In January 1933, Adolph Hitler, the leader of the Nazi Party, came to power in Germany. In Germany at that time unemployment and prices were very high. Many people believed that the Nazis had the solutions to these problems.
The Nazis were not content just to rule Germany so Hitler invaded Poland and other countries. This is what started the Second World War in 1939.
From 1939 to 1945 over 40 million people were killed and many millions of people were forced into labour camps.
The Nazis divided people into two basic groups – citizens and subjects. Citizens had the right to live freely, subjects had no rights at all. After having their rights taken away, subjects like Jews were sent for “resettlement” and then "special treatment". Resettlement meant stealing their property and sending them to concentration camps in Poland. Special treatment meant killing. Among the groups targeted for special treatment were Roma, those with learning and physical difficulties, Poles, Slavs and especially Jews.
Jews suffered more than any other group. From 1933 to 1945 the Nazis murdered over 6 million Jews. This figure includes 1¼ million children. Jews were targeted for no reason except that they were Jews.
Jews had lived for hundreds of years as a minority group in all European countries. For the same number of years Jews had been persecuted. This meant attacks on property, beatings, eviction and even murder. Most people in Europe were Christian so Jews were different. Because they were different, Jews were often forced to live apart from the majority Gentile population. Jews developed their own language, Yiddish, a mixture of Hebrew and German, went to the Synagogue on Saturday, not to church on a Sunday and Jews celebrated Passover and Chanukah not Easter and Christmas.
This hatred and prejudice against Jews has a technical name. It is called Anti-Semitism. Hitler and the Nazis encouraged this anti-Semitism. The Nazis blamed Jews for everything that had gone wrong in Germany and accused Jews of being traitors.
As the Nazi armies swept across Europe, Jewish men women and children were rounded up, herded into Ghettos, starved, tortured and killed regardless of age, sex, or rank. Those who did not die in the Ghettos were deported to work camps and death camps. Jews who were young and fit were selected for work. The rest, pregnant women, children, the old and the sick, were shot or gassed immediately. Their bodies were burnt or thrown into mass graves.
Of almost 7 million Jews who lived in Europe before 1933, less than 2 million remained after the war was over in 1945. The Holocaust as it came to be known, has been written about in countless books and articles and depicted in many films. The story of Anne Frank is just one story of many from this dark period of human history.
When Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Anne, her sister Margot and their mother and father Edith and Otto Frank were living happily in the German city of Frankfurt. Otto had been a Captain in the German army in World War 1. After the war he worked in America before returning home to Germany. He married Edith Hollander and ran a spice business in Frankfurt.
When the Nazis came to power, Otto quickly realised that the country which his family had lived in happily for generations was turning against him just because he was Jewish. Some of Otto’s relatives left Germany for safety in America and Switzerland. Otto decided to take his family to the Netherlands.
Anne was only four years old when she arrived in Amsterdam. She learned Dutch very quickly and soon settled into her school. For many years the family lived very happily on a new housing estate on the outskirts of the city.
Anne loved school although she was frequently in trouble. She and Margot had many friends and her father was successful with his business.
Later in her diary Anne wrote this:-
The Second World War began in 1939 and soon all of Europe was involved. In 1940 the Nazis occupied the Netherlands. After the occupation, life for the Franks and other Jews became more and more difficult.
Like all Jews, Anne was forced to wear a yellow Star of David on her clothing. She could not use public transport, go to a public park or cinema or even sit in her own garden after 8 pm. She could not even have a bicycle. In 1941, the Nazis started rounding Dutch Jews up and sending them to the Westerbork camp. Westerbork was called a work camp but Otto noticed that no one ever came back from there.
Despite all these restrictions Anne continued to enjoy life. Among the presents Anne received for her thirteenth birthday, the one which gives her the most pleasure, is a diary. As she writes in her diary she shows herself to be a gifted writer.
In her diary Anne writes about herself, her friends, the school examinations, her teachers and her attraction to boys. She writes as if she is talking to a close friend and gives it the name “Kitty”.
In letters from friends and relatives in Germany Otto Frank had learned how badly the Nazis were treating Jews. He knew that the same things would happen in the Netherlands. The Nazis had already forced Otto to give up his job at the OPEKTA Company. Otto realised that Jews would be allowed to do less and less until one day the lorries would rumble up and take them away to concentration camps.
All escape routes out of the Netherlands were now closed. Many Jews tried to go into hiding in the countryside. Less than a month after Anne’s birthday the day her family has been dreading arrived. The Nazis ordered Margot to go to Westerbork. If the Franks did not go into hiding they would all be arrested.
Otto Frank had prepared for this moment for months. Despite all the evil and madness that had come into the world he was determined to do his best to protect his family as best he could.
Otto needed the help of his previous employees at the OPEKTA Company. Four of Otto’s co-workers, Meip Geis, Bep Voskuijl, Johannes Kleiman and Victor Kugler helped to prepare a hiding place in two upper floors at the back of the OPEKTA warehouse building.
Here in the secret annexAnne, her sixteen-year-old sister Margot and their parents Edith and Otto took refuge from certain death. They were shortly to be joined by the Van Pels couple who had a fifteen year-old son called Peter. As conditions grew worse for Jews on the outside, another was to join the group, Fritz Pfeffer a dentist.
Otto Frank had secretly moved some of the furniture from their home to the hiding place. He had stored canned and dried food and more importantly he had saved money so that when his family went into hiding, with the help of friends, he would be able to buy the things they needed.
