Anne Frank, in full Annelies Marie Frank was born June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany and she died February/March 1945 at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, near Hannover. Anne was a Jewish girl whose diary of her family’s two years in hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands became a classic of war literature.
Early in the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler, Anne’s father, Otto Frank (1889–1980), a German businessman, took his wife and two daughters to live in Amsterdam. In 1941, after German forces occupied the Netherlands, Anne was compelled to transfer from a public school to a Jewish one. On June 12, 1942, she received a red-and-white plaid diary for her 13th birthday. That day she began writing in the book: “I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support.”
When Anne’s sister, Margot, was faced with deportation (supposedly to a forced-labor camp), the Franks went into hiding on July 6, 1942, in the backroom office and warehouse of Otto Frank’s food-products business. With the aid of a few non-Jewish friends, among them Miep Gies, who smuggled in food and other supplies, the Frank family and four other Jews—Hermann and Auguste van Pels and their son, Peter, and Fritz Pfeffer—lived confined to the “secret annex.” During this time, Anne wrote faithfully in her diary, recounting day-to-day life in hiding, from ordinary annoyances to the fear of capture. She discussed typical adolescent issues as well as her hopes for the future, which included becoming a journalist or a writer. Anne’s last diary entry was written on August 1, 1944. Three days later the annex was discovered by the Gestapo, which was acting on a tip from Dutch informers.
Source: "Anne Frank." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 9 Dec. 2020.
In support of the Jefferson College Theatre Department's production of The Diary of Anne Frank, the Jefferson College Library has brought together a selection of resources for those who would like to learn more. Please Ask-A-Librarian if you need help finding resources.
This event features the music of Jewish composers. October 18, 7:30 pm in the Fine Arts Theater.