By Aida Cepeda, age 10
Did you know that it has already been about 80 years since Anne Frank died? You might be wondering who Anne Frank is. She is most known for her diary, which she wrote during the Holocaust. She was born in 1929 and had an older sister, a mom and a dad. Anne Frank, who was Jewish, grew up in the Netherlands, but when World War II started in 1939, things got very bad for Jewish people. They had to wear stars so that the Nazis could know who they were. Being Jewish meant you weren’t allowed to do things like go into certain stores and schools.
When she was 13, Anne and her family went into hiding because the Nazis were killing or taking Jews to concentration camps. Anne and her family stayed in an annex above her father’s old business, where they had hopes of surviving until the war was over. There were four extra people living with them, as well.
Keeping a diary was a way for Anne to express her feelings. Anne had imaginary friends to fill in the gap of missing her real friends, and one of the main ones was called Kitty. Anne Frank was not always mature with her actions, but she was mature in her writing by knowing how to express herself. Hiding in such a small space for two years was a difficult experience, but at the same time, Anne wrote, “I feel wicked sleeping in a warm bed, while my dearest friends have been knocked down or have fallen into a gutter somewhere out in the cold night. … And all because they are Jews!”
Aug. 4, 1944, was the day everyone hiding in the annex was caught. Anne was taken to a concentration camp with her family and got separated from her father. Anne Frank died at age 15 in February of 1945 from typhus. More than 6 million Jews and millions of non-Jews (who didn’t fit Adolf Hitler’s idea of perfection) were killed by the Nazis in World War II.
Otto Frank, Anne’s father, was the only survivor of the Frank family. He was crushed to hear his daughters and wife did not make it. His friends sparked the idea of publishing her diary as a book. Almost 80 years later, that book has been read all over the world and translated into over 70 different languages. Her diary is in the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam, being one of the world’s main attractions.
