Anne  Frank's Memorial

Anne Frank
(1929 - 1945)

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General Details

Name: Anne Frank
Gender: Female
Age: 15 years old
Lived: Wednesday, 12 June 1929 - Tuesday, 27 March 1945

My Story

Anne Frank was a jewish girl that lived normally like any other children until July 6th, 1942.
Then she and her family went into hiding in fear of being taken by Gestapo.

Two small rooms, with an adjoining bathroom and toilet, were on the first level, and above that a larger  open room, with a small room beside it. From this smaller room, a ladder led to the attic.

Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman, Miep Gies, and Bep Voskuijl were the only employees who knew of the people in hiding, and with Gies' husband Jan Gies and Voskuijl's father Johannes Hendrik Voskuijl, were their "helpers" for the duration of their confinement.

They provided the only contact between the outside world and the occupants of the house, and they kept them informed of war news and political developments.

They catered for all of their needs, ensured their safety and supplied them with food, a task that grew more difficult with the passage of time. Anne wrote of their dedication and of their efforts to boost morale within the household during the most dangerous of times.

In late July, the Franks were joined by the van Pels family: Hermann, Auguste, and 16-year-old Peter, and then in November by Fritz Pfeffer, a dentist and friend of the family.

After sharing her room with Pfeffer, she found him to be insufferable and resented his intrusion, and she clashed with Auguste van Pels, whom she regarded as foolish.

She regarded Hermann van Pels and Fritz Pfeffer as selfish, particularly in regards to the amount of food they consumed. Some time later, after first dismissing the shy and awkward Peter van Pels, she recognized a kinship with him and the two entered a romance.
She received her first kiss from him, but her infatuation with him began to wane as she questioned whether her feelings for him were genuine, or resulted from their shared confinement

Anne frequently wrote of her difficult relationship with her mother, and of her ambivalence towards her. On November 7, 1942 she described her "contempt" for her mother and her inability to "confront her with her carelessness, her sarcasm and her hard-heartedness", before concluding, "She's not a mother to me".
 
Later, as she revised her diary, Anne felt ashamed of her harsh attitude, writing "Anne is it really you who mentioned hate, oh Anne, how could you?"

 She came to understand that their differences resulted from misunderstandings that were as much her fault as her mother's, and saw that she had added unnecessarily to her mother's suffering. With this realization, Anne began to treat her mother with a degree of tolerance and respect.


Margot and Anne each hoped to return to school as soon as they were able and continued with their studies. Margot took a short hand course by correspondence in Bep Voskuijl's name and received high marks. She also kept a diary, however it is believed to be lost. Most of Anne's time was spent reading and studying, and she regularly wrote and edited her diary entries.

In addition to providing a narrative of events as they occurred, she wrote about her feelings, beliefs and ambitions, subjects she felt she could not discuss with anyone. As her confidence in her writing grew, and as she began to mature, she wrote of more abstract subjects such as her belief in God, and how she defined human nature. She continued writing regularly until her final entry of August 1, 1944

On the morning of August 4, 1944, the hiding place was stormed by the German Security Police following a tip-off from an informer who was never identified.

Led by Schutzstaffel Oberscharführer Karl Silberbauer of the Sicherheitsdienst, the group included at least three members of the Security Police. The Franks, van Pelses and Pfeffer were taken to the Gestapo headquarters where they were interrogated and held overnight.

On August 5, they were transferred to the Huis van Bewaring (House of Detention), an overcrowded prison on the Weteringschans. Two days later they were transported to Westerbork. Ostensibly a transit camp, by this time more than 100,000 Jews had passed through it.
 
Having been arrested in hiding, they were considered criminals and were sent to the Punishment Barracks for hard labor.

On September 3,  the group was deported on what would be the last transport from Westerbork to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and arrived after a three day journey. In the chaos that marked the unloading of the trains, the men were forcibly separated from the women and children.

With the other females not selected for immediate death, Anne was forced to strip naked to be disinfected, had her head shaved and was tattooed with an identifying number on her arm. By day, the women were used as slave labour and Anne was forced to haul rocks and dig rolls of sod; by night, they were crammed into overcrowded barracks.

Witnesses later testified that Anne became withdrawn and tearful when she saw children being led to the gas chambers, though other witnesses reported that more often she displayed strength and courage, and that her gregarious and confident nature allowed her to obtain extra bread rations for Edith, Margot and herself.
 
Disease was rampant and before long, Anne's skin became badly infected by scabies. She and Margot were moved into an infirmary, which was in a state of constant darkness, and infested with rats and mice. Edith Frank stopped eating, saving every morsel of food for her daughters and passing her rations to them, through a hole she made at the bottom of the infirmary wall.

On October 28, selections began for women to be relocated to Bergen-Belsen. More than 8,000 women, including Anne and Margot Frank and Auguste van Pels, were transported, but Edith Frank was left behind and later died from starvation.
 
Tents were erected at Bergen-Belsen to accommodate the influx of prisoners, and as the population rose, the death toll due to disease increased rapidly. Anne was briefly reunited with two friends, Hanneli Goslar and Nanette Blitz, who were confined in another section of the camp.
 
Goslar and Blitz both survived the war and later discussed the brief conversations that they had conducted with Anne through a fence. Blitz described her as bald, emaciated and shivering and Goslar noted that Auguste van Pels was with Anne and Margot Frank, and was caring for Margot who was severely ill.
 
Neither of them saw Margot as she was too weak to leave her bunk. Anne told both Blitz and Goslar that she believed her parents were dead, and for that reason did not wish to live any longer. Goslar later estimated that their meetings had taken place in late January or early February, 1945.

In March 1945, a typhus epidemic spread through the camp and killed an estimated 17,000 prisoners. Witnesses later testified that Margot fell from her bunk in her weakened state and was killed by the shock, and that a few days later Anne died.

They estimated that this occurred a few weeks before the camp was liberated by British troops on April 15, 1945, although the exact dates were not recorded.
 
After liberation, the camp was burned in an effort to prevent further spread of disease, and Anne and Margot were buried in a mass grave, the exact whereabouts of which is unknown.

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To Anne Frank Rest In Peace The war and the pain is over now.

Biography

Fathers Name: Otto Frank
Mothers Name: Edith Frank
Country of Birth: Germany
Country of Residence: Netherlands
City of Residence: Amsterdam
Marital Status: Single
Religion: Jewish

Interests

Favourite Music Genre: Other

Passing

Place of Passing: Bergen-Belsen
Date of Passing: 27 March 1945
Cause of Passing: Typhus, starvation.
Type of Funeral: Mass-grave.
Place of Burial: Bergen-Belsen
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