The Diary of Anne Frank ~ SECRET ANNEX

The Diary of Anne Frank

SECRET ANNEX

BLOG SESSION

August 20th, 2017

Welcome back Blog Readers, Followers, Diary Writers and Visitors ~ We are back here for another informative Blog Session about "The Diary of Anne Frank" ~ SECRET ANNEX.

Friends who were here for our last two Blog Sessions have plenty of notes about Anne Frank's Diary in their Journals.  If you happened to have missed the last two Blog Sessions, you can sign up to "Follow by Email" by entering your Email address in the far right-hand column and then press "Submit".  You will receive all Blog Sessions once you do that as soon as they are posted to the Blog.  Also, be sure to "Bookmark" our Blog so that you can easily get back here when you would like to join in online to see the current Blog Session or to review any past Blog Sessions.  You may also go to our "Blog Archive" in the far right-hand column and click on any of the past Blog Sessions that you see listed to find out more about any of our prior fascinating discussions.

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Journal Notes

Today we will be exploring The Diary of Anne Frank further by going into the background of the SECRET ANNEX where Anne Frank and her family initially went into hiding.

The SECRET ANNEX

On July 5th, 1942, Margot Frank (Anne's older sister) received an official Summons to report to a Nazi work camp in Germany; the very next day, the Frank family went into hiding in a makeshift quarters in an empty space at the back of Otto Frank's (Anne Frank's father) company building, which they referred to as the Secret Annex.

The Secret Annex

The Frank family were all accompanied in hiding by Otto's business partner, Hermann van Pels, as well as his wife, Auguste, and son, Peter.  Otto's employees Kleiman and Kugler, as well as Jan and Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl, who provided food and information about the outside world.

The families spent two years in hiding, never once stepping outside the dark, damp, sequestered portion of the building.

What happened next was something that would change all of their lives forever, and would end the handwriting that had been taking place for the two years of hiding by Anne Frank.

Anne Frank's Diary

Captured by the Nazis and Sent to a Concentration Camp . . .

It was on August 4th, 1944, that a German secret police officer accompanied by four Dutch Nazis stormed into the Secret Annex, arresting everyone that was hiding there.  They had been betrayed by an anonymous tip, and the identity of their betrayer remains unknown to this very day.  The residents of the Secret Annex were shipped off to Camp Westerbork, a concentration camp in the northeastern Netherlands.  They arrived by passenger train on August 8th, 1944.  They were transferred to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland in the middle of the night on September 3rd, 1944.

Upon arriving at Auschwitz, the men and women were separated.  this was the last time that Otto Frank ever saw his wife and daughters.

The Frank Family

Margot Frank, Otto Frank, Anne Frank and Edith Frank

After several months of hard labor hauling heavy stones and grass mats, Anne and Margot Frank were again transferred during the winter to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, where they both died in March of the year 1945.

Their mother, Edith Frank, was not allowed to go with them, and she fell ill and died at Auschwitz shortly after arriving at the camp on January 6th, 1945.

Otto Frank 

In Remembrance of Anne Frank

(Anne Frank & Father, Otto Frank pictured above)

Anne Frank ~ Remains at Death

(circled in red)

OUR NEXT BLOG SESSIONS:

"Silence is the most powerful scream."

The Diary for Dreamers

Until we meet again for our next Blog Session ~

Peace, Love & Light,

By René Allen

© Copyright - René Allen - 2014 - 2017 - All Rights Reserved

More about The Diary of Anne Frank

More about The Diary of Anne Frank

BLOG SESSION

August 19th, 2017

Welcome back to another fascinating Blog Session!

We are going to be discussing more about The Diary of Anne Frank.  If you were here for our last Blog Session, then you have plenty of Journal notes about Anne Frank's Diary.

If you would, please pull out your Journal and get ready to jot down more information about a young girl's experience that started off as a simple Diary at the age of 13 years old, and turned into a famous literary work entitled, "The Diary of Anne Frank".

Journal Notes

Anne Frank died at the young age of 15.  She was one of more than 1 million Jewish children who died in the Holocaust.  It is such a horrific thought that it is hard to comprehend a child being killed at such a young age.  And to think that more than 1 million Jewish children were murdered is wickedness in action at the hands of demonic minded people who carried out horrifying acts.

Anne Frank & her mother, Edith Frank

Anne Frank was born Annelies Marie Frank on June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany.  Anne's mother was Edith Frank.  Anne also had a sister named Margot, who was three years her senior.

