{"id":3276,"date":"2016-02-17T20:35:31","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T20:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/?p=3276"},"modified":"2026-02-17T09:00:05","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T09:00:05","slug":"anne-frank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/anne-frank\/","title":{"rendered":"Anne Frank: A Detailed Biography"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Anne Frank is one of the most well-known victims of the\u00a0Holocaust<\/a>, and is today known as an inspiring and influential figure.\u00a0She gained fame following the end of the Holocaust and\u00a0World War II<\/a>\u00a0when her diary was published.\u00a0 In it she chronicled the experiences of her and her family as they hid from the Nazis in a house in Amsterdam.\u00a0 She eventually died as part of the events of the Holocaust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

ANNE FRANK – EARLY LIFE<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Anne was born in Frankfurt, Germany on June 12th, 1929 to Jewish parents.  She lived with her father, Otto, her mother, Edith, and her older sister Margot.  The family moved to Amsterdam in 1933 after Otto obtained work there helping a business to start up.  Also in 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany and the Nazi Party began carrying out anti-Semitic actions against Jewish people living in Germany.  As a result, many Jewish families fled Germany at this time, including Anne Frank\u2019s.  In Amsterdam, Anne attended a school and is remembered by classmates as loving reading and writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Anne<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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ANNE FRANK – AMSTERDAM<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In September of 1939\u00a0Nazi Germany invaded Poland<\/a>\u00a0and World War II in Europe began.\u00a0 After a period of waiting, which historians refer to as the\u00a0Phoney War<\/a>, German forces invaded Belgium and later the Netherlands on their way to defeat France in the\u00a0Battle of France<\/a>.\u00a0 By 1940, Germany had full control over Amsterdam and a Nazi-controlled government was established.\u00a0 The government persecuted the Jewish people living in Amsterdam at the time and socially isolated them with anti-Semitic laws<\/a>.\u00a0 As a result, Otto Frank attempted to emigrate his family to the United States but was unable to obtain the necessary permissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On her 13th birthday, which was June 12th, 1942, Anne received an autograph book from her parents which she used instead as a diary.  The family went into hiding just a few weeks later on July 6th.  The family moved into a living space above Otto\u2019s business, along the canals of Amsterdam, with the support of several of his most trusted employees.  They referred to the space as Achterhuis meaning \u2018Secret Annex\u2019.  Access to the living space was hidden behind a bookcase to avoid the Nazis from finding the family.  Since the family could not leave for fear of capture Otto\u2019s employees entirely supported them by bringing them food and news of the war.  Another Jewish family joined the Frank\u2019s on July 13th, which included two parents and a 16 year old son.  In her diary, Anne commented about being happy that there was more people to talk to but also wrote about the frustration of living in crowded conditions.  Anne\u2019s dairy was an outlet for her to express her feelings about all sorts of things, including: her relationships with those in hiding with her, her feelings on the war, and her ideas about life in general. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Nazi
Adolf Hitler watching German soldiers march into Poland in September of 1939. (Colorized by historycrunch.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

ANNE FRANK – AUSCHWITZ<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The family remained in the \u2018Secret Annex\u2019 for two years, until they were arrested on the morning of August 4th, 1944 by Nazi SS<\/a> and Gestapo<\/a> forces.\u00a0 It is unclear how the Nazi officials were made aware of the hiding place but many historians have argued it could have been a betrayal by one of those supporting the family or a coincidence as the Nazis searched the business.\u00a0 Regardless, the family was detained and were imprisoned and interrogated by the Nazis and before being sent to labor camps.\u00a0 In fact, the entire family was placed upon one of the last trains to\u00a0Auschwitz.\u00a0 They arrived in Auschwitz<\/a> in September of 1944 and Otto was immediately separated from his wife and daughters.\u00a0 Anne, her sister and her mother were saved from the gas chambers and selected for hard labor.\u00a0 Not knowing what happened to her father, Anne believed he has been killed in the gas chambers. \u00a0However, he had also been saved from the gas chambers and was placed in a men’s camp within Auschwitz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life in Auschwitz for the Frank’s was difficult as it was for all prisoners. \u00a0Due to the horrible and unsanitary conditions, disease spread easily among the prisoners and Anne was inflicted with scabies soon after arriving. \u00a0Scabies is an infectious skin condition caused by mites that burrow into the person’s skin. \u00a0On October 28th, 1944, Anne and Margot were part of a group that were relocated to Bergen-Belsen, a\u00a0concentration camp\u00a0in northern Germany. \u00a0Anne’s mother, Edith, was left behind and died from starvation. While in Bergen-Belsen, the health of both Margot and Anne deteriorated. Survivors reported that Margot was so ill that she was unable to leave her bunk and Anne was extremely\u00a0thin and suffering. \u00a0In early 1945, a typhus outbreak spread through the camp and killed over 17,000. \u00a0Many historians believe that this outbreak, along\u00a0with other diseases, was the likely cause of death for both Margot and Anne. \u00a0It is generally believed that they died in either February or March of 1945, just weeks before the British\u00a0liberated the camp\u00a0on April 15th. \u00a0The sisters were buried in a mass grave near Bergen-Belsen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Auschwitz\"
Arrival of Hungarian Jewish women and children at Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp in 1944. (Colorized by historycrunch.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

ANNE FRANK – DIARY AND LEGACY<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Anne’s father, Otto, survived his imprisonment in Auschwitz, and after discovering the deaths of his wife and daughters returned to Amsterdam and their ‘Secret Annex’.  There he was given Anne’s writings, which a friend had found in the family’s hiding space after the Nazis arrested them.  Among the writings was Anne’s diary, which he was astonished to read, considering it contained her most private thoughts and feelings.  He also recognized the importance of the work due to its subject matter.  It was officially published in 1947.  Since then it has been published in more than 60 languages and read  by millions across the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Anne is remembered as a powerful author who chronicled one of the worst times in human history.  Her story has served as a reminder to the innocence of youth and the capability of people to carry out countless harms on one another based on misguided world views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Types
Barbed wire double fences at Auschwitz. (Colorized by historycrunch.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anne Frank was a Jewish teenager who died in the events of the Holocaust. Her diary is a powerful account of the experiences of the victims of the Holocaust and remains important still today. This article details the life and significance of Anne Frank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,100,116],"tags":[18,15,101,117,22],"class_list":["post-3276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holocaust","category-biography","category-women","tag-biography","tag-history","tag-holocaust","tag-women","tag-world-war-ii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3276"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5409,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3276\/revisions\/5409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}