The Extraordinary Life of Anne Frank

Who Was Anne Frank?

Anne Frank was an ordinary girl with an extraordinary talent, who faced the hardships of her short life with courage and good humor.

As a young girl during the Second World War she had to go into hiding from the Nazis, who wanted to kill Jews like her. Anne managed to hide in a secret annex for over two years. Throughout this time Anne kept a diary of everything that happened. It was this diary that would make her famous and become one of the most read and respected books of the twentieth century.

Anne died when she was only fifteen years old, but her name and face have become well-known around the world because of her extraordinary writing.

Anne and her family went into hiding three years after the Second World War began. Only a few people knew their secret. Their helpers brought them food, risking their own lives for more than two years to help the people in hiding.

But on August 4, 1944, Anne and the others were discovered and taken away. Someone had betrayed their secret.

Of the eight people who had gone into hiding, only Anne’s father, Otto Frank, survived.

When he discovered Anne’s diary he was amazed by her words. He showed parts of it to family and friends and they quickly convinced him that Anne’s diary was special and should be published.

Otto Frank devoted the rest of his life to making sure that as many people as possible could read the record of the war that his daughter had created. Otto Frank lived to see her become famous around the world.

The diary showed what it was like for Jewish people living through the Second World War. But it also showed how brave, funny and thoughtful Anne was.

She had an outgoing personality and was known to be a “chatterbox,” but she showed another side of herself in her diary.

She treated it like a friend and confided all her deepest thoughts to it.

Anne’s diary is an important historical document. It gives us a picture of day-to-day life at a time when food shortages, robberies and cruelty to Jewish people were daily events. In some ways Anne was a typical teenager. But she was also capable of wise words and entertaining storytelling.

Many years after her death, Anne seems to leap from the pages of her diary as someone vibrant and glowing–someone you would like to know.

Let’s find out more about Anne and her extraordinary life.

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