mass graves.

Tomb of Sisters Anne and Margot Frank [7]

Otto was sent to a hospital in November 1944 and remained there until January 1945, when Soviet troops defeated the Nazis and freed Jews from the concentration camps. Otto remarried years later and re-established life. He passed away in 1980.

The Van Pels family was also killed by the Germans between 1944 and 1945. Peter was taken with over 11,000 prisoners from Auschwitz to Mauthausen, Austria, where he died in May 1945. Dentist Fritz—called Dussel in the book—died in 1944 in Germany.

• Friends who helped the Frank family

During the time the Frank family was in hiding, some non-Jewish friends helped us. The main ones were:

Miep Gies (same name in the book): She was a sales representative at Otto's company and was willing to help the family. When Margot was summoned, Miep was the one who picked her up and took her to hiding before the family. He took meats and books to the families. He saw Anne with the diary one day. When the invasion took place, she and her youngest helper, Bep Voskuijl, later returned to the site to collect the objects. Miep saw Anne's diary and saved it to return. Anne did not return, but years later Otto was sheltered in Miep's house, and they both decided to read the young woman's notes. Miep died in 2010, aged 100.

Jan Gies (called Henk in the book): Husband of Miep. He also helped her get Margot to the shelter and contributed to the isolation of the family. He helped run Otto's businesses while they were in hiding and regularly visited the family. He wasn't arrested either. He died in 1993.

Victor Kugler (called Kraler in the book): She worked with Otto and helped him organize the hideout. He was one of those responsible for taking care of the hidden families and even his wife didn't know the secret. He was arrested on the discovery of the shelter and later managed to escape. He died in 1981.

Johannes Kleiman (called Koophuis in the book): She gave Otto the idea of ​​the family hiding in the warehouse. He also ran Otto's businesses during the period when Jews could not do business. He and his wife brought gifts and supplies for the family, including clothes for the girls. He was also arrested but released for being ill. They say that he got sick from the stress while he was taking care of the family. He died in 1959.

Bep Voskuijl (Elli): He was the youngest helper in the family, aged 23. She was the last to know of those in hiding. She worked at the warehouse with her father, Johan. When he received the trust, he started taking groceries and even enrolling in courses to receive materials and give them to the girls. She was very dear to Anne and even slept one night in the annex at the girl's request. She managed to escape at the time of the invasion and was not arrested. She died in 1983.

Johan Voskuijl (called Vossen in the book): He was the father of Bep, a warehouse worker, and didn't find out about the hiding place until later. He was very skilled in carpentry and gifted the Frank family with some objects. It helped everyone a lot until I discovered stomach cancer. He died in 1945.

Versions of Anne Frank's Diary

After the police invasion, the annex was destroyed, but Miep, who was one of the family's friends, found the diary, giving it, years later, to Otto Frank. Anne's father was responsible for the publication from her daughter's notes.

The first book was published in 1947 and became one of the most read works in the world, being translated into dozens of languages.

They exist four versions of the diary.

First version: original manuscript, uncut.

Second version: reviewed by Anne herself, who heard one day on the radio that the letters, diaries and historical notes could be published when the war was over. So the young woman decided to rewrite the diary using false names: the Frank family is called the Robin, and the Van Pels were called the Van Daan.

third version: edited by Otto Frank, in 1947, in which he omitted details considered unnecessary, such as the girl's reflections on sexuality and the fights with her mother.

fourth version: organized by the writer Mirjam Pressler, and launched in 1995, in which it rescues the excerpts deleted by her father in 1947.

Tributes to Anne Frank

Today, the place where Anne and her family hid has turned into one of the most visited tourist spots from Amsterdam. The property has been restored to maintain its close-to-original appearance.

THE Anne Frank House, in Amsterdam, is located at 263 Prinsengraght Street, the same location as the secret annex. Anne's original diary is also on display.

Exhibition at the Madame Tussaauds Wax Museum [8]

O Madame Tussauds Museum, in London, the largest wax museum in the world and famous for having sculptures of various historical and current personalities, has a space to honor Anne Frank. In Germany, where the girl was born, the Jewish Museum Frankfurt gathers family objects.

Observation: All quotes from Anne Frank's diary in this article were made with reference to the publication in the book by Editora Pé da Letra, translated into Portuguese, from November 2019.

Image credit

[1] Collectie Anne Frank Stichting Amsterdam

[2] Site Reproduction Anne Frank

[3] Chameleons Eye/Shutterstock

[4] Site Reproduction Anne Frank

[5] Ivica Drusany / Shutterstock

[6] chrisdorney / Shutterstock

[7] Ronald Wilfred Jansen / Shutterstock

[8] Anton_Ivanov / Shutterstock

By Giullya Franco
Journalist