On June 12, 1942, a thirteen-year-old girl in Amsterdam, Netherlands, unwrapped a birthday gift that would eventually become one of history's most recognizable documents. That gift was a red and white checked diary, and the girl was Anne Frank. What made this small book so profoundly significant was its role as a record of her experiences hiding from the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Her First Entries
In the pages of her new diary, Anne addressed her writing as if she were speaking to a trusted, intimate friend and confidant. She expressed a deep hope that the book might offer her comfort and support through the dark and trying times she faced. Over the course of two years, while her family sought refuge in an Annex, the diary became her quiet means of making sense of the world surrounding her. The work, known today as Anne Frank: Diary of A Young Girl, has gone on to become one of the most sold and published books in existence.
Additional Facts:
- Anne Marie Frank was born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt, German.
- She would later die in March 1945 in a Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in Germany. She was 15 years old.
- Anne Frank had one sister named Margot Frank and a cousin named Buddy Elias.
- Anne Frank's parents were Otto Frank and Edith Frank. Edith Frank would later die from starvation at the age of 44.
- The Frank family spent two years hiding in the Annex before they were discovered and separated.
- Anne and Margot are presumed to have succumbed to typhus.