Annelies Marie Frank also known as Anne Frank is one of the most talked about holocaust victims. She is most known for her diary, that was found and now has been translated in many languages. Her diary was then turned into a book called,” The Secret Annex.”
Annelies Marie Frank was born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt Germany. She lived with her parents and her older sister Margot while they lived in an apartment there for the first five years of her life. When the Nazis came to power in 1933 Anne’s father was able to flee to Amsterdam due to business connections. The rest of Anne’s family leaving to there soon after, her being the last leaving in February of 1934. In 1942 the Germans began to prepare to send all Jews from the Netherlands to a killing center in the east. The Frank family soon went into hiding.
The Frank family went into hiding for 2 years in a secret apartment on Prinsengracht Street. This apartment was behind the company Otto Frank had worked at. The Frank family hid there with four other people, Hermann, Auguste, Peter Van Pels, and Fritz Pfeffer. Anne called this place, “The Secret Annex.” Johannes Kleiman, Victor Kugler, Johan Voskijl, Bep Voskuijl, Jan Gies and Meip Gies were all Otto Frank’s friends and colleagues. They helped them by smuggling food and clothes to the Frank family, putting their own life on the line.
The SS and police found “The Secret Annex” on August 4th, 1944. It’s thought that they found the hiding place by getting tipped off by an anonymous Dutch caller, another thought is that they discovered the hiding place while going through legal work on the apartment. The Frank family was arrested that day and sent to Westbrook transit camp on August 8th. On September 3rd that year authorities sent the Franks and the four others that were hiding with them on a train to be transported to Auschwitz. They arrived there with 1019 other Jewish men and woman
Anne and her sister were chosen for labor, making it so they had to get a number tattooed on themselves. These were called their prison numbers. In November of 1994 Anne was deported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp along with her sister. The conditions at this camp were horrible. The two sisters ended up catching Typhus and sadly passed away in February of 1945 because of it. Even though Anne Frank passed away over 75 years and she her story is still getting told all over the world.
