IMAGES
Family Guide to the Exhibition Remember the Children: Daniel's Story

of ANNE FRANK

                                              

Web Search  - Use this site to find the answers to the questions on the hand-out. 

 

Anne’s Diary  - Outside view

The Diary published in 60 languages

Anne’s Diary – Inside View


 

The Yellow “Badges”

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Some of the 324 pages Anne wrote

The Wall in Anne’s Room


 

Location of the Secret Annex in Amsterdam

View of the Westertoren

Front View of the Annex


 

Otto Frank

Anne Frank

Helpers…Miep Gies & husband Jans
Anne Frank Website http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/pages/ http://www.ushmm.org/

  

 

"The power of Anne Frank lives on in her diary" By: Maaike Miedema

"Cycling, dancing, whistling, (…) to know that I'm free, that's what I long for.'" That is what Anne Frank writes in her diary on December 24, 1943. At that time she has already been in hiding in the Secret Annex for one and a half years. This is no fun for the lively Anne. Luckily she has her diary. The letters she writes in it to her imaginary girlfriend "Kitty" give Anne hope once again.

Before the war Anne has a whole circle of boyfriends and girlfriends. There are always children to play with and to laugh with. In the classroom she is a real chatterbox. She is regularly punished for being so. Anne loves history, movie stars, writing, dogs, cats and boys. In the ice-cream parlor "The Oase" (oasis) she often lets her friends treat her to an ice cream. On July 6, 1942 the carefree life of Anne comes to an end. By then the Netherlands has already been occupied by the German army for two years. The occupying force keeps thinking of more measures against Jews. Jews are not allowed to ride their bicycles, not allowed to walk in the park and can only do their shopping between three and five o'clock. On July 5, 1942 Margot, Anne's older sister, receives a call-up notice to go and work in a camp. Anne writes: "I was stunned, a call-up, everyone knows what that means, I already saw concentration camps and isolated cells appear in my mind (…)."

Going into hiding
Otto and Edith Frank, Anne's parents, decide to go into hiding with the entire family in the Secret Annex at Prinsengracht in Amsterdam. Later on four people join them in hiding: Mr. and Mrs. Van Pels and their son Peter and dentist Pfeffer. The people in hiding have to be awfully quiet. They walk around in their socks and the toilet may not be flushed during the day. Every little sound can betray them. Anne finds it hard to cope with her "new" life. She has lost everything: her girlfriends and boyfriends, her school, her freedom. Sometimes she is rebellious and sad. At night she often cries. During the day she is lively, active and usually cheerful. Anne is involved with everything and everyone, and always has a ready answer. Mr. and Mrs. Van Pels think she is a cheeky and poorly raised child. She is frequently at odds with her mother. Margot is often grumpy towards her. Peter isn't much of a help either.

Dear Kitty
People who have lost their freedom still look for a way to express themselves. So they can do something with their feelings and ideas. For that purpose Anne chooses her diary. She invents "Kitty", a girlfriend whom she can tell all about her experiences, sorrow and anger. The diary was a small present for her thirteenth birthday. On the first page she writes: "June 12, 1942. I hope I can confide everything to you, such as I haven't been able to confide in anyone, and I hope that you will be a great help to me." In the beginning Anne only writes for herself. Until the minister of Education, in a radio broadcast from London, reports that after the war a collection of diaries and letters will be made. Then Anne starts to rewrite her diary. She corrects parts and leaves others out. Meanwhile she also continues writing in her first diary. In it she writes that her greatest wish is to become a journalist or a famous writer. "In any case, after the war I want to publish a book entitled 'The Secret Annex', if this will work remains the question, but my diary can be used for it."

Arrested
On August 1, 1944 Anne writes in her diary for the last time. Three days later the people in hiding are arrested. They are betrayed. The diary stays behind in the Secret Annex. Seven months later Anne dies in camp Bergen-Belsen in Germany. Of all the people in hiding only Otto Frank returns after the war. He makes sure that the diary is published. The diary has now been translated into 55 languages. Millions of people all over the world have read the Secret Annex. It is like the Jewish girl Nicolette Faddel says on page 10: "Anne is dead now, but something of her strength and aura still lives on."

Who was Anne Frank?
1929 - On June 12 Anne is born in Frankfurt in Germany. Anne has a sister, Margot, who is three years older. The Frank family is Jewish.
1933 - Adolf Hitler, the leader of the National Socialists (Nazis) comes into power in Germany. Many Jews leave Germany. The Frank family moves to Amsterdam.
1939 - World War Two begins.
1940 - On May 10 the German army invades the Netherlands.
1942 - Anne gets a diary on her thirteenth birthday. A month later the Frank family went into hiding in the Secret Annex: a house behind the office of Anne's father, at Prinsengracht. The people in hiding are helped by people who worked in the office: Miep Gies, Bep Voskuijl, Johannes Kleiman and Victor Kugler.
1944 - On August 4 the eight people in hiding are arrested. Somebody has betrayed them. They are all taken to the camp in Auschwitz, an extermination camp in Poland. In October soldiers take Margot and Anne to a camp in Bergen-Belsen in Germany. At that moment the southern part of the Netherlands is already liberated.
1945 - In the camp the two sisters catch typhus, a contagious disease. In March Margot dies and a couple of days later Anne passes away. She was fifteen years old. On May 5 the rest of the Netherlands is liberated.
 

