Today on "Extraordinary People" is the story of a young German-born Jewist diarist. She's one of the most discussed victim of the Holocaust, who became famous after her death with the publication of The Diary of a Young Girl (The Secret Annex), in which she documents her life in hiding from 1942-1944 during the German occupation of the Netherland in World War 2. Her name, "ANNE FRANK".
Anne Frank was born on June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany to Edith and Otto Heinrich. She had an older sister who's name was Margot. They were Jewish people who did not observe all the customs and tradition of Judaism.
Anne's father, Otto Frank was born in Frankfurt, Germany, where the Jewish community had contributed much to the city's commerce and culture. His family had lived there since the seventeenth century, and he had served Geemany as a lieutenant in World War 1. After the war he became a banker. In 1933, after Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party won the federal election, he quickly realised that hia future doesn't lie in his past so he moved the family to Amsterdam, where he established a food product business. The Frank's were among 300,000 Jews who fled Germany between 1933-1939.
(Anne Frank School photo)
After moving to Amsterdam, Anne and Margot Frank were enrolled in school. While Margot demonstrated ability in arithmetics Anne showed her aptitude for reading and writing.
In May 1940, Germany invaded the Netherlands, and the occupation government began to persecute Jews by the implementation of restrictive and discriminatory laws; mandatory registration and segregation soon followed.
On her 13th birthday in June 12 1942, Anne reveived a diary as a birthday present, and she began to write on it almost immediately. She made her first entry into the diary in June 1942, listing many of the restriction placed upon the lives of the Dutch-Jews population.
( picture of the secret annex)
After the invasion of the Netherlanda by Germany, thousands of Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps in Germany. When the Frank family received a "call up" notice for Margot, Anne's older sister, the family went into hiding in July 6 1942, in a secret place they had prepared with the help of Otto's Dutch business associates. This hiding place became known as Acteehuis (translated as "Secret Annex" in English). The door to the Acterhuis was later covered by a bookcase to ensure it remained undiscovered. Some of Otto's employees, Victor Kugler, Johonnes Kleiman, Mlep Gies and Bep Voskuijl along with Gies' husband, Jan Gies who knew the hiding place acted as their helpers for the duration of their confinement. They were their only connection between the outside world and the hiding place. They kept them informed of war news and political developments.
In her writing, Anne examined her relationshipa with the members of her family. Stating her emotional closeness to her dad than to her mom who was more attached to Margot. She wrote of the political terror the family felt, but she mostly wrote honestly of her life as a young girl desiring a normal life of cycling, dancing, falling in love, and feeling young. Her aspiration was to become a journalist, writing in her diary on wednesday, 5 April 1944.
On August 4, 1944, the family members were discovered in their secret apartment and were arrested, along with their helperd, Johannes Kleiman and Victor Kugler. They had been betrayed by an unknown tip, and the identity of their betrayer remain unknown to this day. The residents of the Secret Annex were shipped off to Camp Westerbork, a concentration camp in the northeastern Netherlanda and arrived by passenger train on August 8, 1944. They were transferred to the Auschwitz death camp im Polam in the middle of the night on Septemner 3, 1944. Upon arriving at Auschwitz, the men and women were seperated. This was the last time that Otto Frank ever saw his family.
Both sisters died of typhus in March 1945, just a few weeks before British troopa liberated Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945. After Anne's parent were also selected for labour, her mother, Edith died in Auschwitz in early January 1945.
Only Anne's father, Otto, survived the war. Soviet forces liberated Otto at Auschwitz on January 27, 1945.
Through the years, Anne's diary has cauaed millions of people to feel the precaciousness of human life - with all of its possibilities and promises. She has come to be regarded as one of the most famous "voices" for the Holocaust and one of the greatest champions for racial justice in the twentieth century.
