Anne Frank Short Biography
The early life of Anne Frank
On June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt am Main, Anne Frank was born. She was named after Anne Marie van Vogt, a friend of her mother’s. Her father, Otto, was a businessman and a German Jew who later became Swiss citizens. Edith’s mother was the daughter of a German-Jewish banker and a Dutch-Jewish woman from what is now the Netherlands. When Anne was four, the family moved to Amsterdam, where she attended a Montessori school until she was ten. She was an intelligent child who liked to play the piano and explore the world around her. Anne’s world was shattered in July 1942 when the Nazis began deporting Jews from the Netherlands. As a result of their efforts to hide, Anne’s family and friends were arrested by the Nazis and sent to concentration camps.
Period chronicled in the diary.
Anne Frank’s diary chronicles the two years she and her family hid in a secret annexe in Amsterdam. Although most of the log is about her everyday existence, several sections are devoted to her growing awareness of the increasing cruelty of the Nazi regime and their brutal treatment of the Jews in occupied Europe. She also writes about her desire to be an author and her hope that she will one day be published. Her diary ended on August 1, 1944, the day her family was discovered by the Gestapo. Anne is subsequently sent to a concentration camp, where she dies.
The arrest of Anne Frank
Shortly after the Public Health Department of the Municipal Health Department (G Municipal Health Authority) of the City of Amsterdam ordered the closure of the Secret Annex due to “fumigation,” Anne Frank and the others living there were arrested by the German Security Police. They were taken to the police station, where they were held for a short time and questioned about the nature of their “business.” Since there was no evidence to suggest that they were engaged in any illegal “activities,” they were released.
Deportation and life in captivity
After their release from the police station, the eight residents of the Secret Annex were informed that they would be deported to Nazi concentration camps. They were given a few days to prepare for the trip and were allowed to take a few personal belongings, though no money and no clothes for the winter were allowed. On the last day of the deadline, MiepGies, one of the helpers of the Franks and the van Pulses, went to the Secret Annex, picked up the diary, which Anne had left behind, and gave it to Mr Otto Frank after the war.
Later life and Death
After her arrest, Anne Frank was first sent to a transit camp in Baden-Baden, Germany, where she and the others in her group slept in unbathed and unshaven tents. She and the other women were then sent by train to Auschwitz-Birkenau, a notorious concentration camp and extermination camp in southern Poland. In early 1945, Anne and the other female prisoners in her group, who had been transferred to a sub-camp at the Gross-Rosen concentration camp in the southern German state of Saxony, were each given a text that they were required to fill out to be transferred to a “Miners’ Work Detail” in the area of Follow in the German state of Pomerania. Anne did not want to go and asked to stay in the women’s sub-camp with her friends as she was afraid of being sent to work in the mines.
Legacy
Anne Frank’s diary has become a symbol of the dangers of repression, discrimination, and hatred. Her writings have ensured her a place in history as one of the most influential figures in the battle against the denial of fundamental rights to minorities and the fight against racism and anti-Semitism. Anne Frank has also become a symbol of courage, survival, and inspiration to people worldwide. In her diary, Anne Frank chronicles the two years she and her family hid in a secret annexe in Amsterdam.
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