 http://www.annefrank.nl/eng/afs/AFS.cfm

"I Saw Anne Frank Die": By Holocaust Survivor Irma Menkel
Courtesy of Newsweek Magazine, July 21, 1997

I turned 100 years old in April and had a beautiful birthday party surrounded by my grandchildren, great-grand children and other family members. I even danced a little. Willard Scott mentioned my name on television. But such a time is also for reflection. I decided to overcome my long reluctance to revisit terrible times. Older people must tell their stories. With the help of Jonathan Alter of NEWSWEEK, here's a bit of mine:

I was born in Germany in 1897, got married and had two children in the 1920's. Then Hitler came to power, and like many other Jews, we fled to Holland. As the Nazi's closed in, we sent one daughter abroad with relatives and the other into hiding with my sister and her children in the Hague. My husband and I could not hide so easily, and in 1941 we were sent first to Westerbork, a transit camp where we stayed almost a year, and later to Bergen-Belsen, a work and transit camp, from where thousands of innocent people were sent to extermination camps. There were no ovens at Bergen-Belsen; instead the Nazi's killed us with starvation and disease. My husband and brother died there. I stayed for about three years before it was liberated in the spring of 1945. When I went in, I weighed more than 125 pounds. When I left, I weighed 78.

After I arrived at the Bergen-Belsen barracks, I was told I was to be the barracks leader. I said "I'm not strong enough to be barracks leader." They said that would be disobeying a command. I was terrified of this order, but had no choice. It turned out that the Nazi commandant of the camp was from my home town in Germany and had studied with my uncle in Strasbourg. This coincidence probably helped save my life. He asked to talk to me privately and wanted to know what I had heard of my uncle. I said I wanted to leave Bergen-Belsen, maybe go to Palestine. The commandant said, "If I could help you, I would, but I would lose my head." About once every three weeks, he would ask to see me. I was always afraid. It was very dangerous. Jews were often shot over nothing. After the war, I heard he had commited suicide.

There were about 500 women and girls in my barracks. Conditions were extremely crowed and unsanitary. No heat at all. Every morning, I had to get up at 5 and wake the rest. At 6 a.m., we went to roll call. Often we had to wait there for hours, no matter the weather. Most of the day, we worked as slave labor in the factory, making bullets for German soldiers. When we left Holland, I had taken only two changes of clothes, one toothbrush, no books or other possesions. Later I had a few more clothes, including a warm jacket, which came from someone who died. Men and women lined up for hourse to wash their clothes in the few sinks. There were no showers in our barracks. And no bedding. The day was spent working and waiting. At 10 p.m., lights out. At midnight, the inspection came-three or four soldiers. I had to say everything was in good condition, when, in fact, the conditions were beyond miserable. Then up again at 5a.m.

One of the children in my barracks toward the end of the war was Anne Frank, whose diary became famous after her death. I didn't know her family before-hand, and I don't recall much about her, but I do remember she was a quiet child. When I heard later that she was 15 when she was in the camps, I was surprised. She seemed younger to me. Pen and paper were hard to find, but I have a memory of her writing a bit. Typhus was a terrible problem, especially for the children. Of 500 in my barracks, maybe 100 got it, and most of them died. Many others starved to death. When Anne Frank got sick with typhus, I remember telling her she could stay in the barracks-she didn't have to go to roll call.

There was so little ot eat. In my early days there, we were each given one roll of bread for eight days, and we tore it up, piece by piece. One cup of black coffee a day and one cup of soup. And water. That was all. Later there was even less. When I asked the commandant for a little bit of gruel for the children's diet, he would sometimes give me some extra cereal. Anne Frank was among those who asked for cereal, but how could I find cereal for her? It was only for the little children, and only a little bit. The children died anyway. A couple of the trained nurses were among the inmates, and they reported to me. In the evening, we tried to help the sickest. In the morning, it was part of my job to tell the soldiers how many had died the night before. Then they would throw the bodies on the fire.

I have a dim memory of Anne Frank speaking about her father. She was a nice, fine person. She would say to me, "Irma, I am very sick." I said, "No, you are not sick." She wanted to be reassured that she wasn't. When she slipped into a coma, I took her in my arms. She didn't know that she was dying. She didn't know that she was so sick. You never know. At Bergen-Belsen, you did not have feelings anymore. You became paralyzed. In all the years since, I almost never talked about Bergen-Belsen. I couldn't. It was too much.

When the war was over, we went in a cattle truck to a place wehre we stole everything out of a house. I stole a pig, and we had a butcher who slaughtered it. Eating this- when we had eaten so little before-was bad for us. It made many even sicker. But you can't imagine how hungry we were. At the end, we had absolutely nothing to eat. I asked an American soldier holding a piece of bread if I could have a bite. He gave me the whole bread. That was really something for me.

When I got back to Holland, no one knew anything. I finally found a priest who had the address where my sister and daughter were. I didn't know if they were living or not. They were. They had been hidden by a man who worked for my brother. That was luck. I found them and I began crying. I was so thin at first that they didn't recognize me.

There are so many stories like mine, locked inside people for decades. Even my family heard only a little of this one until recently. Whatever stories you have in your family, tell them. It helps.

aghar102@hotmail.com

 

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