June 12: Birthday of Anne Frank (1929)
Prayer Idea
Pray for children who are facing danger and enduring fear.
History Note
Annelies Marie (“Anne”) Frank was born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt, Germany. Her parents were Edith and Otto Frank, and she had an older sister, Margot.
After the Nazi Party came to power in Germany, the German government began its systematic campaign of persecution against Jewish people, known today as the Holocaust. Anne’s Jewish family sought safety by moving to Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
However, Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940, which meant that the Franks were no longer safe there. In July 1942, they went into hiding in the Secret Annex, a section of Otto Frank’s business building. They were joined there by another family, the Van Pels, and by Fritz Pfeffer.
Anne had received a diary for her 13th birthday, shortly before her family went into hiding. For two years, she wrote about her experiences and about the people around her. She also wrote stories and hoped to publish a book about her time in the Secret Annex.
In August 1944, Nazi security police raided the Secret Annex. The eight people in hiding were sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp complex in Poland. Anne and Margot were later sent to Bergen-Belsen, where they died in February of 1945.
Otto and Edith Frank had been kept at Auschwitz. Edith died there in January of 1945, shortly before the camp was liberated by Allied troops. Otto Frank was the only family member to survive the war.
In 1947 Otto Frank fulfilled his daughter’s wish to publish her experience. Anne Frank’s diary, Het Achterhuis (The Secret Annex), also published as The Diary of a Young Girl, has been translated into 75 languages and is known around the world.
This is Anne Frank’s May 1942 passport photo. Image courtesy the Anne Frank House, Amsterdam.
Learn More
This video provides an overview of Anne’s life.
Please Note: It discusses the Holocaust without graphic detail.
Find other resources at Homeschool History.