Anne Frank example essay topic

THE ANNE FRANK STORY AND THE HOLOCAUST IN HOLLANDAnneliesse Marie Frank was born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, the second daughter of Otto and Edith Frank. Anne and her older sister Margot (born February 6, 1926), were born in the post-World War 1 era and they, along with their parents, were German citizens under the laws of the Weimar Republic (1918-33). Otto, Anne's father, was born in 1889, in Frankfurt, Germany-where his family could trace their roots back to the 17th century. Edith Holl " nder Frank, Anne's mother, was born in Aachen in 1900. Against the background of the Wilhelm ian Empire, they grew up in an era of fierce European nationalism and rivalry along with extraordinary cultural and technological achievements. In 1914, their lives, like millions of others throughout the world, were dramatically changed when World War I began.

Otto Frank and one of his brothers were among the men who enlisted in the German Army to serve the German 'fatherland. ' Adolf Hitler also volunteered, serving in the List infantry of the Bavarian Army as a dispatch runner on the front for more than four years. The effects of World War I would transform the lives of both Otto Frank and Adolf Hitler. It would also transform the world around them. Amidst the turmoil of Weimar Germany, Otto and Edith Frank married in 1925, and Otto pursued an industrial career. In 1929, the year Anne Frank was born, the stock market in New York crashed, and an already unstable Weimar government was further undermined by economic depression, unemployment, and inflation.

In 1933 the Nazis came into power. The Franks decided to move to Amsterdam in the Netherlands, which had been neutral during World War I. The Netherlands had the reputation of being a safe haven for religious minorities. Otto Frank left for Amsterdam first. He established a branch of his uncle's company called the 'Ope kta Works. ' The company produced pectin, an ingredient used in jam. This is a quote from her diary in 1942 'I lived in Frankfurt until I was four.

Because we " re Jewish, my father immigrated to Holland in 1933... My mother, Edith Hollander Frank went with him to Holland in September, while Margot and I were sent to Aachen to stay with our grandmother. Margot went to Holland in December, and I followed in February, when I was plunked down on the table as a birthday present for Margot. ' The Nazis appointed Arthur Seuss-In quart as Reich Commissioner for the Occupied Dutch Territories. He was an Austrian Nazi who had demonstrated his brutal anti-Semitic feelings in the early Austrian union with Germany. At first Anne and Margot were still able to socialize with their friends and attend school.

However, soon the Nazi administration in the Netherlands, along with the Dutch civil service, began issuing and carrying out anti-Jewish decrees. This included stripping Jews of their rights as citizens and human beings and isolating them from their fellow Dutch citizens. Otto Frank, aware of what the Nazi decrees had done to Jews in Germany, anticipated as best he could what was going to happen to by turning his business over to his non-Jewish colleagues.? Anne had to leave her Montessori School to attend the Jewish Lyceum.

' Our freedom was severely restricted by a series of anti-Jewish decrees; Jews were required to wear a yellow star; Jews were forbidden to use streetcars; Jews were forbidden to ride in cars, even their own; Jews were required to do their shopping between 3 and 5 p.m. Jews were required to frequent only Jewish owned barbershops and beauty parlors; Jews were forbidden to be out on the streets between 8 pm and 6 am... Jews were forbidden to visit Christians in their homes; Jews were required to attend Jewish schools. You couldn't do this and you couldn't do that. But life went on. ' (June 29, 1942) The first brutal round up (razzia) of 400 Jewish men and boys in Holland occurred on February 25, 1941.

It was in response to earlier riots by Dutch Nazis and a counter attack by a small Jewish resistance group. 'Virtually the entire working population of Amsterdam and a few other cities in the vicinity went on strike. The strike continued for two days, until the Germans broke it by force. ' (Louis de Jong, The Netherlands and Nazi Germany, Harvard Univ. Press, 1990).

On July 5, 1942, Anne's sister Margot received a call-up notice for a Nazi 'work camp. ' Though the hiding place was not yet ready, Edith and Otto Frank realized they had to escape immediately. Hurriedly, they packed their belongings and left notes implying that they had fled the country, perhaps to Switzerland. On the evening of July 6, they moved into their hiding place. ' So there we were, father mother and I walking in the pouring rain, each of us with a schoolbag and a shopping bag filled to the brim with the most varied assortment of items. The people on their way at that early hour gave us sympathetic looks; you could tell by their face that they were sorry they couldn't offer us some kind of transportation; the conspicuous yellow star spoke for itself (July 9, 1942) 'Otto Frank had made arrangements with his business partner, German Jewish refugee Hermann van Pels, his wife, Auguste, and their son, Peter, to share the Annex with his family.

They arrived a week later on July 13. The seven residents of the Annex were joined by the eighth and final resident, Fritz Pfeffer, in November. Anne wrote about her new home:' The Annex is an ideal place to hide in. It may be damp and lopsided, but there's probably not a more comfortable hiding place in all of Amsterdam. No, in all of Holland. (July 11, 1942) ' Our many Jewish friends and acquaintances are being taken away in droves.

The Gestapo is treating them very roughly and transporting them in cattle cars to Westerbork, the big camp in Drenthe to which they " re sending all the Jews... It must be terrible in Westerbork... If it's that bad in Holland, what must it be like in those faraway and uncivilized places where the Germans are sending them? We assume that most of them are being murdered. The English radio says they " re being gassed. Perhaps that's the quickest way to die.

