Anne Frank

Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (June 12 1929 – c. March 1945) was a German Jewish girl who wrote a diary while in hiding with her family and four friends in Amsterdam during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. Her family had moved to Amsterdam after the Nazis gained power in Germany but were trapped when the Nazi occupation extended into The Netherlands. As persecutions against the Jewish population increased, the family went into hiding in July 1942 in hidden rooms in Otto Frank's office building. After two years in hiding, the group was betrayed and transported to concentration camps where Anne died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen within days of her sister, Margot, in March 1945. Her father, Otto, the only survivor of the group, returned to Amsterdam after the war ended, to find that her diary had been saved. Convinced that it was a unique record he took action to have it published.

The Diary of a Young Girl

Publication of the diary

Otto Frank survived and returned to Amsterdam. He was informed that his wife had died, but he also learnt that his daughters had been transferred to Bergen-Belsen, and he remained hopeful that they had survived. In July 1945, the Red Cross confirmed the deaths of Anne and Margot and it was only then that Miep Gies gave him the diary. He read it and later commented that he had not realised Anne had kept such an accurate and well-written record of their time together. Moved by her repeated wish to be an author, he began to consider having it published. When asked many years later to recall his first reaction he said simply, "I never knew my little Anne was so deep".

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Anne's diary began as a private expression of her thoughts and she wrote several times that she would never allow anyone to read it. She candidly described her life, her family and companions, and their situation, while beginning to recognise her ambition to write fiction for publication. In the spring of 1944, she heard a radio broadcast by Gerrit Bolkestein—a member of the Dutch government in exile—who said that when the war ended, he would create a public record of the Dutch people's oppression under German occupation. He mentioned the publication of letters and diaries, and Anne decided to submit her work when the time came. She began editing her writing, removing sections and rewriting others, with the view to publication. Her original notebook was supplemented by additional notebooks and loose-leaf sheets of paper. She created pseudonyms for the members of the household and the helpers. The van Pels family became Hermann, Petronella, and Peter van Daan, and Fritz Pfeffer became Albert Düssell. Otto Frank used her original diary, known as "version A", and her edited version, known as "version B", to produce the first version for publication. He removed certain passages, most notably those which referred to his wife in unflattering terms, and sections that discussed Anne's growing sexuality. Although he restored the true identities of his own family, he retained all of the other pseudonyms.

Related Topics:
Gerrit Bolkestein - Government in exile - Pseudonym - Sexuality

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He gave the diary to the historian Anne Romein, who tried unsuccessfully to have it published. She then gave it to her husband Jan Romein, who wrote an article about it, titled "Kinderstem" ("A Child's Voice"), published in the newspaper Het Parool on April 3, 1946. He wrote that the diary "stammered out in a child's voice, embodies all the hideousness of fascism, more so than all the evidence at Nuremberg put together" http://www.annefrank.org/content.asp?pid=112&lid=2. His article attracted attention from publishers, and the diary was published in 1947, followed by a second run in 1950. The first American edition was published in 1952 under the title '. A play based upon the diary, by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, premiered in New York City on October 5 1955, and later won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It was followed by the 1959 movie The Diary of Anne Frank, which was a critical and commercial success. Over the years the popularity of the diary grew, and in many schools, particularly in the United States, it was included as part of the curriculum, introducing Anne Frank to new generations of readers.

Related Topics:
Jan Romein - Het Parool - April 3 - 1946 - Fascism - Nuremberg - 1947 - 1950 - American - 1952 - Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett - New York City - October 5 - 1955 - Pulitzer Prize for Drama - 1959 movie - The Diary of Anne Frank - Curriculum

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In 1986, a critical edition of the diary was published http://www.riod.nl/engels/Institute%20publications1.html. It compared her original entries with her father's edited versions, and included discussion relating its authentication, and historical information relating to the family.

