It has been 81 years since Anne Frank began writing her diary. This is the story of Anne Frank, the courageous young girl who stood against injustice through words.
The Beginning
Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1929. Due to anti-semitism and poor economic conditions, she moved with her family to Amsterdam in 1934.
Anne Frank loved her life there. However, in 1939 the Second World War began, and not long after, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. The situation got progressively worse—Anne had to leave her school and friends to go to a school reserved for the Jewish, and her father wasn’t able to conduct business because Jews weren’t allowed to own businesses.
On her 13th birthday, a few days before they went into hiding, her parents gave her a diary. The Diary.
The Diary Of A Young Girl
Over her two years in the Annex, Anne wrote letters to a fictional character, Kitty. The letters were filled with detailed and graphic descriptions of her life in the annex, her thoughts, and her feelings. Writing helped her pass her time and get her mind off the fear and brutality of the War surrounding them. Through her candid and unfiltered writing, Anne describes her life in hiding, her thoughts, emotions, her dreams, and aspirations. Her diary entries were raw and honest tellings of her journey growing up and finding herself.
Kitty, the fictional character Anne addresses in her letters, acts as a source of solace and comfort to Anne Frank during her difficult time in hiding. She confides in Kitty about her relationships with the others in the annex, her feelings of isolation, and her thoughts about the war and its impacts. Kitty represents Anne’s desire for a friend in times of loneliness. By using a diary as her companion, she finds a way to cope with her situation and maintain her sanity.
Kitty wasn’t the only character in Anne’s imagination. She wrote to several characters who were a circle of friends. Her characters were real people who were part of her life before she went into hiding, characters she made up, and characters from a fictional book by Van Marxveldt. However, out of all the characters that Anne wrote to, as time passed, Kitty had definitely become her best friend. In fact, from October 1943, she almost solely wrote letters to Kitty. Kitty was the reason Anne got through the two years in the Annex.
However, her journal wasn’t the only thing she wrote. Anne had ambitions of being a writer and journalist when she got out of hiding and, therefore, wrote several short stories and started writing a novel. When she was captured, some amount of her work was confiscated, but a part of her work was preserved by two helpers and was later given to Otto Frank.
Her father dedicated the last few years of his life to publishing her works in the form of a book—The Diary Of A Young Girl. He invested all his time into the Anne Frank House and the museum in hopes of raising awareness about the oppression of Jews, and the discrimination and fear they faced on a daily basis.
What Happened To The People Who Were Staying In The Annex?
After The Annex was raided, the people inside were sent to various concentration camps. After several months of living in brutal conditions, Anne and her sister Margot died of typhus in 1945. Anne’s father, Otto, was the only remaining living member of the Annex.
Through her writing, Anne Frank managed to raise awareness, inspire several generations, and promote empathy and understanding of what people went through for several years under the Nazi Regime. Her works go beyond the Nazi Regime. They are a call for action—to protect human rights around the world. Her diaries are a reminder of the past, an inspiration for the present, and a cautionary tale for the future.
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