Anne Frank is one of the most talked about victims of the Holocaust thanks to her diary and her writings. Her work has become the subject of numerous plays as it documents her experiences of hiding during the occupation of the Netherlands during World War II. She was born in Germany, but lost her citizenship in 1941. Hatred for the Jews started as early as 1932 and Frank’s father Otto, who served in World War I as a Lieutenant in the German military, moved his family to Amsterdam in 1933.
The diary that would become famous was given to Anne for her 13th birthday in June 1942.
Facts that you might not have known about Anne Frank….they may make you think about more humanly about people who have to abandon their homeland….
It was just 3 weeks after receiving the diary that her sister received a 
summons to report to a Nazi work camp in Germany. The family decided to go into hiding at that point, living in some of the empty spaces of the work building where her father was a behind the scenes working partner since he couldn’t own a business as a Jew. His business partners and their family helped them hide and provided them with food.
For two years, the family hid together in the dark dampness of the abandoned part of the building. This allowed Anne to write extensively in her diary.
In August of 1944, a secret police officer from Germany, accompanied by four Dutch Nazi officers, broke into the building were the Frank family was hiding. Everyone who was found in the building was arrested. The tip about the family being there came in anonymously and to this day, no one knows who betrayed the family. Anne was sent to Camp Westerbork and then Auschwitz. That’s when Otto was separated from his family, never to see his daughters or his wife again.
After returning from the camp, Otto was given his daughter’s diary. It had been discovered and saved by one of his partners. He couldn’t read it at first, but when he did, he couldn’t believe the words that were being written. “There was revealed a completely different Anne to the child that I had lost,” Otto told his mother after reading through it. “I had no idea of the depths of her thoughts and feelings.” He immediately worked to have the diary published.
More remarkable than anything else is the level of acceptance that Anne’s diary has had with the world at large. It’s considered one of the most moving first-hand experiences of the war from a Jewish perspective and her unique ability to tell a story shows a spirit that might bend, but refuses to be broken …no matter what.
In her diary, Anne often mentioned a chestnut tree that she adored. In 2009, saplings were taken from this tree and planted in 11 different sites across the United States. One of the sites is at the West Front Law of the US Capitol building. In 2005, it was discovered that the chestnut tree had a serious disease. Supports were given to it so that it could continue to stand, but in 2010 it could go on no longer. The saplings of the tree, however, will continue to bear witness to the bravery of a teenage girl who had so much creativity and love for the world around her.
Karl Silberbauer was the arresting officer of the Frank family. He even remembers telling Otto that he had a lovely daughter. He purchased the book after it was published to see if he had been mentioned in it. Here’s a hint – he’s not. “I should have picked it up off the floor,” he said once.
