The year is 1942, you are settling down ready to write in your journal when you hear people nearby, you become frightened thinking they have discovered you. You get enough courage to peek through the blinds. Outside a kid has come home from school to find their family taken away, another person comes home from shopping to find their family was taken too. But worst of all, some Germans were taking away families giving them little time to pack.  All of this was happening because they were Jews. Anne Frank was a Jew too, she hid away from the Germans in a secret building called the Secret Annex. She hid for 2 years before she was found and later killed. Even though she was just a girl her story of bravery was fascinating.

Happy times

On June 12th, 1929 Anneliese Marie Frank was born in Frankfurt Germany, she had an older sister Margot Frank. Her parents Edith and Otto Frank were Jewish. In 1933 Edith moved with Anne and her sister to her mother’s home, while their dad, Otto Frank moved to Amsterdam. Edith, Anne, and Margot later followed him. During that time Adolf Hitler was growing control of Germany and invading other countries. Otto worried that Hitler would gain control of Amsterdam and tried to go to the U.S with his family but they couldn’t.

Dangerous Years

In 1919 Adolf Hitler came to power, the problem was that he hated Jews. Even if your grandparents or aunt was a Jew and you weren’t, you would still be considered a Jew. There were special rules for Jews, stuff like no going to the beach. You can only go to a Jewish school. If you were caught disobeying then you would be shot. Later he immediately sent any Jews he could find to a concentration camp where they would be murdered and be killed. It was a gruesome time. The Franks were in trouble, non-Jewish people hunted down Jews for money, the Franks could trust no one! Some people tried to escape but that didn’t work they were surrounded. In the end, many Jews would have to hide from the Germans but even that was dangerous because they could be found. This was also dangerous for non-Jewish people, if they  were caught helping a Jew then they would be killed or sent to a camp.

The Secret Annex         

The Franks went into hiding in the secret annex. The secret annex was in the building where Otto Frank [her dad] worked, the entrance was hidden behind a movable bookshelf. It was very spacious compared to the hiding spots other Jews lived in. It had four floors with seven people living there, the Franks had one floor to themselves. At first, Anne shared a room with Margot, but then when came he moved into Anne’s room and Margot moved into her parents. The seven people living in the secret annex include Mr. and Mrs. van Pels, Peter van Pels, Fritz Pfeffer, and the Frank family.

Discovered!                    

On August 4th, 1944 the police discovered them, it had been more than two years since the Franks had first arrived. Everyone was caught by surprise, they were all arrested along with two helpers. Anne was sent to the Westerbork concentration camp along with her sister Margot and her mother, they were later moved to Auschwitz. In the end, Germany surrendered and the people in the concentration camps were freed, but it was too late for Anne, her mother Edith, Margot, Mr. and Mrs.van Pels, Peter van Pels, and Fritz Pfeffer they all had died.  Anne’s dad Otto Frank was the only one who survived, everyone else who lived in the secret annex died. No one knows if the people in the secret annex were betrayed or not and if they were no one knows who did it.

Conclusion

Anne’s story is just one example of hiding, there are billions of other stories of these scary times. The concentration camps were a horrible thing, it ruined wonderful people’s life like Anne’s. But like she said, “ What is done cannot be undone, but one can prevent it from happening again.” We can keep all those people in our heart, and in our mind, we can remember to prevent those stuff from happening again. Her diary was published in an amazing book titled Anne Frank diary of a young girl, you can even go see the secret annex where she hid in Amsterdam. Her life was short but every second of it was important.

Anne Frank original diary written in during World War two.

By Anne Frank – https://www.ushmm.org/exhibition/anne-frank/htmlsite/artifact_1_0.html, Public Domain, Link