***Paranormal Metrou***(imported post) THE DIARY AND LIFE OF ANNE FRANK-(long story) Holocaust victim and famous diarist Anne Frank was born Annelies Marie Frank on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt, Germany. Her mother was Edith Frank, and her father, Otto Frank, was a lieutenant in the German army during World War I, later becoming a businessman in Germany and the Netherlands. Frank also had a sister named Margot who was three years her senior. The Franks were a typical upper middle-class German-Jewish family living in a quiet, religiously diverse neighborhood near the outskirts of Frankfurt. However, Frank was born on the eve of dramatic changes in German society that would soon disrupt her familys happy, tranquil life as well as the lives of all other German Jews. Due in large part to the harsh sanctions imposed on Germany by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I, the German economy struggled terribly in the 1920s. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the virulently anti-Semitic National German Socialist Workers Party (Nazi Party) led by Adolph Hitler became Germanys leading political force, winning control of the government in 1933. I can remember that as early as 1932, groups of Storm Troopers came marching by, singing, When Jewish blood splatters from the knife, Otto Frank later recalled. When Hitler became chancellor of Germany on January 20, 1933, the Frank family immediately realized that it was time to flee. Otto later said, Though this did hurt me deeply, I realized that Germany was not the world, and I left my country forever. The Franks moved to Amsterdam, Netherlands, in the fall of 1933. Anne Frank described the circumstances of her familys emigration years later in her diary: Because were Jewish, my father immigrated to Holland in 1933, where he became the managing director of the Dutch Opekta Company, which manufactures products used in making jam. After years of enduring anti-Semitism in Germany, the Franks were relieved to once again enjoy freedom in their new hometown of Amsterdam. In those days, it was possible for us to start over and to feel free, Otto recalled. Anne Frank began attending Amsterdams Sixth Montessori School in 1934, and throughout the rest of the 1930s, she lived a relatively happy and normal childhood. Anne had many friends, Dutch and German, Jewish and Christian, and she was a bright and inquisitive student. But that would all change on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, igniting a global conflict that would grow to become World War II. On May 10, 1940, the German army invaded the Netherlands, defeating over matched Dutch forces after just a few days of fighting. The Dutch surrendered on May 15, 1940, marking the beginning of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. As Frank later wrote in her diary, After May 1940, the good times were few and far between; first there was the war, then the capitulation and then the arrival of the Germans, which is when the trouble started for the Jews. Beginning in October 1940, the Nazi occupiers imposed anti-Jewish measures on the Netherlands. Jews were required to wear a yellow Star of David at all times and observe a strict curfew; they were also forbidden from owning businesses. Frank and her sister were forced to transfer to a segregated Jewish school. Otto Frank managed to keep control of his company by officially signing ownership over to two of his Christian associates, Jo Kleiman and Victor Kugler, while continuing to run the company from behind the scenes. On June 12, 1942, Franks parents gave her a red checkered diary for her 13th birthday. She wrote her first entry, addressed to an imaginary friend named Kitty, that same day: I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support. Weeks later, on July 5, 1942, Margot received an official summons to report to a Nazi work camp in Germany. The very next day, the family went into hiding in makeshift quarters in an empty space at the back of Otto Franks company building, which they referred to as the Secret Annex. They were accompanied in hiding by Ottos business partner Hermann van Pels as well as his wife, Auguste, and son, Peter. Ottos employees Kleiman and Kugler, as well as Jan and Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl, provided food and information about the outside world. The families spent two years in hiding, never once stepping outside the dark, damp, sequestered portion of the building. To pass the time, Frank wrote extensive daily entries in her diary. Some betrayed the depth of despair into which she occasionally sunk during day after day of confinement. Ive reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die, she wrote on February 3, 1944. The world will keep on turning without me, and I cant do anything to change events anyway. However, the act of writing allowed her to maintain her sanity and her spirits. When I write, I can shake off all my cares, she wrote on April 5, 1944. In addition to her diary, she also filled a notebook with quotes from her favorite authors, original stories and the beginnings of a novel about her time in the Secret Annex. Her writings reveal a teenage girl with creativity, wisdom, depth of emotion and rhetorical power far beyond her years. Another big change for Anne happens when the war seems to be ending. She hears that personal accounts such as her diary will be in demand after the war