Anne Frank ~ Mother Edith Frank ~ Sister Margot Frank

Anne's father, Otto Frank, was a lieutenant in the German army during World War I, later becoming a businessman in Germany and the netherlands.  He was the only member of his immediate family to survive the concentration camps.  At the end of the war, he returned home to Amsterdam.  He searched desperately for news about his family.  On July 18, 1945, he met two sisters who had been with his daughters Anne and Margot at Bergen-Belsen and delivered the tragic news of their deaths.

Otto Frank with his two daughters,

Margot Frank and Anne Frank

When Otto Frank returned to Amsterdam, he found Anne's Diary, which had been saved by Miep Gies.  He eventually gathered the strength to read it.  He was awestruck by what he discovered and later had it published as a book.  "There was revealed a completely different Anne to the child that I had Lost,"  Otto wrote in a letter to his mother.  "I had no idea of the depths of her thoughts and feelings."

The Frank Family

(Margot Frank, Otto Frank, Anne Frank and Edith Frank)

About Anne Frank's Family

The Franks were a typical upper middle-class German-Jewish family living in a quiet, religiously diverse neighborhood near the outskirts of Frankfurt.  However, Anne Frank was born on the eve of dramatic changes in German society that would soon disrupt her family's happy and tranquil life, as well as the lives of all other German Jews.

The German economy struggled terribly in the 1920's due in large part to the harsh sanctions imposed on Germany by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I.  During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the virulently anti-Semitic National German Socialist Workers Party (Nazi Party) led by Adolph Hitler became Germany's leading political force, winning control of the government in 1933.

Otto Frank

  

In the words of Otto Frank . . .

"I can remember that as early 1932, groups of Storm Troopers came marching by, singing, 'When Jewish blood splatters from the knife',"  Otto Frank later recalled.  When Hitler became chancellor of Germany on January 20, 1933, the Frank family immediately realized that it was  time to flee.  Otto later said, "Though this did hurt me deeply, I realized that Germany was not the world, and I left my country forever."

The Franks moved to Amsterdam, Netherlands in the Fall of 1933.  Anne Frank described the circumstances of her family's immigration years later in her Diary:  "Because we're Jewish, my father immigrated to Holland in 1933, where he became the managing director of the Dutch Opekta Company, which manufactures products used in making jam."  After years of enduring anti-Semitism in Germany, the Franks were relieved to once again enjoy freedom in their new hometown of Amsterdam.  "In those days, it was possible for us to start over and to feel free,"  Otto recalled.

Anne Frank's schooling . . .

Anne Frank began attending Amsterdam's Sixth Montessori School in 1934, and throughout the rest of the 1930s, she lived a relatively happy and normal childhood.  Anne had many friends, Dutch and German, Jewish and Christian.  She was a bright and inquisitive student.

What brought about the change in Anne's life?

Anne's life changed on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, igniting a global conflict that would grow to become World War II.  On May 10, 1940, the German army invaded the Netherlands, defeating Dutch forces after just a few days of fighting.  The Dutch surrendered on May 15, 1940, marking the beginning of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.  As Anne Frank later wrote in her Diary, "After May 1940, the good times were few and far between; first there was the war, then the capitulation and then the arrival of the Germans, which is when the trouble started for the Jews."

Yellow Star of David Badge

Beginning in October 1940, the Nazi occupiers imposed anti-Jewish measures on the Netherlands, Jews were required to wear a yellow Star of David at all times and observe a strict curfew; they were also forbidden from owning businesses.

Anne Frank and her sister Margot were forced to transfer to a segregated Jewish school.  Otto Frank managed to keep control of his company by officially signing ownership over to two of his Christian associates, Jo Kleiman and Victor Kugler, while continuing to run the company from behind the scenes.

OUR NEXT BLOG SESSION:

The Diary of Anne Frank

SECRET ANNEX

Until we meet again for our next Blog Session ~

Peace, Love & Light,

By René Allen

© Copyright - René Allen - 2014 - 2017 - All Rights Reserved

The Diary of Anne Frank

The Diary of Anne Frank

BLOG SESSION

August 18th, 2017

Good Morning Blog Readers, Followers, Diary Writers & Visitors ~  We are back here to share the famous Diary of Anne Frank.  There are some interesting details about Anne's Diary that you may not know.  If you have happened to have read The Diary of Anne Frank, then your comments and thoughts would be appreciated.  You may share your thoughts about what you thought about the Diary in the "Comments Section" here on the Blog at the bottom of this Blog Session.

