Before Anne was thirteen, she had been sent to a special school because of her religion and World War II had started. When Anne’s thirteenth birthday came, she received a diary that changed the way millions of people now think. A month later, her sister, Margot was called to report to a transit camp. It was then that Otto Frank saw the sign he needed to take the family into hiding. They were in a secret annexe above the Opekta-Works in Amsterdam. Altogether with the Van Daan family and Mr Dussel the dentist there was eleven people.
Through the two years they were in hiding, millions of Jews were being taken to concentration camps to be killed. Anne lived in constant fear. August 1944, the group in hiding are betrayed and split up into various concentration camps, for four months the group live in doubt and uncertainty as to who is still alive.
January 7th 1945, Auschwitz is liberated. Otto Frank is the soul survivor from the annex.
Anne had a fairly middle class life up until she moved to Holland. There she made new friends, but lived a lesser lifestyle. The only comparison I can think of is when I moved to middle school. I was the only one to go to Lindisfarne from my first school, it was hard at first, but I soon made new friends. Obviously moving countries is much harder than schools so I can only imagine what it would have been like for Anne.
It wasn’t long before her eleventh birthday, around the same time that Jews were starting to be “erased” from Germany. At this time, Anne had to go to an all Jewish school. This was her first experience of other people hating her because of her own religion.
Anne wasn’t able to speak to her friends, go to the cinema/theatre, go shopping, use a telephone or even go to the park. All of her everyday activities and rights were taken away. If this happened to me, I don’t know what I would do to keep entertained.
All this time spent in Holland, her father had foreseen what was happening and was planning to go into hiding. It finally happened in 1942. Anne was thirteen and had received the famous diary, her elder sister; Margot had been called in for a work camp. This was the final signal Otto needed. They moved into the secret annexe on July 6th, 1942. A week later they were joined by the Van Daan family and Mr Dussel the dentist.
For two years they lived in torment, constantly frustrated that they could not move during the day. Eleven people in total lived above the small factory, Anne had no friends to talk to, and having a talkative nature didn’t help her much at all. She felt “trapped” in on herself. She had regular arguments with her mum, Margot and the other family. ‘Kitty’ as her diary was known was her only companion in the times of hardship she went through.
I am a very personal person. I can stay in my room for hours without having to speak to other people. However, I could come down and have hour long conversations with people I’ve never met before. Hearing what Anne went through though makes me wonder how a seemingly insignificant book kept her sane and positive for that amount of time.
August 4th, 1944. Just sixty years ago this year, the eleven were betrayed. Nazi soldiers came storming up and took away everyone in the room. They all went to concentration camps like Auschwitz. After a month they were all separated, after a year ten were dead.
This makes me angry, the fact that they managed to stay alive for so long to be killed anyway, because of one man. Hitler.
The story of Anne Frank shows to me that the authority Hitler had made a fourteen yr old girl physically break down. The story shows just how oppression is converted into depression. The pressure in her mind was released by conferring with her diary.
Joe Lockey