Profile of the Day: Anne Frank

“Where there’s hope, there’s life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again.” – Anne Frank

Ninety-seven years ago today, Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt, Germany to Edith Holländer Frank and Otto Frank, a businessman. By 1934, the family had moved to Amsterdam after the Nazi party came to power in Germany.

Image: Anne Frank / Wikimedia Commons

For her 13th birthday, Anne was given a diary and immediately began writing in it. Shortly after, her older sister Margot, received a call-up notice to report to a labor camp in Germany. The family quickly went into hiding in a small, secret annex in the building of her father’s office. While in hiding, Anne wrote about her experiences,  thoughts, and fears in her diary. They were later joined by four others and hid in secret for two years before they were discovered and arrested. They were taken to a Nazi concentration camp, where Anne died of typhus only a few weeks before it was liberated. She was 15 years old.

Sadly, her father would be the only member of the family to have survived. In 1947, he published his daughter’s diary in the Netherlands. It has since been published in over 60 languages and has been read by millions of readers all around the world.

View Anne Frank’s Geni Profile