"It's utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too will end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I'll be able to realize them!" –Saturday, July 15, 1944


Anne Frank was fifteen years old when she wrote these words in her diary. As Jews trying to survive during World War II, her family, along with their four friends, had been in hiding for just over two years in a secret annexe built over her father's warehouse on in Amsterdam. During this time in hiding, as her diary entries reveal, Anne matured from a girl to a young woman with strong opinions and a great compassion for others.

Annelies Marie Frank was born to Otto and Edith (Hollander) Frank on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt, Germany. Four years later, in March 1933, the Nazis were elected the majority party in Germany; two months after that, in May 1933, Adolf Hitler seized absolute power as Fuhrer. Anti-Semitism became widespread–a fact of daily life in Germany where Jews were no longer recognized as citizens and Jewish children were no longer welcome at schools attended by non-Jewish children. 

To ensure the family's safety, Otto and Edith Frank decided to take their young daughters, Margot and Anne, to the Netherlands, which had remained neutral during World War I and where increasing numbers of Jews had found refuge. The Franks were among more than 63,000 Jews who left Germany in 1933. The Frank family settled into an Amsterdam apartment at 37 Merwedeplain, and Otto set up a branch of the family company, Opekta Works, at 263 Prinsengracht. Margot and Anne attended school, made friends, and learned the Dutch language. 

After several years of relative safety, the Frank family's lives changed dramatically in May 1940, when Germany, which had already invaded Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, invaded Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. Jews living in these countries were stripped of their rights as citizens; Jewish property was seized for "Aryanization," and Jews were excluded from all public parks, swimming pools, and hotels. Shortly thereafter, Jewish education officers were removed from their jobs, and by July 1941, many schools began dismissing Jewish children. Margot and Anne Frank were transferred to the Jewish Lyceum in Amsterdam. Soon the authorities began deporting Jews to labor and concentration camps; these mass deportations would culminate in the deaths of millions. 

In January 1942, like their friends the Van Pels family, the Frank family applied to Dutch authorities for safe passage to England.. In April 1942 the Franks and the Van Pels observed Passover together. On June 12, 1942, Anne Frank celebrated her thirteenth birthday. Her favorite gift was the red, orange, and gray-checked autograph book that she began using as her diary. In her first entry, made on her birthday, Anne wrote: "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." 

In May1942, over 1500 Jews, received call-up notices to leave for Dutch work camps. The Frank family decided it was time to go into hiding. Three days later, Anne wrote about the family's abrupt departure from their apartment:

"At seven-thirty we too closed the door behind us; Moortje, my cat, was the only living creature I said goodbye to. According to a note we left for Mr. Goldschmidt, she was to be taken to the neighbors, who would give her a good home. The stripped beds, the breakfast things on the table, the pound of meat for the cat in the kitchen–all of these created the impression that we'd left in a hurry. But we weren't interested in impressions. We just wanted to get out of there, to get away and each our destination in safety. Nothing else mattered."

For some time the annexe (the rear attic and two floors beneath it) above the Opekta Works had been in preparation: food, bedclothes, kitchen utensils, furniture, and other items had been taken to the hiding place after office hours. On July 5, 1942, the Frank family went into hiding in the annexe, with the assistance of their non-Jewish friends and Otto's co-workers Miep and Jan Gies, Victor Jugler, Johannes Kleinamm, and Bep Voskuijl. Their friends Auguste, Hermann, and Peter van Pels joined them. Soon Fritz Pfeffer, a German dentist, became the eighth person to move into the annexe.

Throughout the twenty-five months that the group was in hiding, Anne Frank continued writing regularly in her diary. After filling her first volume, Anne continues her diary writing on looseleaf paper. She wrote of daily events, relationships with the others in the annexe, and the horrifying events taking place in the outside world: Her diary entry for May 25, 1944, contains this sobering observation: "The world's been turned upside down. The most decent people are being sent to concentration camps, prisons, and lonely cells, while the lowest of the low rule over young and old, rich and poor."

As Anne continued her diary, she reread old diary entries , recopying and re-arranging them, and creating a list of pseudonyms to be used in the book she planned to write once World War II ended. On May, 11, 1944, she wrote: ". . . after the war I'd like to publish a book called The Secret Annex. It remains to be seen whether I'll succeed, but my diary can serve as the basis."

News of the Allied Forces' invasion of France in June 1944 brought hope to the residents of the annexe that the liberation of the Netherlands would soon follow. On July 15, 1944, Anne wrote in her diary of her hopes and fears: "It's utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too will end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I'll be able to realize them!"

Less than three weeks later, on August 4, 1944, they would be discovered and arrested by German and Dutch security police, then sent to Westerbork, a transit camp for Jews in northern Holland. On September 3, 1944, they were deported to Auschwitz concentration camp on the last transport train to leave Westerbork. Then they were separated. In October 1944, Anne and her sister Margot were transported to Bergen-Belsen, where in early March 1945, both died of typhus within days of one another, not long before the concentration camp was liberated by British forces on April 12, 1945. When their father Otto Frank, the only family member to survive the concentration camps, returned to Amsterdam in June 1945, his friend Miep Gies handed him Anne's diary and other writings that she had gathered up and saved for him. Three years later, after intensive efforts, Otto Frank published an edited and abridged version of his daughter Anne's diary.

In the decades that followed, the diary has been published worldwide in over sixty languages, and its authenticity has been challenged by neo-Nazis who have claimed it is a hoax. In 1986, after conducting a lengthy investigation, the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation verified the authenticity of the diary and published a critical edition containing all of Anne Frank's original diary entries, her rewritten entries, her fiction, and her notes. In 1998, several more unknown and unpublished diary pages came to light; they had been given by Otto Frank to a friend for safekeeping before the 1947 abridged edition of the diary was published. Recent biographies, along with several critical studies of Holocaust literature, provide important contexts for understanding the diary and life of Anne Frank.

"Ultimately, people shape their own characters. In addition, I face life with an extraordinary amount of courage. I feel so strong and capable of bearing burdens, so young and free! When I first realized this, I was glad, because it means I can more easily withstand the blows life has in store." –Saturday, July 15, 1944


For further reading:

Enzer, Hyman A., and Sandra Solotaroff-Enzer, eds. Anne Frank: Reflections on Her Life and Legacy. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000.

Lee, Carol Ann. The Biography of Anne Frank: Roses from the Earth. New York: Penguin Books, 1999.

Muller, Melissa. Anne Frank: The Biography. Trans. Rita Kimber and Robert Kimber. New York: Henry Holt, 1998.

Pressler, Mirjam. Anne Frank: A Hidden Life. New York: Dutton, 1999.

Schwarz, Daniel R. Imagining the Holocaust. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999.


[Notes above were prepared by Dr. Suzanne Bunkers, Professor of English, MSU, as part of her work as the dramaturge during the production of  The Diary of Anne Frank, directed by Dr. Nina Lenoir, at MSU in February 2001.]