The Diary of Anne Frank

Even though Anne Frank's diary is geared toward a younger audience, I still feel like it plays an important role in remembering the Holocaust. I read it in the second grade and can still remember details of Anne's accounts of her life. One of the things that is most important about the Diary of Anne Frank is that it is a a first hand account of a coming-of-age victim of the Holocaust in a way that differs from any other accounts from people her age that I have seen. Anne was a victim of the concentration camps, but the diary does not cover that portion of her life. Instead, it covers to events that many, many other people faced - hiding from the Nazis.

Anne's diary begins on her thirteenth birthday: June 12, 1942 - three weeks before she and her family are forced to go into hiding with four other people in a small annex. The diary describes her life in hiding. She had been born in Franfurt, Germany but lived most of her life in Amsterdam. While ethnically Jewish, the Frank family did not observe all of the Jewish customs or traditions. Nonetheless, Nazi occupation of the Netherlands meant that she and her family were trapped there and, as persecution of Jews increased, they were forced to go into hiding. Frank's early entries spoke of the mundane, day to day aspects of her life. In summer 1942, she lists some of the restrictions that had been placed upon the Jews in the Netherlands. In July, she writes that she and her family have to hide. One in hiding, she discusses what life was like living in such close confines with not only her own family, but four other individuals as well - the Pels family and Dr. Pfeffer, a friend of her father's.

Something that is so interesting about Anne's account is how life continued to go on even under such strange circumstances. She discusses being annoyed at how intrusive people - especially Dr. Peffer - were and even develops a romance with Peter Pels who was sixteen when they went into the annex. I remember that the few times I read it when I was younger, I found Anne to be relatable. She was a young girl just like I was. The small points in her life were similar to mine, yet the ways in which we lived were vastly different. The diary opened my eyes up to the Holocaust in way that I find suitable for young people. First of all, it's a true account - not something that has been developed for the young mind. I think that this is really important because it does not sugar coat anything. The fact that it was written from the perspective of someone you was young is also important because all the innocence and naivity is real.

It's last entry was on 1 August 1944, when the family and the people they were hiding with were found and transfered to Bergen-Belsen. Of the eight people in hiding, only Anne's father, Otto, survived. Anne had died of typhus in early March 1945, just a couple of weeks before Bergen-Belsen was liberated. Otto returned to Amsterdam and found the diaries. He had them published in 1947. What is even more interesting that the diary itself is the legacy that it has made for itself and for it's author. I think one of things that make this account of the Holocaust so interesting is that it was not an account from inside the camps. It is not a memoir. It shares in the moment confusion from the perspective of a girl who was hiding from the Nazis.

In some ways, I believe that what came after the publication of the diary is almost more important than the diary itself. Since the publication, a number of memorials and museums have been developed. In Amsterdam people can visit the Anne Frank House. In Berlin or the US, The Anne Frank Centers. In London there is an Anne Frank Educational Trust - just to name a few. It is so fascinating that the story of one little girl has inspired so many people to delve further into the history of the Holocaust. For many years, Anne Frank's story was my only insight into the Holocaust because it still isn't talked about all that thoroughly in schools in the United States and even then, it is not even touched upon until high school in many cases.