Why the diary of a Jewish girl who was murdered in the Holocaust still moves young people around the world today.
The Jewish girl Anne Frank was murdered by the Nazis in Bergen-Belsen
It all started modestly: when Otto Frank published his daughter Anne's diary on June 25, 1947, it initially had a print run of just 3,036 copies. “Achterhuis” (German: “The Secret Annex”) first appeared in Dutch in 1946. The German version follows in 1950, with an equally modest first edition of 4,600 copies. That changes with an inexpensive paperback edition in German. But the book didn't become a bestseller, even in France or the USA, where it was launched in 1952, the sales figures were very manageable.
That changed when the story was published in New York in 1955 as Play conquers the stage. More than two million viewers also see the play in Germany. It wins several prizes, including the Pulitzer Prize for Theater, the Tony Award and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play . A Hollywood film that won three Oscars followed in 1959.
Scene from the 1959 Hollywood film: Millie Perkins (r.) played Anne Frank – here with Diane Baker as Margot
The popularity of Anne Frank's diary is unstoppable. To date it has sold millions of copies and is available in 70 languages. This makes it one of the most translated books in the world.
Diary as “entry” into Holocaust commemoration
In her diary, the Jewish girl Anne Frank describes the time she and her family were hiding from the Nazis in German-occupied Amsterdam.
A copy of Anne's diary on display at the Anne Frank Center in Berlin
To this day, it brings children and young people around the world closer to the horrors of the Holocaust. Veronika Nahm, director of the Anne Frank Center in Berlin, said in an interview with DW: “Anne Frank writes about things that are relevant for young people in this phase of life: family, being in love, arguments with the mother. But also: who determines who I am? What do I want to be when I grow up, what should the world look like in the future?”
The Anne Frank Center uses the diary, according to Nahm, to give young people “an introduction to the topics of the Holocaust and National Socialism”. The life of Anne Frank's family and friends also plays a role: Otto Frank witnessed the book burning in Frankfurt, Anne's uncles were arrested during the November pogroms, her best friend Hannah Pick-Goslar survived the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and bears witness to this day about the Holocaust.
In this photograph of the Anne Frank Hus in Amsterdam, Anne (l .) in May 1941 with her friend Hannah in Amsterdam
A more varied commemoration
A current study proves that young people in Germany are more concerned with the Nazi era and the Holocaust than their parents' generation. Nahm also observed this: “We can see that the young people are very interested in the Holocaust and the history of National Socialism,” she says. The number of visitors to the exhibition at the Anne Frank Center would also prove this. “If it's not Corona, we have increasing numbers every year.”
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Who was Anne Frank?
Fleeing from the Nazis
In 1934, Anne Frank fled with her family from Germany to the Netherlands to escape the National Socialists. During World War II, they have to go into hiding to escape the Nazis. They live in hiding in a secret annex in Amsterdam for two years – until they are betrayed: On August 4, 1944, Anne Frank and her family are discovered, arrested and deported to Auschwitz.
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Who was Anne Frank?
Family ties
Anne Frank (front left) had a sister named Margot (back right) who was three and a half years her senior. Her father Otto Frank took this photo on Margot's eighth birthday in February 1934. Anne was four years old at the time and the family was already in exile in the Netherlands.
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Who was Anne Frank?
Hidden in Amsterdam
Otto Frank, Anne's father, was able to take over the Opekta branch in Amsterdam. When the persecution of the Jews began, the father set up a hiding place in the back building of the office. The family of four lived there from 1942 to 1944, along with four other victims of persecution. Anne Frank wrote her world-famous diary here. The Anne Frank House (photo) has been a museum since 1960.
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Who was Anne Frank?
Anne's hideout
At the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, visitors can see the Secret Annex where Anne hid with her family. For months the young girl had to share her cramped room with the Jewish dentist Fritz Pfeffer, whom she called “Albert Dussel” in her diary. On the right is her desk, where she wrote almost every day.
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Who was Anne Frank?
Diary as a best friend
From the very beginning, Anne wrote in her diary almost every day. It becomes a kind of friend for her, whom she names “Kitty”. The life that Anne leads in hiding is completely different from the carefree time before: “What I like best is that I can at least write down what I think and feel, otherwise I would suffocate completely,” reads there .
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Who was Anne Frank?
Death in Bergen-Belsen
Anne Frank and her sister Margot are taken from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen on October 30, 1944. In total, more than 70,000 people died in this concentration camp. After the liberation of the concentration camp, the victims are taken to the mass graves by truck under the supervision of British soldiers. Anne and Margot Frank also died here. Anne was only 15 years old.
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Who was Anne Frank ?
Anne's and Margot's gravestone
Anne's gravestone is also in Bergen-Belsen. The Jewish girl from Frankfurt am Main had imagined her life differently: “I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to bring joy and benefit to the people who live around me and yet don't know me. I want to live on , even after my death” – this is her diary entry of April 5, 1944.
Who was Anne Frank?
Famous from a diary
Anne's big dream was to become a journalist or writer. Thanks to her father, her diary was published on June 25, 1947. The title: “The Secret Annex.” Many other editions and translations followed. Anne Frank becomes a symbol for the victims of the Nazi dictatorship. “We all live with the aim of being happy, we all live differently and yet the same.” (Anne Frank, July 6, 1944)
Dealing with the past has become more diverse in the 21st century: young people from Turkey and Germany on a project about Turkish Jews in Berlin at the time of National Socialism, and young people are also working with North African helpers who stood up for their Jewish fellow human beings.
In this attic, Anne Frank dreamed of life after the war as a novelist and journalist.
The starting point for all these projects is the diary of a Jewish girl who after wanted to make a novel out of it after the war. Anne Frank dreamed of becoming an author and journalist. It was not to come to that: in 1944 the family hiding place in Amsterdam was betrayed to the Gestapo and the family was deported. Anne Frank died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945.