Six million other Jewish people were killed in the Holocaust, six million other stories – and yet it is Anne Frank’s story which has remained seared into the world’s collective conscious. A young girl all of 15 years old when she was betrayed from her hiding spot in 1944, Anne Frank was separated from her diary and sent to a transit camp, then Auschwitz, and eventually transferred to the Bergen-Belsen camp from which she never returned. Learn more about Anne Frank’s legacy in Amsterdam on our Rhine River and Dutch & Belgian Waterways sailings.
Fleeing Germany
Anne was born in Annelies Marie Frank in 1929 Germany to Otto and Edith Frank. She had a cat named Moortje and an older sister Margot who was three years her senior. In Frankfurt, the Franks lived in an assimilated community of Jews and non-Jews up until 1933. This was the year Adolf Hitler was appointed as Reich Chancellor and the Nazi Party officially came into power. Anti-semitic demonstrations, talk and actions were rampant and the Franks became one of 300,000 Germans to flee their homeland before 1939. They settled in Amsterdam, where conditions were much better than Germany.
The Franks in the Netherlands
The Franks had both Jewish and non-Jewish friends and life was able to return to a new kind of normal until 1940 when Germany invaded the Netherlands. The occupation government immediately began persecuting Jews with restrictive laws - confiscating properties, businesses and basic rights. The Franks attempted to immigrate to the United States but were refused in case they might become Nazi spies. Otto soon transferred his shares of his company to non-Jewish employees to keep it from being taken by authorities. A few days before Anne’s birthday in 1942, Otto bought her an autograph book which she would use as her diary. Just a few days later, her sister was given a summons to report to a work camp and the family moved into the secret annex in Otto’s workplace.
Life in the Annex
The family left their home in disarray, leaving clues that they were en route to Switzerland. They wore several layers of clothing as they walked the few miles from their home (Jews were forbidden from using public transportation) to the annex, unable to be seen carrying suitcases as it would have given them away. This was the last time Anne was able to be outside until her eventual capture. The only connection she had from the outside world now came from the “helpers” – four of Otto’s trusted former employees who kept them up to date on news developments and brought in food and other supplies.