Otto kept the site of the hiding place secret even from Anne right up to the day they moved.
Each day in the hiding place they had to take endless care not to be seen or heard as there were still people working in the warehouse below who were not part of the secret.
For an energetic and active girl like Anne this was very difficult. Life must have seemed very hard at times - almost like a punishment.
But a punishment for what?
During those long hours she read books brought by the helpers, she does school work organised by her father and she wrote stories or wrote in her diary.
In her diary she talked to “Kitty”. Telling her the things she could not say to anyone else. Anne even made plans for a time when the war was over and they would all be free again.
Anne’s ambition was to be a writer. When she enjoyed a book that a friend has given her to read, she hoped that her own children will read it. Despite all that happened to her and the constant fear of discovery, she always had hope.
Then D-Day arrived. This was the day that allied troops landed on the coast of northern France and so began to free Nazi-occupied Europe.
Now she thought their imprisonment in the secret annex might soon be over - perhaps they will not be discovered after all. Anne looked forward to getting back to school.
The Allied landings in France were a success but life in the secret annex is becoming more and more difficult. Despite restrictions, the rationing and the cramped conditions the Franks and their friends tried to make life as normal as they could. They celebrated the Jewish festivals like Pesach in the spring, Sukkoth and Yom Kippur in the autumn and Chanukah in the winter. Birthdays were especially important. They tried to carry on despite everything.
As the Allied armies continued to advance, food even more scarce and rations in the secret annex had to be cut to starvation levels. Cats and dogs disappeared from the streets. Eight weeks after the invasion, with the war still going well for the Allies, Anne wrote her last entry in her diary. She was very happy.
Anne complained that if she does become more serious in company people say she is playing a game or “sickening for something".
This was her last entry. Anne’s diary ended here. Three days later on August 4th, 1944 the Gestapo raided the main office. Some one had betrayed them.
All the occupants of the secret annex were taken away and eventually sent to Westerbrok concentration camp. Johannes Kleiman and Victor Kugler were also arrested but Bep Voskuijl and Meip Geis were released after questioning.
On the 3rd of September the Franks, the van Pels and Fritz Pfeffer were packed into cattle trucks with other Jews and sent east to concentration camps. This was the last train of Jews to be transported east to Auschwitz in Poland.
3 September
JUDEHTRANSPORT AUS DEN NIEDERLANDEN - LAGER `NESTERBOBI
Haeftlinge
301 Engers Isidor 30.4. 95 Kaufmann
302 Engers Leonard 15.6. 20 Lamdarbeiter
303 Franco Manfred 11.5. 05 Verleger
304 Frank Arthur 22.8. 81 Kaufmann
305 Frank Isaac 2 .11.08 Inetallateur –
306 Frank Margot 16 .2. 26 ohne
307 Frank Otto 12.5. 89 Kaufmann
308 Frank-Hollaender Edith 16.1. 00 ohne
309 Frank Anneliese 12.6.29 ohne
310 v.Frank Sara 27.4.02 Typistin
311 Franken Rozanna 16.5. 96 Landarbeiter
312 Franken-Weyand Johanna 24.12.96 Landbauer
313 Franken Hermann-A 12.5.54 ohne
314 Franken Louie 10.8. l7 Gaertner
315 Franken Rosalina 29.5. 27 Landbau
316 Frankfort Alex 14.11.19 Dr.i.d.0ekonomie
317 Frankfort-Eleae Regina 11.12.19 Apoth-Ass.
318 Frankfoort Elias 22.10.98 Schneider
319 Frankfort VZ. Max 20.6. 21 Schneider
320 Frankfort-Weijlfk Hetty 29.5. 24 Naeherin
321 Frankfort-Werkenden 24.6.98 Schriftstellerin
322 Frijda Hermann 22.6. 87 Hochschullehrer
323 Frank Henriette 28.4. 21 Typistin
324 Frenk Rosa 15.5.24 Haushalthilfe
325 Friezer Isaac 10.5. 20 Korrespondent
During the raid by the Gestapo and the Dutch police on the secret annex, anything of value was taken away. After their arrest Meip and Bep found Anne’s diary scattered on the floor of the secret annex. Meip kept it safe. She didn’t read it and hope that she would return it to Anne after the war ended.
In the concentration camps the older members of the group were being weakened by starvation and illness. Hermann van Pels and Fritz Pfeffer were selected for the gas chamber. Both Edith Frank and Auguste van Pels perished. Peter van Pels disappeared, no one knows exactly where but he was never seen again. Luckily Otto Frank was put into the camp hospital and remained there until liberated by the Allied Army in 1945.
After recovering from illness and starvation Otto Frank began his long journey home. On the way home he was told that his wife had not survived.
When he arrived back in Amsterdam, Otto stayed with Meip and Jan Geis. They all waited for news of Anne and Margot. A telegram from the Red Cross informed them first of the death of Margot and then of Anne.
After some time in Auschwitz the girls had been separated from their mother and sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
In February 1945, both sisters caught typhus. One day Margot, who was lying on a bunk above Anne, fell to the floor. In her weakened state she could not survive the shock and died soon after. Her sister’s death did to Anne what all her previous suffering could not have done - it broke her spirit. A few days later Anne too died.
These are some of the words which Anne is most famous for.
"I still believe that people are really good at
heart - I can feel the sufferings of millions and
yet if I look up to heaven, I think it ill all come
right, that this cruelty too will end and that
peace and tranquillity will return again.
(Annelise Frank 1929-45)