The diary she wrote while hiding from the Nazi army during World War II remains an “important human document” and has been published in over seventy languages, writes Mary M. Moloney

 

“…I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too…”
Anne Frank, July 15, 1944.

Annelies (Anne) Frank had lived in Amsterdam for over ten years when she wrote these prophetic words.
Although born in Frankfurt, her parents, Otto and Edith, decided to leave their native Germany with their two daughters, Margo and Anne, in 1933, following Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.

Similar to 300,000 other Jewish people who fled Germany for foreign lands in the six years leading up to World War II, they hoped they would find safety. “Because we’re Jewish, my father immigrated to Holland … became the managing director of the Dutch Opeka Company, which manufactures products used in making jam.”
Anne was enrolled at Amsterdam’s Sixth Montessori School in 1934. She was a bright, inquisitive student who learned Dutch and made new friends, often getting into trouble for talking too much. Outside of school, she enjoyed playing ping-pong and going to ice-cream parlours.

Despite her happy, carefree life, Anne was aware of the changes when the Nazi army invaded the Netherlands. “After May 1940, the good times were few and far between.”
The Nazis introduced the Third Reich’s anti-semitic legislation in the newly occupied country. Jewish people had to wear a yellow Star of David, obey a curfew, and were forbidden from owning their businesses.
Anne’s father controlled his company by officially transferring ownership to two Christian associates. Meanwhile, Anne and her sister Margot were forced to transfer to a segregated Jewish school.

In July, 1942, the Germans began sending Dutch Jews to concentration camps. The Franks tried to emigrate to the US but were denied visas. On July 5, Margot received a letter to report to a Nazi work camp in Germany. Knowing what this meant, the next day, the Frank family went into hiding at Prinsengracht 263, the secret annex. Today, it is one of Amsterdam’s three most popular museums.

Otto’s business partner Hermann van Pels, his wife, Auguste, son Peter, and a German-Jewish dentist, Fritz Pfeffer, joined them. Otto’s employees, including Miep Gies, provided them with food and news from the outside world during their two years in hiding.
While in hiding, Anne kept a diary recording her hopes, fears, and experiences. She received her first diary, ‘Kitty’, on her 13th birthday, June 12, 1942, writing, “I hope I will be able to confide to you, I have never been able to confide in anyone.”

Her writings revealed a teenage girl with creativity, wisdom, and depth of emotion, far beyond her years.

Hearing the Dutch Minister for Education (in exile) Gerrit Bolkestein, on radio call for people to save their war-time diaries and letters to help document the suffering of the Nazi occupation, inspired Anne to edit her diary.
“Imagine how interesting it would be if I published a novel about the secret annex,” (when the war ended).

From May 20 until her arrest, she transferred two-thirds of her diary from her original notebooks to loose pages, making various revisions.

On March 29, 1944, she wrote of her experiences but added, “Although I tell you a lot … you only know very little of our lives”.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own