Your friends have been taken from their homes and many have been exterminated. There are rumors about death camps where people like you are being mass murdered by gasing. You are hiding, but you know it is only a matter of time before you and your family are taken to be killed. There is no one to turn to. Everyone is your enemy. Everyone hates you. How do you survive? How do you save your loved ones from impending death? This horrific scenario is not fictional. The Jewish people were subjected to these and other horrors by the Nazi regime under the control of Adolf Hitler during World War II. Otto Frank was one such Jewish man who was forced to take his family into hiding to save them from certain death at the hands of the Nazi. His youngest daughter, Annelies Marie Frank, better known as Anne Frank, kept a diary all the while her family was in hiding for 26 months, living in darkness and quiet to avoid being caught.
The Diary of a Young Jewish Girl
On 4 August 1944 the Frank family, along with four other people hiding in the annex on Prinsengracht in Amsterdam, were arrested and dragged off to the Auschwitz death camp following an anonymous tip given to the police. Anne’s diary, ‘The Diary of Anne Frank,’ recounting her thoughts and struggles in hiding was later recovered and first published in America in 1952, two years after her death at the age of 15. Over the years, Anne’s powerful words and insights have offered comfort and bravery to millions of people living amid war, violence, bigotry and fear. Her diary, one among many such collections of diaries and letters dealing with the war, still stands out as one of the most profound to date.
The Death of A Brilliantly Gifted Young Writer
Anne died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, located in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, in 1945 of Typhus, not long after her sister Margot who was 19. What makes this real life story sadder is the knowledge that had the Frank family remained hidden six weeks longer they would likely have survived the war. That’s because that part of the Netherlands was liberated the first two weeks of September. You have to wonder what Anne, a brilliantly gifted young writer and thinker, would have become if she were allowed to grow up into adulthood.
Remembering the People Who Perished in the Holocaust
Let us always remember and honor Anne, her family and the millions of other men, women and children—both Jewish and non-Jewish—who suffered unspeakable cruelty under Nazi Germany and died in the Holocaust. What better way to do just that than to highlight some of the most saddening yet inspiring and uplifting quotes from the diary of Anne Frank? The innocence, courage and hope in this young girl’s words give us the chills, but still comfort and inspire us today—seven decades later. Featured photo credit: Ronni Kurtz via unsplash.com
