Anne Frank’s diary entries are addressed to an imaginary friend she invented called Kitty. Although this character may have been based around a real person, Anne saw her diary and Kitty as interchangeable. [1]
On 12 June 1942, Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl living in Amsterdam, received her first red checkered diary for her 13th birthday, calling it “maybe one of my nicest presents.”
A month later, she and her family went into hiding from the Nazis. For two years, the Franks and four other families hid, being fed and cared for by Gentile friends. The Frank family remained in a secret annex on the premises of the company owned by Anne’s father for just over two years before being arrested and deported to Nazi-run concentration camps. Anne’s last diary entry is dated 1 August 1944, three days before the arrest.
Anne Frank died in February or March 1945, aged 15 in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Lower Saxony, Germany.
Anne’s father Otto, the only member of the family to survive the war, later published her diaries. The book went on to be published in dozens of countries around the world and is regarded as one of the most important works of the 20th century. The Diary of a Young Girl, the personal journal of Anne Frank, a German-born Jewish girl hiding with her family from the Nazis in Amsterdam during World War II, was first published.
I will never forget my first reading of Anne’s diary – I could not put it down. I was left with such a sense of despair at her fate, wondering what she might have gone on to write had she survived the Nazis.
The first edition of her journal was censored – her father wanted some more personal thoughts and comments removed. But the unexpurgated edition of her diary has now been published – this includes her thoughts on sexuality and her changing body which were left out of the original publication. And there are lots of books about Anne’s life, before and after the time spent in hiding. Or you might enjoy reading her Tales from the Secret Annexe – the short stories she wrote while in hiding.