ANN FRANK
Anne Frank was
born on June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt
On March 13,
1933, elections were held in
Otto began
working at the Opekta works, a company which sold fruit, in
In 1938 Otto Frank started a second company
with a man called Hermann Van Pels, a butcher, who had left
For
her thirteenth birthday on June 12, 1942,
Anne got a book that
she had showed to her father in a shop window a
few days earlier.
Although
it was an autograph
book with a small lock on the front,
Anne
decided she would use it as a diary. She started writing in it
straight away,
writing about herself, her family and her friends,
her school life, boys she talked with and the
places she liked to go.
The
writing shows her life was the same as any normal schoolgirl,
she also showed changes that were made since the
Germans took over
forced to wear in public, and she listed some of
the restrictions of
In July 1942, Margot Frank got a call-up notice from the Central Office for
Jewish Emigration ordering her to report for transfer to a work camp. Anne was
then told of a plan that Otto had thought up with his most trusted employees
and Edith and Margot had been aware of for a short time. The family was to go
into hiding in rooms above and behind the company's premises on the Prinsengracht,
a street along one of
On the morning of Monday, July 6, 1942,
the family moved into the hiding place. Their apartment was left in a state of
mess to create the idea that they had left suddenly, and Otto Frank left a note
that hinted they were going to Switzerland.
The need for secrecy forced them to leave behind Anne's cat, Moortje.
As Jews were not allowed to use public transport,
they walked several kilometres from their house, with each of them wearing
several layers of clothing as they did not want to be seen carrying suitcases.
The attic was a three-story space at the back of the building in which Miep
Gies openly lived with her family.(Gies was Otto’s assistant in an office and
became a good friend of the family. She discovered and preserved Anne's diary after
her arrest and deportation). The atic was entered from a
landing above the Opekta offices. Two small rooms, with a bathroom
and toilet,
were on the first floor, and above that a large open
room, with a small room beside it. From this smaller room, a ladder led to the
secret attic. The
door to the attic was later covered by a bookcase.
Victor Kugler,
Johannes Kleiman,
Miep Gies,
and Bep Voskuijl
were the only employees who knew of the family in hiding, and with Gies husband
Jan Gies
and Voskuijl's father Johannes Hendrik Voskuijl, were their "helpers"
for the time of their hiding. They
provided the only contact between the outside world and the people of the
house, and they kept them informed of war news and politics. They catered for
all of their needs, ensured their safety and supplied them with food, a task
that grew more difficult. Anne wrote of their devotion and of their efforts to
boost morale in the household during the most dangerous of times. All knew that
if they were caught they could face the death penalty for sheltering Jews.
The Franks were joined by the van Pels family In late July, 16-year-old
Peter, and father Auguste, Fritz Pfeffer
joined them in November, Fritz Pfeffer
was a dentist
and friend of the family. Anne said in her diary how happy she was by having
new people to talk to, in the group tensions quickly grew because they were
forced to live in such bad conditions. When Anne was sharing her room with
Pfeffer, she realised how hard to get on with he was, Auguste van Pels and Anne
also had a lot of disagreements, who she thought was a fool .Anne and her
mothers relationship became a bad relationship, Anne wrote in her diary that
they had very little in common as her mother was too remote. Anne sometimes
argued with her sister Margot, she wrote of an unexpected bond that had grown
between them, but she remained closest emotionally to her father. Some time
later, after first dismissing the shy and hard Peter van Pels, she recognized a
kinship with him and the two entered a romance.
Anne spent most of her time reading and studying, also continuing to write
in her diary. She also wrote about her feelings, beliefs and dreams, subjects
she felt she could not talk about with anyone. As her confidence in her writing
grew, and as she began to mature, she wrote of more subjects such as her belief
in God, and how she saw
life. She continued writing until her last entry on August 1,
1944.
When Anne was
in the attic she continued her learning under her father's control, and on her
own she wrote short stories, essays, and an unfinished novel. Life in the attic
was mainly quiet during the day, at times they had to
stop them selves from using water and using the toilet to avoid being heard by
other people in the building. If they wanted to continue living they would have
to remain undiscoverd. Through the kindness of four
friends of the family who risked their own lives, the people in the attic were giving
food and other things witch they needed to survive, as well as friendship and news
from the outside world. On the 6th of June 1944 (D-Day), news came
that the war
had turned in favor of the Allies, hope increased for the group in the attic. Then suddenly, on the 4th
of August 1944 their hiding place was raided, and they became prisoners of the
Nazis. Anne, her sister Margot, and her father and mother were
first taken to Westerbork prison in The Netherlands. Then they were shipped by
car to
Anne was remembered by a person who survived
From the eight of the
secret attic, only Anne's father Otto Frank survived. When he came back to
Part (3)
Evaluation of
Sources
(1) A website
I used was http://www.Annefrank.com
This is a good
website because it has lots of valuable information from Anne’s early life to
her last diary entry on August 1st 1944. This website has lots of
pictures of Anne as a young girl and also when she was getting older and
when she and her family were in hiding. I think this
was a good source because the photographs made the history of her life more
real.
(2) A book I
used was Anne frank (The diary of a young girl) and this book was translated by
Susan Massotty. This book was published by Puffin
Books in 2002. This was the diary that Anne Frank kept. It was a great source
because it retained Annes
actual words
(3) Another
book I used was The Holocaust by Martin
Gilbert and was published by Holt paperbacks. The book looked at the Nazi war
on the Jews. This book was very detailed and a difficult source to read. There
were very few photographs and maps and there was no mention of Anne Frank
Part (1)
Outline plan
I decided to
do my Laving Cert essay on Anne Frank. The reason for this is that we learned
about her and read her diary in Primary School and I was interested in it so I
wanted to learn more about how she went into hiding and how her family coped
under the Nazi regime.
My aims were
to
(1) Find out about
the history of her family
(2) Find out about
her early life
(3) Find out how
her family ended up in hiding
(4) Find out what
life was like when they were in hiding
(5) And to find
out what happened the family after the war
When I picked
the topic I then went to get information. I first went on to the internet and
found a few web sites and I also got the diary. Here are my sources
www.Annefrank.com
The Holocaust by Martin Gilbert
Anne frank The
diary of a young girl by Anne
Frank
Anne frank
reflections on her life and legacy by Hyman Aaron Enzer
and Sandra Solotarrof Enzer