Anne Frank: The girl who wrote a diary and went on living after death

If you are reading this, there’s every possibility that you already know who Anne Frank was. A Jewish girl whose family fled Germany to the Netherlands to escape persecution by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi wrath. But it wasn’t to be. During her hiding years, who could live only in her teens, wrote down her feelings in an autograph book that her father had gifted her on her 13th birthday.

Exactly 77 years ago, her diary was first published — on 25 June 1947 — and quickly became a beloved bestseller around the world. Her autobiographical book has been translated into 70 different languages.

In her diary, Anne Frank wrote, “I want to go on living after my death.” She could not get to live the life she wanted, but she has gone on living after her death.

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So, what’s her story?

Anne Frank was born on June 12,1929, in Frankfurt, Germany to Otto and Edith Frank. Soon the political situation of Germany underwent a radical change. Hitler, a soldier-turned-politician, had gained prominence in German politics fanning hate against the Jewish community, whom he blamed for the loss his nation suffered in the First World War, and a humiliated, economically struggling and emotionally agitated public believed him.

Of the millions Jewish people who faced persecution at the hands of Hitler and his followers was the family of Anne Frank. Her father, Otto Frank, sensed the trouble early and left Frankfurt in 1933 for Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

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But as luck would have it, after Hitler consolidated his position in Germany and thrust what’s now known as the Second World War, he ordered invasion of the Netherlands in 1940.

Anne’s father Otto had sensed the trouble again. But his efforts to emigrate to the US just couldn’t bear fruit in time. Bureaucratic hurdles and an unending paperwork meant that Hitler’s forces came before Otto could get his family out of the Netherlands. The US closed its consulates in 1941 in territories occupied by Hitler’s forces.

Persecution of Jews continued in the Netherlands. They faced curfews, business restrictions, and were asked to wear yellow stars for easy identification in public.

Anne Frank, the writer is born in hiding

In July 1942, Anne’s elder sister Margot received a call-up notice to report to a German labour camp. The Franks went underground — in a secret annex they had above Otto’s business premises. They hid there for two years, along with another family and a friend, enduring the stifling conditions and constant fear of discovery.

During their time in hiding, having little to keep oneself engaged, Anne turned to writing. She documented her thoughts and experiences in her diary, often writing to an imaginary friend named Kitty. She detailed her longing for normalcy, her irritation with those she lived with, and the oppressive silence they had to maintain.

Her last entry was on 1 August 1944. Three days later, the Gestapo raided their hideout, leading to their arrest. The cause of their discovery or the chain of events leading to their discovery remains uncertain.

The end and the discovery of a writer

The Frank family was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps that Nazi Germany operated in occupied Poland, where Otto was separated from his wife Edith and daughters Margot and Anne.

Edith perished in Auschwitz, while Anne and Margot were transferred to Bergen-Belsen, another Nazi concentration camp in today’s northern Germany. Both Anne and Margot died of typhus in March 1945, merely weeks before the Allied Forces liberated the camp.

Otto Frank was the sole survivor of the annex. After the war, he returned to Amsterdam and learned of his family’s fate. Some of his friends had visited the secret annex where the Franks hid themselves and recovered Anne’s diary. They preserved it during the Nazi occupation and returned it to him.

Initially too grief-stricken to read it, Otto eventually found the strength to delve into his daughter’s writings. He discovered Anne’s poignant reflections on adolescence, her strained relationship with her mother, her changing body, and her deep sense of isolation.

The diary also revealed Anne’s moments of joy, her observations of nature, and her romantic feelings for Peter van Daan, another resident of the annex. Otto was struck by Anne’s maturity and her evolving self-awareness.

In a 1976 interview with BBC, Otto said,  “I only learnt to know her really through her diary.” Having copied Anne’s diary entries and corrected language mistakes, Otto shared the document with his friends, who convinced him to get it published for its sheer literary merit and human significance.

The girl becomes an author, an immediate best-seller

Otto was also guided by her wish to “go on living after my death” and decided to honour it by publishing the diary on 25 June 1947 — “The Secret Annexe”. Among Otto’s editorial decisions was omitting certain personal and sensitive passages. The book was an immediate success and has gone on to be translated into numerous languages.

In 1952, it was published in English as “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl”. It inspired a Pulitzer Prize-winning play in 1956 and a film in 1959. Anne’s words have continued to resonate globally, offering a personal perspective on the Holocaust’s atrocities.

Anne Frank’s diary remains to-date a testament to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable adversity, ensuring that her voice continues to be heard across generations.