We welcome all new Followers & Readers of our Blog!  You will need to have a Journal so that you may take notes.  We always take notes about our Sessions.  If you do not have a Journal, we suggest that you purchase one, and you will be very happy that you did because your notes will be valuable to you in the future, and you will be surprised at all of the information that you have gathered that will be very helpful to you in many ways.  With that being said, please grab your Journal or your notebook if you don't have a Journal so that you may take notes on our Session for today . . .

Journal Notes

Who Was Anne Frank?

Anne Frank was a Jewish teenager who went into hiding during the Holocaust.  Anne's Journaling of her experiences in her Diary turned into a famous literary work entitled, "The Diary of Anne Frank".

Anne Frank was born Annelies Marie Frank on June 12, 1929.  She was a world-famous German-born Diarist and a World War II Holocaust victim.  Anne's work, "The Diary of Anne Frank", has gone on to be read by millions.  Fleeing nazi persecution of Jews, Anne's family moved to Amsterdam and later went into hiding for two years.  During this time, Anne wrote about her experiences and wishes.  She was age 15 when the family was found and sent to concentration camps, where she died.  Date of death March 1945.

Anne Frank Quotes:

"It's utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death.  I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness; I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too.  I feel the suffering of millions.  And yet when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more."  ~ Anne Frank

Inner look at the Diary of Anne Frank

More about ~ The Diary of Anne Frank

The Secret Annex:  Diary Letters from June 14, 1942 to August 1, 1944 included a selection of passages from Anne Frank's Diary published on June 25, 1947 by Anne Frank's father, Otto.  "If she had been here, Anne would have been so proud," he said.  For all its passages of despair, Anne's Diary is essentially a story of faith, hope and love in the face of hate.

On June 12, 1942, Anne Frank's parents gave her a red checkered Diary (pictured above) for her 13th birthday.  She wrote her first entry, addressed to an imaginary friend named Kitty, that same day:  "I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support."

During the two years Anne Frank spent hiding from the Nazis with her family in the Secret Annex in Amsterdam, she wrote extensive daily entries in her Diary to pass the time.  Some betrayed the depth of despair into which she occasionally sunk during day after day of confinement.  "I've reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die,"  she wrote on February 3, 1944.  "The world will keep on turning without me, and I can't do anything to change events anyway."  However, the act of writing allowed Frank to maintain her sanity and her spirits.  "When I write, I can shake off all my cares", she wrote on April 5, 1944.

"The Diary of a Young Girl", as it is typically called in English, has since been published in 67 languages.  Countless editions, as well as screen and stage adaptations, of the work have been created around the world.  The Diary of a Young Girl remains one of the most moving and widely read firsthand accounts of the Jewish experience during the Holocaust.

ENDURANCE

Anne Frank's Diary endures, not only because of the remarkable events she described, but also due to her extraordinary gifts as a Storyteller and her indefatigable spirit through even the most horrific of circumstances.

In addition to her Diary, Anne filled a notebook with quotes from her favorite Authors, original stories and the beginnings of a Novel about her time in the Secret Annex.  Her writings reveal a teenage girl with creativity, wisdom, depth of emotion and rhetorical power far beyond her years.

About Anne Frank's death . . .

Anne Frank and her sister, Margot, both came down with typhus in the early Spring of 1945 and died within a day of each other.  The girls were being held at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, where food was scarce, sanitation was awful, and disease ran rampant.

Both sisters died sometime in March 1945, only a few weeks before British soldiers liberated the concentration camp where they were both interned.

We will come back here to the Blog to share more about the Diary of Anne Frank because there is a lot more to talk about when it comes to Diary Writing, and in particular, Anne Frank's Diary.  See you next Blog Session!

OUR NEXT BLOG SESSION:

More about The Diary of Anne Frank

Friends, your thoughts about our Blog Session will be appreciated.  You may leave your thoughts, comments, questions and/or suggestions in our "Comments Section" at the bottom of this Blog.

"I can't wait to read more!"

Until next time friends & Diary Writers,

Peace, Love & Light,

By René Allen

© Copyright - René Allen - 2014 - 2017 - All Rights Reserved