The Diary of Anne Frank

Otto Frank, Anne’s father, came from an old German-Jewish family whose ancestors had lived in Germany for hundreds of years.

1919-19241. Morale of the German people was low after WWI for several

reasons:*Germans had lost the war*the world was blaming Germany for causing the

conflict*the world was insisting that Germans pay for all war

damages2. German economy had been shattered by the cost of a four-

year war. A large bank account couldn’t even buy a bag of sugar!

3. Five years of turmoil followed the war. Dozens of political parties claiming a solution to Germany’s problems sprang up. Two of these parties called for extreme measures: Communists and Nazis. Communists were mainly German workers who took orders and received

support from Moscow. They wanted all property and business to be taken from the hands of a few private owners and to become state-controlled. All workers would share the wealth.

Under the direction of Adolf Hitler, the Nazis also claimed a cure to each and every problem in Germany. He said he would stop payment on the war debts and give every worker a job.

6. Many Germans feared a Communist takeover. Most didn’t want Russia to run their lives or take their property. They began to look at the group that was “more German”. This group was the Nazis.

1. Hitler had support now, so he said that the Jews were the internal enemy of Germany. He believed that the Jews had even made the Germans lose the war!

2. None of Hitler’s charges made sense. Thousands of German-Jews had lost their life savings in the war. Besides that, the 525, 000 Jewish citizens were such a tiny minority, they comprised barely one percent of the entire German population of 66 million.

3. “Get rid of Jews to solve Germany’s problems!” became the leading Nazi propaganda slogan. Jews suffered: beatings in the streets, lootings on their shops, vandalized synagogues, destroyed Jewish cemeteries, and burned books by Jewish authors. Many Jews left Germany, the only home they had ever known.

4. Hitler promised to restore Germany in two ways:

** a master race of “pure Aryans” or “pure Germans”

** a new Third Reich or state composed of all German-speaking people who would rule the world

5. The Nazis and Communists shared one common goal:

they planned to overthrow the existing German government, which was a democracy.

1. During this time, America came to the rescue of Germany. They began to pour money into the country. Therefore, no one listened to the Nazi or Communists.

2. It was also during this time that in 1925 Otto Frank married a girl named Edith. He and Edith set up a household in Frankfurt, Germany, where Otto was a banker. While living in Frankfurt, they had two daughters. Margot was born in 1926. Three years later, on June 12, 1929, Annelies Marie Frank was born. Her parents often called her Anne or “the Tender One.”

The stock market on Wall Street in America crashed in October of 1929. The result was world wide depression, and Germany’s economy came tumbling down again, since America couldn’t afford to support Germany. When the banks closed Otto Frank lost his job. Thousands of factories stopped production. By 1931, 5 million Germans were out of work.

1. The return of bad times made the Communists and Nazis

come to life.

2. With most of the German public behind him, Hitler, in 1933,

took his first legal steps to force Jews out of their own

country.

3. He made persecution and discrimination against Jews the

law. He passed one anti-Jewish law after another. The

Nazis ordered the population to boycott Jewish businesses.

Other decrees in 1933 dismissed Jews from government jobs

and even Jewish children from going to public schools.

4. It was at this time that Otto Frank, with his family, decided

to flee Germany with just the clothes on their backs. The

Nazi state seized the rest of their property. Anne Frank was

now 4 years old.

Holland is a Haven for the Franks and other Jews

1. By 1938, the Dutch had opened their borders to more than 6,000 Jewish refugees from Germany and Poland. Like the Franks, many settled in Amsterdam, where the number of Jews had risen to over 100, 000, or 10 percent of the total population.

2. For the next 7 years, the Franks managed to make new friends and to live a very pleasant life. Mr. Frank became involved with two businesses. He was manager of a wholesale firm that imported and sold spices, and part owner of firm called Opekta. A few years before the war, Otto Frank took in another partner named Mr. Van Daan. Also a German refugee, Mr. Van Daan had fled from Berlin with his family.

3. For 6 years, Anne and Margot Frank had attended a Montessori School in Amsterdam. Here Anne had many friends and was usually the center of attention.

1. Hitler had invaded and captured Poland, Norway, Denmark; however he vowed to the Dutch that he would never invade their land. Holland, which had been neutral during WWI, wanted to be neutral now.

2. When German troops had invaded Poland a few months earlier, Britain and France had come to the Pole’s rescue. They had declared open war on Germany. Together, with other nations fighting Germany, they were called Allies. Now Hitler wanted to use Dutch airfields to send missiles to destroy England.

3. On May 9, 1940, Hitler attacked the Dutch. On May 15, the Dutch surrendered. Everything then grew scarce. And the Nazis had created the shortages themselves by shipping out most supplies like food and clothing to ease shortages in German cities. Even gas and electricity were limited, turned on for use only an hour a day.

1. While Jews were really the ones Hitler was after, the Dutch decided to help their friends. Nazi treatment of Jewish defenders was exactly the same given Jews: beatings, torture, life in prison, forced labor, and death.

2. Loyal Christians bore the yellow star on their own clothing to show sympathy for their Jewish neighbors.

3. The Dutch queen, Wilhelmina, offered to return all stolen property back to her Jewish friends.

4. February 1941, was the first pogrom, or anti-Jewish riot, in Amsterdam where the Franks lived. Jews and their Dutch friends fought with clubs. Furious, the Nazis took to the streets in armored tanks and ran hundreds of people down.

5. When one Nazi policeman was shot during another incident, the revenge was terrible: 400 Jews were dragged off the streets and put in concentration camps.

