People Associated With Anne Frank

People Associated With Anne Frank

Annelies Marie “Anne” Frank (12 June 1929–early March 1945) was a Jewish girl who, along with her family and four other people, hid in rooms at the back of her father's Amsterdam company during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Helped by several trusted employees of the company, the group of eight survived in the achterhuis (literally "back-house", usually translated as "secret annex") for more than two years before they were betrayed. Anne kept a diary from 12 June 1942 until 1 August 1944, three days before the residents of the annex were betrayed. Anne mentioned several times in her writing that her sister Margot Frank also kept a diary, but no trace of Margot's diary was ever found.

After spending time in both Westerbork and Auschwitz, Anne and her older sister Margot were eventually transported to Bergen-Belsen where they both died during a typhus epidemic sometime between late February and mid-March 1945.

Their father, Otto Frank, survived the war, and upon his return to Amsterdam was given the diary his daughter had kept during their period of confinement, which had been rescued from the ransacked achterhuis by Miep Gies (below) who, out of respect for Anne's privacy, had not read it. The diary was first published in 1947, and by virtue of worldwide sales since then, it has become one of the most widely read books in history. It is recognized both for its historical value as a document of the Holocaust, and for the high quality of writing displayed by such a youthful author.