The Blog of Anne Frank

 

. . . everything can be taken from a man except one thing: the last of the human freedoms–to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

— Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.

— Anne Frank

On this date — September 2 — in 1944, Anne Frank was among 1,019 people on the 68th and last train from Holland to Auschwitz. Anne and others hiding with her had been betrayed and captured a month before and held in the Westerbork detention center.

Gravestone for Margot and Anne Frank at Bergen-Belsen site

The Frank family had gone into hiding two years earlier, in July 1942, after Anne’s sister, Margot, received a call-up notice to report for deportation to a labor camp.

Anne was at Auschwitz for two months, then at Bergen-Belsen, where she and Margot died four months later of typhus, just a few weeks before the camp was liberated.

Anne’s father, Otto, was liberated from Auschwitz by the Russian Army on January 27, 1945. His wife, Edith, had died the previous day.

Otto Frank was taken first to Odessa and then to France before being allowed to return to Amsterdam. He did not learn the whereabouts of his daughters until October 24, when he received a letter informing him they had died at Bergen-Belsen.

This unfortunately was not an unusual family trajectory for European Jews in the 1940s. Anne Frank is remembered from among millions of others because she maintained a blog — I mean diary — so that her experiences, what she did, the thoughts she had, and everything she suffered was not lost.

I suppose the same holds true for everyone, with or without a diary — nothing is lost, nothing can be undone . . . and it may be possible for a life that appears to be quite pointless at the time to attain a meaning, a purpose, even through suffering, failure and death . . .

  470 comments for “The Blog of Anne Frank

  1. keren
    3 Apr 2009 at 8:59 am

    oh, i also wanted to say that im a very big fan of yours 🙂

  2. i rock
    4 Apr 2009 at 5:40 pm

    whoever says anne frank stinks or nazis rock is retarded
    anne frank is AWESOME
    im reading her diary
    its really good
    oh and anybody who says they are anne’s reincarnation is a liar

  3. anonymous (yes this is the real spelling)
    4 Apr 2009 at 5:44 pm

    i agree with i rock
    reincarnations are not real
    nazis stink
    anne frank rocks
    i feel bad 4 anne and margot
    if only they could have lived a little longer
    miep is 100 years old now!
    it was in the newspaper
    i hate nazis
    they suck

  4. gemma martinez
    13 Apr 2009 at 12:01 pm

    i am 48 yr. old and i am going to make a movie of anne frank in the secret annex. she wasn’t the most important person in the world but she had a diary. that made her special because she told her life in the secret annex. it will come out on july28, 2010. please it will be a world-wide movie! enjoy!!!! 🙂

  5. medicatedmoog
    27 Apr 2009 at 10:47 am

    hi, i have just returned home after visiting anne franks house. I have wanted to go for the past 15 years and my god it was worth it. I had my 3 yr old with me which made the trip extremely difficult, as i kept comparing my family unit now and how it would have been all those years ago. I look at these idiots now in gangs and think … huh you would not survive in that situation so bloody give up on your stupidity of trying to look hard in front of your mates.

    anyway changing the subject whilst i was there i bought the book ‘the last seven months of anne frank.’ it is told by seven women who spent time with her in belsen and it is brilliant. well it is hard reading as in sad. anyway RIP to the frank family and i hope you are all back together now.

  6. BRENDA
    27 Apr 2009 at 12:17 pm

    IM 14 and im hellla fine.. but this isnt about me its about our beloved sister ANNE FRANK….well im doing a report on this and feel really bad beacsue i know that she had a really tough time and i felt really bad for the fathher to beacase he never got to see his daughters get married… and for that i hate hitler!!! well i look up to her and i dedicate my report to her
    ANNE FRANK R.I.P.

  7. 29 Apr 2009 at 3:39 pm

    well i totally agree with medicatedmoog, those guys will not go far, i find them so immature,and selfish, and just to make the matters worse they really think they´re cool! they don´t know what effort and kindness is, if they only learned that from anne frank they wouldn´t be so miserable.

  8. Summer
    29 Apr 2009 at 4:42 pm

    I am working on this story in my 8th grade class.
    I think it is very interesting and i have learned alot.
    I learned that Anne Frank was a miserable person in her short life.
    But so far what we are working on it has to be a good book.
    Any questions email me at gutttaaabiiitch@yahoo.com
    Thanks (:

  9. 30 Apr 2009 at 8:28 pm

    im watching the movie on her in english right now its gotten really sad and suspenseful.
    R.I.P the Frank family

  10. 30 Apr 2009 at 8:34 pm

    una nina fuerte,con una coraza increible contar paso a paso su odisea compartida con otros nos demuestra la fortaleza.Creo que hubiese sido una gran escritora,y lo demostro.bien por su padre que publico su obra.

  11. 1 May 2009 at 12:39 pm

    i read anne frank dariy at lesat 1,000 times becacuse iam miep’s granddather and i love it i also still live in geramey also for the movie they ask my grandma to paly miep but she said NO! she was still very sad that she was DEAD.

  12. hi
    1 May 2009 at 12:42 pm

    really!

  13. That Guy
    3 May 2009 at 1:06 am

    How would you like it if your diary was beind read by others

  14. katy
    10 May 2009 at 10:05 am

    hey everyone! i am reading The Diary of Anne Frank- The Play in English class. We have to make a poster about her. If any of you have interesting or useful information about her, her family, or anyone in the Holocaust, please tell me! it is due on May 15! thanks! if you have any helpful information, please e-mail me at zebrasinstripes@gmail.com . my AIM screen name is fieldhockychck95. tell me there if u want!

  15. Does it matter who I am?!?!
    10 May 2009 at 10:11 am

    im sorry!

  16. katy
    10 May 2009 at 10:16 am

    Did you know that Anne Frank’s real name is Anelies Marie Frank

  17. kittige Kity
    12 May 2009 at 8:51 am

    dom zeg.
    ze is begraven in een massa frank

  18. Annie, REAL NAME
    15 May 2009 at 11:05 am

    Anne, I think you are so0o0o0o0o0 awesome! You really should not have been caught! You would have become very famous in Hollywood. I am also creeped out bc her last journal entry is on my birthday :/ You are a very remarkable person and people will never forget your story!

  19. 20 May 2009 at 7:57 am

    adoroa

  20. 26 May 2009 at 11:50 am

    E uma história bué triste ='(

    a Anne frank e os seus familiares manteram o segredo em ficarem fechados num sitio apertado .

    Foram muito corajosos .

    achoo que fariria o mesmo nãao só por mim mas tbm pela a minha família

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