and let it be known

Anne Frank Started Her Famous Diary 70 Years Ago Today

by Jill Pantozzi | 2:43 pm, June 12th, 2012

Most of us learned the tragic story of young Anne Frank in school. The young Jewish girl whose family was hidden away from Nazi soldiers in a secret apartment in Amsterdam was immortalized thanks to a diary her father gave her shortly before they fled. Frank started that diary on June 12, 1942. The date also marks what would have been her 83rd birthday.

Frank turned thirteen on the day her father, Otto Frank, gave her a red-and-white checkered autograph book. She had admired it in a shop window days earlier and decided to use it as a diary instead. “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,” she wrote on that day.

Little did she know it would document her and her family’s ordeal and long survive her. On July 6, 1942, the Frank family went into hiding in a secret annex above her father’s business after her sister, Margot Frank, was ordered to relocate to a Nazi “work” camp. We all know they were the dreaded concentration camps where terrible acts of violence were committed against the Jews and where many were put to death.

Lots of people have dissected Frank’s diary through the years both in historical works and fiction but did you know that her story has now gone mobile? According to AnneFrank.org:

The Anne Frank House has recently launched the mobile app Anne’s Amsterdam, which you can use to explore the history of Anne Frank and her contemporaries at thirty locations around Amsterdam. You see stories, films and photos from the past at the same locations today. On and around the Merwedeplein square you can see the only moving images of Anne Frank, an interview with her neighbour and friend Hanneli Goslar and a photo of the Blankevoort bookshop where Anne bought her red checked diary. You can pick up the images and stories and collect them in a digital album on your mobile phone. The items you pick up are linked to the website Anne Frank’s Amsterdam, where you can find more information.

Knowing that his daughter wanted to be a writer, Otto, who had survived the war, made attempts to see her diary published. His wish came true in 1947.

Little known fact (at least to me anyway), NASA named an asteroid after her. Do you remember learning about Anne Frank in school? How old were you and what did you think?

(via ABC)

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TAGS: Anne Frank | NASA | Nazis | World War II

http://profile.yahoo.com/CB5P5DW6D63ODI7PMBKVCX3LFU MaggieL

Please slink back under the NeoNazi rock you crawled out from. Holocaust denial is both absurd and offensive. Troll elsewhere.
Anonymous

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Anonymous

Strange how no other supposed event in History is not allowed to be questioned. Last time I know of that was the Church opposing Galileo. The historians studying this despite great threats are the modern equivalent to Galileo.
Anonymous

Also, being lied to by your government is not the exception, it is the norm. This is even more the case when it comes to WAR where your government has repeatedly told lies to get you to fight their wars. This was no less true in WWII. It is pretty hard for the government to justify the murder of its own citizens by engaging in foreign wars that don’t concern us – but look how easily they do so when filled with self-importance about how “bad” someone supposedly is. That is what went on there.
Anonymous

Hmm…I don’t think we read it in elementary school, which was sort of a shock once I got older. The play was performed when I was in middle school and I was a techie and understudy for Anne. I must have been in 7th grade, so I guess I got my full dose of Anne Frank around that time. I don’t own a copy, so obviously my bookshelf is lacking. It is definitely a must-read. We must cherish our first-person accounts. Only through voracious studying can we attempt to prevent the horrors of humanity repeating themselves!

(I would also appreciate TMS departing from traditional “no censorship policies” and removing Mr. Atwood’s comments.)
Anonymous

For the record…I am at work at your little link was blocked for “racism and hate.” Let’s all soak in that for a minute and then you can tell me that you’re speaking the truth we’re all so blind too.
http://www.facebook.com/linda.hiemstra.90 Linda Hiemstra

Psst, it was Anne’s sister Margot who’d been called up, not her mother Edith. :)

/Dutchie
http://www.thenerdybird.com/ Jill Pantozzi

Thank you! Meant to write something on her mother too and then got the two jumbled.
Guest

We read about Anne Frank and her diary when I was in the seventh grade. The following year, for our eighth grade end of the year class field trip to Washington D.C. One of the places we visited was the Holocaust Memorial. Upon arrival the class and I were seated in an auditorium and we were handed identification cards. We were taken throughout the memorial, flipping through our cards and learning more and more of the person we had. At the end of the tour, some of us had “survived” while most of us did not. One of my classmates had Anne’s identification card. I still have mine. And I will have it for as long as I live.

It was one of the most memorable and moving places I’ll ever be able to go.
Anonymous

We read about Anne Frank and her diary when I was in the seventh grade. The following year, for our eighth grade end of the year class field trip to Washington D.C. One of the places we visited was the Holocaust Memorial. Upon arrival the class and I were seated in an auditorium and we were handed identification cards. We were taken throughout the memorial, flipping through our cards and learning more and more of the person we had. At the end of the tour, some of us had “survived” while most of us did not. One of my classmates had Anne’s identification card. I still have mine. And I will have it for as long as I live.

It was one of the most memorable and moving places I’ll ever be able to go.
Kaylee Swinburn

as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a
great source of comfort and support,” she wrote on that day.

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Anonymous

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Sofia Bass

I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support,” she wrote on that day.

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Anonymous

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http://www.nickifaulk.com/ Nicki

I remember reading about Anne and her diary in middle school, I think I was about her age at the time. I loved the book, but was saddened that it survived and she did not.
http://revolvingdoorcommune.wordpress.com Teresa Jusino

Reading Anne Frank’s diary actually made me start keeping a journal in eighth grade. :) It’s amazing reading her diary when you’re around the same age she was when she wrote it. It’s one of the first things that broadens your horizons and helps you realize that there are children everywhere having different experiences than you are. It made me sad, but also strangely hopeful that there were so many things that were similar between me and Anne, despite growing up at different times, or living in different countries, or being different cultures/religions.
Anonymous

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