Anne Frank
Anne Frank:
Biography By Grace Wieland
WHO WAS ANNE FRANK?
Anne Frank was a normal teenaged girl who changed history with her writing. She is best known for her diary, which has been read by more than 65 million people. The diary tells you about her life from the time she was 13 until she was 15. Anne was Jewish and lived in Europe during world war II. During the years in her diary, she and her family lived in hiding from the Nazis, who wanted to kill them. Anne was born in 1929,the year the Great Depression started, in Frankfurt, Germany. She died in 1945 from a sickness called typhus while in the Bergen- Belsen concentration camp. Her parents were named Otto and Edith Frank and she had a sister named Margot. Only Otto survived world war II.
WORLD WAR II
Jewish people were treated terribly in Germany and most of Europe during World War II. The Nazi party, which controlled the government of Germany,was run by a dictator named Adolf Hitler. Hitler and the Nazis believed that if they eliminated all the Jews all Germany’s problems would be solved. They made laws so Jews couldn’t drive, swim in public pools, vote, own businesses, or be outside (even on your own front porch) after 8:00. They could only shop in stores owned by non Jews until 5:00. They had to wear a yellow star to show they were Jewish and did not have the same rights. They could only live in certain places, called ghettos, where conditions were worse (sometimes with no electricity or running water). Many Jews were sent to concentration camps, where they worked as slaves and were given very little food. In some camps, adults and children, including babies, were sent to gas chambers where they died. Anne Frank’s parents decided it wasn’t safe in Germany for their daughters, so they moved to Amsterdam. In time, the Germans took over the Netherlands, where Amsterdam is, and they were forced to go into hiding.
THE SECRET ANNEX
When the Franks went into hiding, they moved into an abandoned building attached to a warehouse that was part of Otto Frank’s business. Inside the building, there was a bookshelf you could swing open to reveal a secret staircase to the attic, which the Franks called the Secret Annex. The reason the Franks needed to go into hiding was because on July 5, 1942, Anne’s sister Margot was given a notice that the Nazis planned to take her away. Eventually, other Jews moved into the Secret Annex - Fritz Pfeffer and the Van Pels family (Mr. and Mrs. Van Pels and their son Peter, plus their cat). Anne had a crush on Peter, who was 15 when he came to the Secret Annex. A woman named Miep Gies, who worked with Otto and was a friend of the Franks’, sometimes brought them food and water. She also did their shopping and checked in on them to be sure they were safe. They lived as quietly as mice for two years (can you imagine that?!). In 1944, the Franks and their friends were found and captured by the Nazis. They were all sent to concentration camps.
THE DIARY
Anne is most famous for her diary. She wrote in it almost every day, and she poured the truth of her life into it. She named the diary Kitty because she felt like she didn’t have any friend she could tell everything to, especially in hiding. When the Franks were captured by the Nazis, their friend Miep found the diary (Kitty) and saved it. She hoped the Franks would survive, so she could return it to Anne after the war. When the war was over, only Otto, Anne’s dad, was left alive. Miep returned the diary to Otto, who read it and was touched by her words. Otto made sure it was published for Anne, a last gift. Since the diary was published in 1947, millions of people around the world have read it and been inspired. It’s an important book because even though Anne faced awful and scary times, she was still full of life. She laughed, played pranks, and had fun. Most of all, she still believed people were good, and she had hope. Anne and her diary inspired me to believe with her, so she is not alone, and neither am I.
The most famous quote from her diary will now show you how amazing she is: “I keep my ideas, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.Whoever is happy will make others happy too.”
Bibliography
Abramson, Anne and Nancy Harrison. Who was Anne Frank? New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 2007. Print.
2. Epstein, Rachel. Anne Frank. New York: Franklin Watts, A Division of Grolier Publishing, 1997. Print.
3. Frank, Anne. The Diary of a Young Girl. New York: Bantam/Doubleday, 1967. Print.
4. Van der Rol, Ruud and Rian Verhoeven. Anne Frank: Beyond the Diary. New York: Viking, A Division of
Penguin Books, 1993. Print.
5. Zapruder, Alexandra. National Geographic Kids: Anne Frank. Washington, DC: National Geographic
Society, 2013. Print.