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 is Annelise 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 suffered by Jews, Anna's family was forced to leave the country and go to the Netherlands to escape from Nazi terror. During her stay in the shelter, she wrote memoirs that were published many years after the war under the name “Anne Frank Diary”. 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
Anna Frank was born in Frankfurt 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 respectable married couple: he is a former officer, and she is a housewife. Anna's older sister was called Margo, and she was born only three years earlier - on February 16, 1926.
After Hitler became head of state and the NSDAP won the elections to the municipality of Frankfurt, Otto, the father of the family, was forced to emigrate due to the deteriorating political situation in order to prepare the way for the whole family to move. Therefore, he went to Amsterdam, where he became director of the joint stock company. Soon, all family members managed to move to the Netherlands within six months after moving his father.
When Anna Frank moved to Amsterdam, she began attending kindergarten and then went to Montessori school. After finishing the sixth grade, she moved to a specialized lyceum for children of Jewish origin.
Life in refuge
In 1940, the German military managed to break through the defense and occupy the territory of the Netherlands. As soon as the Wehrmacht appointed his government in the occupied land, there began an active persecution of Jews.
Just barely 13 years old, her older sister, Margot Frank, received a subpoena in the Gestapo. Two weeks later, the family went to the shelter. Anna Frank and her family were able to hide in a place furnished by employees of the company in which her father worked. Otto's colleagues took a fancy to the back of the office building in which they worked, at Prinsengracht, 263. The entrance to the empty room was decorated as a cabinet with documents to exclude any suspicions. Soon after the Frank family settled in a secret room, they were joined by the couple Van Pels with their son and doctor Fritz Pfeffer.
A little later, Anna began to write memoirs, which later made her famous, but recognition came to the young writer, unfortunately, after her death.
Anne Frank Diary
The reviews of 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, i.e., on the day of the girl’s thirteenth birthday. In these letters, Anna describes the most common events occurring in the shelter with her and with the rest of the inhabitants. The author gave her memoir the name “In the Back House” (Het Achterhuis). The name was translated into Russian as "Shelter".
The original purpose of writing the diary was to try to escape from the harsh reality. But in 1944, this state of affairs changed. On the radio, Anna heard a message from the Minister of Education of the Netherlands. He spoke of the need to preserve any documents that may indicate Nazi repression against people, especially of Jewish origin. One of the most important evidence was named personal diaries.
Hearing such a message, Anna set about writing a novel based on already created diaries. Nevertheless, while completing the novel, she did not cease to replenish the original version with new records.
All the heroes of the novel and the diary are the inhabitants of the shelter. It is not known why, but the author chose not to use real names and came up with pseudonyms for all. The Van Pels family in the diary appears under the name Petronella, and Fritz Pfeffer is named Albert Dussel.
Arrest and Perdition
Anna Frank, whose brief outline of the novel shows how much she had experienced, became the victim of a scammer. He reported that a group of Jews was hiding in the building. Soon everyone hiding in this shelter was 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. Then both sisters were sent to Bergen-Belsen, where a few months later they died of typhoid. The exact dates of their deaths are not recorded, it is only known that soon after this the camp was liberated by the British.
Proof of Authorship
After the work was published and gained wide popularity, doubts arose about authorship. Therefore, in 1981, an ink and paper examination of the diary manuscript was carried out, which became a confirmation that the document really corresponds to the time of its writing. According to other notes that Anna Frank left, a handwriting analysis was also carried out, which became additional evidence that the work is authentic, and that Anna is the author.
Publication of the work was done by Otto Frank, the girl’s father, who, after her death, removed from the recording some moments concerning his wife, Anna’s mother. But in subsequent editions, these fragments were restored.
Investigation
After the war ended, Amsterdam police began searching for a man who reported the whereabouts of the asylum seekers in the Gestapo. In official documents the name of the scammer was not preserved, it is only known that every Jew, including Anna Frank, brought him seven and a half guilders. The investigation into the search for the scammer 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 wanted revenge for the lost lives of innocent people demanded to continue the search for the guilty person.
Informer
There are several versions regarding a potential scammer. Three people are called suspects: warehouse employee Willem van Maaren, cleaning lady Lena van Bladeren Hartog and partner of Anna Anton Ahlers' father. Researchers dealing with this issue were divided into two camps. Some believe that the cleaner Lena Hartog, whose son was already a prisoner of a concentration camp, and she did not want to compromise herself, was guilty, 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, Ahlers' brother and son claim: he personally admitted to him that he had become a scammer. On the other hand, an investigation conducted by the Netherlands Institute for Military Documentation revealed that Ahlers was not involved.
Museum
The Anne Frank House Museum is located in the same house in which she and her family were hiding in a shelter in Amsterdam. The museum displays all the elements of everyday life that refugees used. During the tour, the guides talk about the daily life of the inhabitants of the cache, 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 about 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 access to fresh air.
The collection also presents a variety of things, the owner of which was Anne Frank, photos and much more. Here you can watch a movie about Anna and buy one copy of the diary, which is translated into 60 languages. Also in the exhibition you can find the Oscar statuette, which was received by one of the actresses who played in the film, created on the basis of the diary.
Film
Anne Frank's Diary was filmed in 1959 by director George Stevens. The main difference from the book is the place where Anna Frank lives. The film touched on the main motives of the memoirs, and its creators tried to accurately reflect all the hardships and difficulties that asylum-seekers had to face. As noted above, one of the supporting actresses was even awarded an Oscar.
Anna Frank, whose biography is filled with many hardships, suffering and pain, tried to cope with the complexity of everyday life in a shelter, and her diary was the result of these attempts. The letters addressed to the fictional girlfriend reflect the entire depth of loneliness the girl experienced and talk about the torture suffered by the Jewish people. But all the suffering she endured only proves how strong the human will is and how much you can survive, you just have to try.