Anne Franks Life

THE ANNE FRANK STORY AND THE HOLOCAUST IN HOLLAND

Anneliesse Marie Frank was born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, the second daughter of Otto and Edith Frank. Anne and her older sister Margot (born February 6, 1926), were born in the post-World War 1 era and they, along with their parents, were German citizens under the laws of the Weimar Republic (1918-33).Otto, Anne's father, was born in 1889, in Frankfurt, Germany-where his family could trace their roots back to the 17th century. Edith Holl"nder Frank, Anne's mother, was born in Aachen in 1900. Against the background of the Wilhelmian Empire, they grew up in an era of fierce European nationalism and rivalry along with extraordinary cultural and technological achievements. In 1914, their lives, like millions of others throughout the world, were dramatically changed when World War I began. Otto Frank and one of his brothers were among the men who enlisted in the German Army to serve the German "fatherland." Adolf Hitler also volunteered, serving in the List infantry of the Bavarian Army as a dispatch runner on the front for more than four years. The effects of World War I would transform the lives of both Otto Frank and Adolf Hitler. It would also transform the world around them.Amidst the turmoil of Weimar Germany, Otto and Edith Frank married in 1925, and Otto pursued an industrial career. In 1929, the year Anne Frank was born, the stock market in New York crashed, and an already unstable Weimar government was further undermined by economic depression, unemployment, and inflation.In 1933 the Nazis came into power. The Franks decided to move to Amsterdam in the Netherlands, which had been neutral during World War I. The Netherlands had the reputation of being a safe haven for religious minorities. Otto Frank left for Amsterdam first. He established a branch of his uncle's company called the "Opekta Works." The company produced pectin, an ingredient used in jam. This is a quote from her diary in 1942 "I lived in Frankfurt until I was four. Because we're Jewish, my father immigrated to Holland in 1933 . . . My mother, Edith Hollander Frank went with him to Holland in September, while Margot and I were sent to Aachen to stay with our grandmother. Margot went to Holland in December, and I followed in February, when I was plunked down on the table as a birthday pr...

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...of wheelbarrow in which you could take care of your needs. Sometimes you had to take these wheelbarrows down to the latrine. Possibly it was on one of those trips that I passed the bodies of the Frank sisters, one or both-I don’t know. At the time, I assumed that the bodies of the Frank girls had been put down in front of the barracks. And then the heaps would be cleared away. A huge hole would be dug and they were thrown into it. That I’m sure of. That must have been their fate, because that’s what happened to other people. I don’t have a single reason for assuming that it was any different for them than for the other women with us who died at the same time."Anne was an incredible person who throughout her whole terrible experience still remained positive about life until the very end and left a positive message of hope to all she met .The holocaust was an example of atrocious human treatmeant of other human beings because of their race, colour or beliefs. Annes experiences that she shares with us through the diary are experiences that no human should have to go through ever yet it still happens in the world around us and it should not be tolerated in any shape way or form….