6. The Dutch protested such behavior. The Nazis answered with bullets and martial law. Anyone not obeying their orders was shot on sight.

1. Finally, in July 1942, the Nazis began to send Dutch Jews to concentration camps. One of the two camps in Poland, Auschwitz or Sobibor, was to be their final destination. The nonstop journey across Europe to these camps took several days. In the meantime, the cattle cars had no chairs to sit on, no lights, no heat, no bathrooms. Some people died standing up. There was no room for them to fall.

2. On Sunday morning, July 5, 1942, the SS ordered Margot Frank, aged 16, to report for deportation to a labor camp in the East. Four days later, the Franks went into hiding.

1. Once the Nazis occupied Holland, few Jews were able to emigrate to other lands. Dutch borders were heavily guarded. Even if Jews could safely make it to the border, their passports clearly had a large J on it for Jew.

2. Mr. Frank was becoming more and more worried for his family. He began preparing a hiding place. For two years, he set it up. Five very good friends, all Dutch Christians, helped him.

3. The transfer of Mr. Franks business to his Dutch friends had gone smoothly. Mr. Frank planned their disappearance for July 16, 1942. However, Margot’s call-up notice was still a shock to the whole family. They moved the date to hide by eight days.

1. On Thursday, July 9, 1942, the Franks left. Anne describes their dressing “as if we were going to the North Pole.”

2. Four days later, Mr. Frank’s business partner, Mr. Van Daan, his wife, and son Peter joined them. Peter brought along his cat Mouschi. Four months later on November 17, 1942, Albert Dussel, a Jewish dentist, came to hide in the Secret Annex.

1. The Franks provided clues to confuse Nazi searchers: they left their home a mess, and a note pad with an address in Switzerland lay on Mr. Frank’s desk. Their plan had worked.

2. The Secret Annex, the Frank’s hiding place, once had been a lab and storage room at the back of the building where Mr. Frank had run his business for the past nine years.

3. To cut building costs, Dutch builders made structures facing the canals very, very narrow. The length didn’t matter, so to provide necessary space, the houses were usually very long and several stories high. They were also side by side with no space between buildings. Therefore, windows could only be placed in the narrow front and back and the rooms in the long center of the house were dark.

4. Because they were so long and narrow and high, the buildings had many hallways, many doorways, and very steep, almost vertical stairways. But for hiding, the house was perfect.

5. Mr. Frank was a spice dealer, and spices must be in darkness to preserve freshness. For this reason, dark paper was to put on the windows.

6. For added safety, Mr. Vossen, a carpenter and good friend, built a swinging bookcase over the doorway.

7. During the day, workers worked on the first floor of the building. No one knew that there were Jews hiding in the attic.

Anne Frank Secret Annex Tour

1. The Franks, the Van Daans, and Dussels were in the annex from July 9, 1942-August 4, 1944. The walls and sealed windows of the building kept them in solitary confinement for the entire time. They lived in constant fear of discovery. There were 8 people in a small space, and they got on each other’s nerves.

2. Anne’s diary ends on August 1, 1944.

1. All five of the Dutch men and women who hid and protected their Jewish friends in the Secret Annex had worked for Mr. Frank before the Nazi occupation.

2. The group was: Elli Vossen and Miep Van Santen (two typists), Henk Van Santen (Miep’s husband), Mr. Kraler, and Mr. Koophuis (Mr. Frank’s business associates)

3. Their visits and deliveries came when the workers were not in the building. (before 8:30 a.m., during lunchtime, and after 5:30 p.m.)

4. There were food shortages, too. The helpers had to buy food through the black market. Naturally, they had to pay a very high price for them.

1. During the day, the secret group chose quiet activities:

*reading many book the Miep brought

*women did needlework

*Mr. Frank helped the young people with school lessons

*Anne learned shorthand and bookkeeping skills

*most napped the time away

2. Mr. Koophuis salvaged one of this small radios. He then gave it to the secret group.

1. Since running water caused noise, the sink and toilet

could only be used before and after the workers left.

2. There was not hot water in the annexe, so water had to

be heated on the stove. To bathe, a washtub had to be

carried to the hot water faucets on the floors below.

3. Since windows could never be safely opened, the heat

inside the rooms was extreme in the summer months.

Garbage had to be burned with all the windows closed.

At one time fleas infested the Annex and all the people in it. But the group still liked having the cat around.

Illness was also a problem, since no doctor could be called. Mr. Dussel did all he could, however.

Tension, because of cramped living space mounted and many arguments happened.

1. In February, 1943, the owner of the Secret Annex building, which the group’s Dutch friends rented, sold it! Fortunately, the new owner believed that Kraler and Koophuis couldn’t find the key to the landing door.

2. Also, on many occasions thieves broke into the warehouse at night. Each time, the secret group was caught off guard and were making a lot of noise.

3. Another person in the warehouse questioned Mr. Kraler about the secret room.

4. Air raids occurred especially at night. The group wondered if their roof would be hit. If so, where would they go?

5. The secret group also suffered from lack of food and other essentials. Anne speaks many times of having to eat boiled rotten lettuce at each meal for weeks at a time.

6. Hitler, in 1941, had come up with his “final solution to the Jewish question”. Genocide, the extermination of all Europe’s Jews, was his answer.

7. Rewards were given for information leading to the arrest of Jews. Snooping and prying on every street corner were the Gestapo, the plainclothes secret police.

8. More problems included: the Nazis called up Mr. Kraler for labor, Koophuis had an ulcer operation, and Miep and Elli had illnesses that kept them away.