The Anne Frank story 

Anne Frank was born in 1929. Anne, her sister Margot and their parents lived in Frankfurt in Germany until Anne was four. The family was Jewish and with the ascent to power of the National Socialist Party (the Nazis) they decided that staying in Germany was not a safe option. In 1933 they moved to Amsterdam in the Netherlands to escape from persecution.

Anne kept a diary from her earliest years and she was able to record the changes to her life after Germany occupied the Netherlands in 1940. The Nazis brought an even more brutal approach to Jews and other minority groups in occupied territory. Anne records in her diary:

 

“After May 1940…the trouble started for the Jews. Our freedom was severely restricted by a series of anti-Jewish decrees: Jews were required to wear a yellow star; Jews were required to turn-in their bicycles; Jews were forbidden to ride trams or in cars, even their own…Jews were forbidden to go to theatres, cinemas or any other forms of entertainment; Jews were forbidden to use swimming pools, tennis courts, hockey fields or any other athletic fields…You couldn’t do this and you couldn’t do that, but life went on…”

                                                                                    20 June 1942

 

Shortly after writing these words the Frank family were forced to go into hiding in an an Amsterdam house in secret rooms. They were not allowed outside in the street as it would have been too dangerous. Anne's diary records the events and her thoughts over the two years the family was in hiding. 

Her red check diary was her pride and joy and was a birthday present from her parents on her thirteenth birthday on 12 June 1942. Little did she know that close to 70 years later her words in her diary would have had millions of readers.

After two years in hiding, someone betrayed the family to the Nazis and they were taken by the Dutch police and were sent to the Auschwitz extermination camp. Anne and her sister are later transferred to the concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen where Anne dies in March 1945 aged 15. Only Anne's father survived the war from the Frank family.

On his return Otto Frank found her diary and decided to publish it.

There are many inspirational and perceptive lines in the diary which we recommend that any reader of this website should read. If you are searching for a Romanian language version of the diary then go to the website of the publisher Humanitas.

We also recommend that you visit the Anne Frank Fonds website where the historical perspective of the Frank family in Frankfurt can be understood and put in the context of subsequent events. 

  

Bringing the Anne Frank story to Transylvania

We have been honoured to have worked since 2014 with the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam to bring their travelling exhibition Anne Frank - A History For Today to Transylvania.

We started the jouney in Oradea on 2 April 2014 and over the next 3 years took the exhibition and related film (to which we added Romanian sub-titles) across many parts of Romania.

We provided young people with an understanding of this important story. We also produced, over this period, aids and materials for teachers in Romanian schools. 

We have also assembled some of the best Anne Frank resources held on the internet for use by those who want to explore and study for themselves and also for teachers who want to introduce the Anne Frank story into the classroom. At the present time, there are limited resources in the Romanian language.