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.

Legacy

On May 3, 1957, a group of citizens including Otto Frank established the Anne Frank Foundation in an effort to save the Prinsengracht building from demolition and to make it accessible to the public. Otto Frank insisted that the aim of the foundation would be to foster contact and communication between young people of different cultures, religions or racial backgrounds, and to oppose intolerance and racial discrimination.

Related Topics:
May 3 - 1957 - Racial discrimination

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The Anne Frank House opened on May 3, 1960. It consists of the Opekta warehouse and offices and the achterhuis, all unfurnished so that visitors can walk freely through the rooms. Some personal relics of the former occupants remain, such as movie star photographs glued by Anne to a wall, a section of wallpaper on which Otto Frank marked the height of his growing daughters, and a map on the wall where he recorded the advance of the Allied Forces, all now protected behind Perspex sheets. From the small room which was once home to Peter van Pels, a walkway connects the building to its neighbours, also purchased by the Foundation. These other buildings are used to house the diary, as well as changing exhibits that chronicle different aspects of the Holocaust and more contemporary examinations of racial intolerance in various parts of the world. It has become one of Amsterdam's main tourist attractions, and is visited by more than half a million people each year.

Related Topics:
Anne Frank House - May 3 - 1960 - Movie star - Allied Forces - Tourist attraction

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In 1963, Otto Frank and his second wife Fritzi set up the Anne Frank Fonds as a charitable foundation, based in Basel, Switzerland. The Fonds raises money to donate to causes "as it sees fit". Upon his death, Otto willed the diary's copyright to the Fonds, on the proviso that the first 80,000 Swiss francs in income each year was to be distributed to his heirs, and any income above this figure was to be retained by the Fonds to use for whatever projects its administrators considered worthy. It provides funding for the medical treatment of the Righteous Among the Nations on a yearly basis. It has aimed to educate young people against racism and has loaned some of Anne Frank's papers to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. for an exhibition in 2003. Its annual report of the same year gave some indication of its effort to contribute on a global level, with its support of projects in Germany, Israel, India, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States http://www.annefrank.ch/content/page-1.asp?PortLink=209&UnLnk=40&ConType=1&Lev=2&PortalId=99&RecordId=87.

Related Topics:
1963 - Charitable foundation - Basel - Switzerland - Copyright - Swiss franc - Righteous Among the Nations - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Washington, D.C. - 2003 - Israel - India - United Kingdom

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