ends. We see a return to her earlier optimism as she begins editing her diary with vigor and excitement. Unfortunately, this does not last. Even as Anne becomes more and more sensitive to the suffering going on in the world, her own suffering becomes unbearable. She feels completely alone. She thinks everyone hates her. She feels constantly criticized. And there is no escape. At one point, she thinks it might have been better if she and her family had all died instead of hiding in the Annex. As Anne becomes harder on those around her, she also becomes harder on herself, berating herself for being mean to the other members of the Annex. There her diary ends. Two short months after Anne’s fifteenth birthday, and two days after he last diary entry, the Secret Annex is raided. We don’t know Anne’s thoughts or feelings at that point or any time after. On August 4, 1944, a German secret police officer accompanied by four Dutch Nazis stormed into the Secret Annex, arresting everyone that was hiding there. They had been betrayed by an anonymous tip, and the identity of their betrayer remains unknown to this day. The residents of the Secret Annex were shipped off to Camp Westerbork, a concentration camp in the northeastern Netherlands, and arrived by passenger train on August 8, 1944. They were transferred to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland in the middle of the night on September 3, 1944. Upon arriving at Auschwitz, the men and women were separated. This was the last time that Otto Frank ever saw his wife or daughters. After several months of hard labor hauling heavy stones and grass mats, Anne and Margot were again transferred during the winter to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Their mother was not allowed to go with them, and Edith Frank fell ill and died at Auschwitz shortly thereafter, on January 6, 1945. At Bergen-Belsen, food was scarce, sanitation was awful and disease ran rampant. Frank and her sister both came down with typhus in the early spring and died within a day of each other sometime in March 1945, only a few weeks before Russian soldiers liberated the camp. Anne Frank was just 15 years old at the time of her death, one of more than 1 million Jewish children who died in the Holocaust. Otto Frank was the only member of his immediate family to survive. At the end of the war, he returned home to Amsterdam, searching desperately for news of his family. On July 18, 1945, he met two sisters who had been with Anne and Margot at Bergen-Belsen and delivered the tragic news of their deaths. Diary Excerpts Anne’s profoundly powerful words and insights covered a range of topics and emotions during her two years in hiding. These few excerpts demonstrate why Anne Frank is more relevant than ever today. On Deportations Our many Jewish friends and acquaintances are being taken away in droves. The Gestapo is treating them very roughly and transporting them in cattle cars to Westerbork, the big camp in Drenthe to which theyre sending all the Jews....If its that bad in Holland, what must it be like in those faraway and uncivilized places where the Germans are sending them? We assume that most of them are being murdered. The English radio says theyre being gassed. - October 9, 1942 On Nazi Punishment of Resisters Have you ever heard the term hostages? Thats the latest punishment for saboteurs. Its the most horrible thing you can imagine. Leading citizens--innocent people--are taken prisoner to await their execution. If the Gestapo cant find the saboteur, they simply grab five hostages and line them up against the wall. You read the announcements of their death in the paper, where theyre referred to as fatal accidents. - October 9, 1942 All college students are being asked to sign an official statement to the effect that they sympathize with the Germans and approve of the New Order. Eighty percent have decided to obey the dictates of their conscience, but the penalty will be severe. Any student refusing to sign will be sent to a German labor camp. - May 18, 1943 On Writing and Her Diary Mr. Bolkestein, the Cabinet Minister, speaking on the Dutch broadcast from London, said that after the war a collection would be made of diaries and letters dealing with the war. Of course, everyone pounced on my diary. - March 29, 1944 When I write, I can shake off all my cares. - April 5, 1944 Describing her Despair Ive reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, and I cant do anything to change events anyway. Ill just let matters take their course and concentrate on studying and hope that everything will be all right in the end. - February 3, 1944 ...but the minute I was alone I knew I was going to cry my eyes out. I slid to the floor in my nightgown and began by saying my prayers, very fervently. Then I drew my knees to my chest, lay my head on my arms and cried, all huddled up on the bare floor. A loud sob brought me back down to earth... - April 5, 1944 On Her Old Country, Germany Fine specimens of humanity, those Germans, and to think Im actually one of them! No, thats not true, Hitler took away our nationality long ago. And besides, there are no greater enemies on earth than the Germans and Jews. - October 9, 1942 On Still Believing It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. It’s utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more - July 15, 1944
Posted on: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 01:47:09 +0000