Anne Frank’s diary is one of the most famous contemporary documents in the world. The personal notes that were made between 1942 and 1944 made the Jewish girl a symbolic figure for the victims of the National Socialism. Annelies Marie Frank lived with her parents and her older sister Margot in Frankfurt am Main until she was four.
When the NSDAP came to power in 1933, her parents decided to emigrate to the Netherlands to build a new life with their daughters in Amsterdam. But after the German troops marched in 1940, anti-Jewish laws had been passed there too and the situation was getting worse. On July 5, 1942, Margot Frank received notice to register for forced labour, at which time the family decided to go into hiding moving into the hidden annex above their father’s office, where they were joined by four other refugees shortly thereafter. For two years Anne Frank wrote letters to an imaginary friend named Kitty in her diary, where she shared her fears and feelings about the cramped coexistence. The hiding place was discovered on August 4, 1944 and the group were deported. Anne Frank dies at the age of 15 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Her diary has been translated into over 70 languages so far.