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In 1999, Cornelis Suijk—a former director of the Anne Frank Foundation and president of the U.S. Center for Holocaust Education Foundation—announced that he was in the possession of five pages that had been removed by Otto Frank from the diary prior to publication; Suijk claimed that Otto Frank gave these pages to him shortly before his death in 1980. The missing diary entries contain critical remarks by Anne Frank about her parents' strained marriage, and show Anne's lack of affection for her mother http://www.annefrank.org/content.asp?PID=432&LID=2. Some controversy ensued when Suijk claimed publishing rights over the five pages and intended to sell them to raise money for his U.S. Foundation. The Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, the formal owner of the manuscript, demanded the pages to be handed over. In 2000 the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science agreed to donate US$300,000 to Suijk's Foundation, and the pages were returned in 2001 http://www.minocw.nl/english_oud/press/2001-005.html. Since then, they have been included in new editions of the diary.

Related Topics:
1999 - Center for Holocaust Education Foundation - 1980 - 2000 - US$ - 2001

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Praise for Anne Frank and the Diary

In her introduction to the diary's first American edition, Eleanor Roosevelt described it as "one of the wisest and most moving commentaries on war and its impact on human beings that I have ever read". The Soviet writer Ilya Ehrenburg later said: "one voice speaks for six million—the voice not of a sage or a poet but of an ordinary little girl." http://www.edwardsly.com/franka.htm As Anne Frank's stature as both a writer and humanist has grown, she has been discussed specifically as a symbol of the Holocaust and more broadly as a representative of persecution. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in her acceptance speech for an Elie Wiesel Humanitarian Award in 1994, read from Anne Frank's diary and spoke of her "awakening us to the folly of indifference and the terrible toll it takes on our young," which Clinton related to contemporary events in Sarajevo, Somalia and Rwanda http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/EOP/First_Lady/other/1994-04-14-first-lady-remarks-elie-wiesel-humanitarian-awards.html. After receiving a humanitarian award from the Anne Frank Foundation in 1994, Nelson Mandela addressed a crowd in Johannesburg, saying he had read Anne Frank's diary while in prison and "derived much encouragement from it." He likened her struggle against Nazism to his struggle against apartheid, drawing a parallel between the two philosophies with the comment "because these beliefs are patently false, and because they were, and will always be, challenged by the likes of Anne Frank, they are bound to fail." http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mandela/1994/sp940815.html

Related Topics:
Eleanor Roosevelt - Soviet - Ilya Ehrenburg - Humanist - Hillary Rodham Clinton - Elie Wiesel Humanitarian Award - 1994 - Sarajevo - Somalia - Rwanda - Nelson Mandela - Johannesburg - Apartheid

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In her closing message in Melissa Müller's biography of Anne Frank, Miep Gies attempted to dispel what she felt was a growing misconception that "Anne symbolizes the six million victims of the Holocaust", writing: "Anne's life and death were her own individual fate, an individual fate that happened six million times over. Anne cannot, and should not, stand for the many individuals whom the Nazis robbed of their lives... But her fate helps us grasp the immense loss the world suffered because of the Holocaust."

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The diary has also been praised for its literary merits. Commenting on Anne Frank's writing style, the dramatist Meyer Levin – who worked with Otto Frank on a dramatisation of the diary shortly after its publication http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0411/is_n2_v46/ai_19680329 – praised it for "sustaining the tension of a well-constructed novel" http://www.edwardsly.com/franka.htm, while the poet John Berryman wrote that it was a unique depiction, not merely of adolescence but of "the mysterious, fundamental process of a child becoming an adult as it is actually happening" http://www.edwardsly.com/franka.htm. Her biographer Melissa Müller said that she wrote "in a precise, confident, economical style stunning in its honesty". Her writing is largely a study of characters, and she examines every person in her circle with a shrewd, uncompromising eye. She is occasionally cruel and often biased, particularly in her depictions of Fritz Pfeffer and of her own mother, and Müller explains that she channelled the "normal mood swings of adolescence" into her writing. Her examination of herself and her surroundings is sustained over a lengthy period of time in an introspective, analytical and highly self critical manner, and in moments of frustration she relates the battle being fought within herself between the "good Anne" she wants to be, and the "bad Anne" she believes herself to be. Otto Frank recalled his publisher explaining why he thought the diary has been so widely read, with the comment "he said that the diary encompasses so many areas of life that each reader can find something that moves him personally".

