Summary of Anne Frank’s Diary (1929–1945)
Learn about this diarist from the Holocaust, who gave a lot of details about WWII, the Holocaust, and her life in hiding
Anneliese Marie Frank or Anne Frank was a young girl who became famous for her diary, known as the Diary of a Young Girl. She belonged to a Jewish family who fled Germany and went to Amsterdam (Netherlands) when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 and enacted anti-Jewish laws and decrees, therefore, starting the Holocaust.
One day, the Frank family received a call-up notice from the Schutzstaffel (SS) which was the paramilitary organization of the Nazis responsible for running concentration camps and enforcing Nazi racial policies. It was for Anne’s sister Margot. Hence, they decided to go into hiding. They had already been shifting their stuff but left in a hurry with bare minimum essentials. They carried only that many clothes which they could wear all together.
The family then arrived at 263 Prinsengracht (Anne’s father’s office building). The office staff was informed of the Frank family’s coming when they were going into hiding. The warehouse was on the ground floor. Above it was the office, and above that there was a store. Near it was the entrance to the Secret Annexe. One of the helpers, Bep’s father covered the entrance to the Annexe behind a revolving bookcase and map so that nobody could know that a family was hiding here.
A week later, the van Pels family, another Jewish family joined them, and later, a dentist named Fritz Pfeffer also joined them. Their helpers were Miep Santrouschitz Gies, Elisabeth “Bep” Voskuijl Wijk, Johannes Kleiman, and Victor Kugler, who helped them by supplying them with food like potatoes, peas, vegetables, ration etc., and kept them safe. Total 8 people stayed there for 25 months.
To remain hidden, they had to close the curtains during the daytime, so that nobody could spot them. They couldn’t do much activity, so that the workers in the warehouse could not hear them and have suspicions about them. They could not go outside, and they had to switch the lights off during the evening.
Before 8:30 AM, they would quickly use the washroom and flush the toilet because the workers came at this time. Then they would be fully silent. They couldn’t use the toilet because if they flushed it then the workers could have suspicions as the sewage pipe went through the warehouse walls. Then, after 9:00 AM, when the Office staff arrived, they could resume their daily activity as the workers would think that the office staff was doing the activity. They listened to the radio during lunchtime when workers went for lunch and after 6:00 PM when the workers finally left.
They faced many difficulties in the Annexe. Like sometimes they couldn’t use the washroom, and even if they did, they couldn’t flush it in order to avoid suspicion to others. Sometimes they didn’t have much food, so they had to eat only one type of food for days. There was only one bathtub, so everyone took turns and used it. Ration and other items were limited, and they lived in a constant state of fear of getting caught.
But even after so many problems, they tried to be cheerful and happy. They celebrated birthdays, festivals, and tried to cooperate with each other though there were some adjustment issues. They followed a timetable. They regularly followed news. They would be happy when the Allies achieved something or something bad happened at the Axis powers’ side, but unhappy when the Germans achieved something. They were kind enough to let in other people as well. But after a prolonged stay, they went into depression and started conflicting with each other.
Anne Frank had decorated her room’s walls with photos of actors and actresses. She studied French, English, and Dutch and learnt shorthand. She also studied algebra, mythology (Greek and Roman) and genealogical charts. She wrote her diary and read novels.
Anne Frank was hopeful, optimistic, and thankful that she was safe and not like the other Jewish children who were being taken to concentration camps where they would die. She often got afraid in night because of the guns going off or air raids. She loved her father but her relationship with her mother and others was problematic since they scolded her and commented on her, which she didn’t like.
Earlier, she didn’t like Peter van Pels but later, she fell in love with him. Her diary was her imaginary friend whom she called Kitty, in which she wrote her thoughts and daily life. She wanted to be a journalist and a writer when she grew up and wanted her diary to be published after WWII.
On 4th August 1944, after hiding for 25 months, the 8 people were finally discovered and then arrested. First, they were imprisoned, then sent to Westerbork, the transit camp for Jews. From there, they were sent to Auschwitz, a concentration camp in Poland. Anne and Margot were transported from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen, another concentration camp that was in Germany. There, both of them died due to typhus weeks before the British liberated it.
Her diary was discovered by Miep and Bep, who gave it to Anne’s father Otto Frank, the only one of the eight people in the Annexe who survived and came back to Amsterdam after Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians. He published the diary in 1947 under the name “Het Achterhuis” or the Secret Annexe. In 1952, it was published in the US under the name “the Diary of a Young Girl”. It became a required reading material in schools because it tells the reader that how life was like in hiding and how life was like for a Jew during Holocaust. It sold millions of copies worldwide. Anne Frank’s hiding place was converted into a museum, named the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam.
Her diary is a great source of authentic historical information which gives us firsthand account of the Jewish struggle. Though Anne Frank died at the age of 15 years, yet through her Diary she became a world-famous writer posthumously.
Bibliography-
Photographs from Microsoft Edge
Info from Anne Frank’s diary, School History, and History Extra