Related Topics:
Drama - Meyer Levin - Poet - John Berryman

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Denials and legal action

Efforts have been made to discredit the diary since its publication, and since the mid 1970s Holocaust denier David Irving has been consistent in his assertion that the diary is not genuine http://www2.ca.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/f/frank.anne/Kuttner-rebuts-deniers. Continued public statements made by such Holocaust deniers prompted Teresien da Silva to comment on behalf of Anne Frank House in 1999, "for many right-wing extremists (Anne) proves to be an obstacle. Her personal testimony of the persecution of the Jews and her death in a concentration camp are blocking the way to a rehabilitation of national socialism".

Related Topics:
1970s - Holocaust denier - David Irving - 1999 - Right-wing - Extremist - National socialism

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Since the 1950s Holocaust denial has been a criminal offence in several European countries, including Germany, and the law has been used to prevent a rise in neo-Nazi activity. In 1959 Otto Frank took legal action in Lübeck against Lothar Stielau, a school teacher and former Hitler Youth member who published a school paper that described the diary as a forgery. The court examined the diary, and in 1960 found it to be genuine. Stielau recanted his earlier statement, and Otto Frank did not pursue the case any further.

Related Topics:
1950s - Neo-Nazi - 1959 - Lübeck - Hitler Youth - 1960

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In 1958, Simon Wiesenthal was challenged by a group of protesters at a performance of The Diary of Anne Frank in Vienna who asserted that Anne Frank had never existed, and who told Wiesenthal to prove her existence by finding the man who had arrested her. He began searching for Karl Silberbauer and found him in 1963. When interviewed, Silberbauer readily admitted his role, and identifed Anne Frank from a photograph as one of the people arrested. He provided a full account of events and recalled emptying a briefcase full of papers onto the floor. His statement corroborated the version of events that had previously been presented by witnesses such as Otto Frank.

Related Topics:
1958 - Simon Wiesenthal - Vienna - Karl Silberbauer - 1963

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In 1976 Otto Frank took action against Heinz Roth of Frankfurt, who published pamphlets stating the diary was a forgery. The judge ruled that if he published further statements he would be subjected to a 500,000 Deutschmark fine and a six months' jail sentence. Two cases were dismissed by German courts in 1978 and 1979 on the grounds of freedom of speech, as the complaint was not filed by an "injured party". The court ruled in each case that if a further complaint was made by an injured party, such as Otto Frank, a charge of slander could follow.

Related Topics:
1976 - Deutschmark - 1978 - 1979 - Freedom of speech - Slander

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The controversy reached its peak in 1980 with the arrest and trial of two neo-Nazis, Ernst Römer and Edgar Geiss, who were tried and found guilty of producing and distributing literature denouncing the diary as a forgery, following a complaint by Otto Frank. During their appeal, a team of historians examined the documents in consultation with Otto Frank, and determined them to be genuine.

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With Otto Frank's death in 1980, the original diary, including letters and loose sheets, were willed to the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, who commissioned a forensic study of the diary through the Netherlands Ministry of Justice in 1986. They examined the handwriting against known exemplars and found that they matched, and determined that the paper, glue and ink were readily available during the time the diary was said to have been written. Their final determination was that the diary is authentic. On March 23, 1990, the Hamburg Regional Court confirmed its authenticity.

Related Topics:
Netherlands Institute for War Documentation - Forensic - 1986 - Handwriting - March 23 - 1990 - Hamburg

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