(Oct. 9, 1942) 'Anne, Margot and Peter spent hours reading and studying with Otto Frank serving as tutor. Anne described the importance of receiving news and other items from their helpers:' We long for Saturdays because that means books. We " re like a bunch of little kids with a present. Ordinary people don't know how much books can mean to someone who's cooped up. Our only diversions are reading, studying and listening to the radio. (July 11, 1943) ' The diary was edited for publishing by Mr Frank.

She used her diary to record her feelings about growing up, her aspirations and insights about human relationships and about herself, these were removed from the published diary. On March 7, 1944, she wrote:' When I think back to my life in 1942, it all seems so unreal. The Anne Frank who enjoyed that heavenly existence was completely different from the one who has grown wise within these walls. Looking back, I realize that this period of my life has irrevocably come to a close. My happy-go-lucky, carefree schooldays are gone forever.

I don't even miss them. I've outgrown them. I can no longer just kid around, since my serious side is always there. ' Despite annes terrible times in the annexe, one thing that people will remember her for was her constant belief in human kindness... n July 15, 1944, Anne expressed her sense of foreboding mixed with hope:' It is utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.

In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I'll be able to realize them. 'At approximately 10 a.m. on August 4, 1944, Anne and the others' greatest fear came true. Four Dutch Nazis, under the direction of Karl Silber bauer, an Austrian Nazi, entered the office building to catch the hidden Jews. Someone had betrayed them, but to this day no one knows who.

The Nazis took the residents into custody and in the process of removing them, snatched a briefcase and shook out its contents to make room for valuables. After the residents had been carted off, M iep came back to the annexe, to find the sheets of Anne's diary on the floor. The residents of the Secret Annex were taken to prison in Amsterdam, then deported to the Dutch transit camp, Wester brook, and then to Auschwitz. Upon arrival, the men were separated from the women. Hermann van Pels was the first to die, gassed at Auschwitz shortly after being transported from Westerbork.

Fritz Pfeffer was moved from Auschwitz to Neuen gamme concentration camp in Germany, probably via Sachsehhausen or Buchenwald, where he died on December 20, 1944. Anne, Margot and Mrs. Van Pels were transported to Bergen-Belson concentration camp in Germany. Edith Frank remained in the woman's sub-camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau where she died of starvation and exhaustion in January, 1945. At Bergen-Belson, Anne and Margot, already debilitated, contracted typhus. Margot, seventeen years old, died first.

A short time later Anne, then fifteen years old, died. It was March 1945. The exact date of their deaths and where they were buried is unknown. Mrs. Van Pels' last months consisted of gruesome transports from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belson, Buchenwald and finally to Theresienstadt in Czechoslovakia. She died in either Germany or Czechoslovakia in the Spring of 1945. Her son, Peter, survived the 'death march' from Auschwitz to Mauthausen but died on May 5, 1945.

The Nazi's, abandoned Auschwitz with the coming of the Russian Army. They left prisoners, including Otto Frank, behind in the camp infirmary. At the time, Otto did not know that he was the sole survivor of the eight people who had hidden in the Secret Annex. He wrote this to a close relative to show he was still alive:' They tried to take me along when they fled the camp, but I managed to escape and stayed behind. I thought this was my only chance. I don't know how many of my comrades who were forced to go with them are still alive.

It can't be many... We " re waiting for repatriation, but the war is still on and we " re far from home. Holland is still partially occupied. (Otto Frank, Letter quoted in A History Today, Anne Frank house, 1997.) The image of Anne Frank is one of a vibrant, intelligent young girl struggling to retain her ideals while living in hiding in Nazi occupied Holland, this is how we remember anne and what she has left as a legacy. However, to have an accurate understanding of Anne Frank and her significance one must look beyond the diary and examine her last months alive. Anne Frank was one of the approximately 1.5 million Jewish children killed by the Nazis and their accomplices through state ordered genocide.

Her final seven months were spent in Westerbork, Auschwitz, and Bergen-Belson. Anne Frank directly experienced the systematic brutalization of this state directed genocide. Like millions of other victims of the Holocaust, Anne Frank arrived at the Auschwitz death camp where she was separated from her father, selected, registered, shaved, and tattooed. Along with Margot and their mother, she struggled to 'survive the endless roll-calls, the frequent selections, the starvation diets, the bitter cold of the nights' at the woman's sub-camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Anne developed scabies from the filth and disease. Margot stayed with her in the quarantine barracks.

One eyewitness, who was also at the quarantine barracks, described seeing 'bodies everywhere and bodies were just thrown, up on top of each other. Anne and Margot were among a group selected from the women's barrack to be transported to Bergen-Belson in October of 1944. Their mother was not allowed to go with them. Edith Hollander-Frank died without her family in the women's sub-camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau a short time before the camp was liberated.

The transfer to Bergen-Belson proved to be disastrous for Margot and Anne because of the terrible conditions. Bergen-Belson did not have gas chambers but there was extreme overcrowding and mass deaths occurred as a direct result from planned starvation and deliberate epidemics such as typhus. The winter of 1944-45 was particularly severe. Anne and Margot, like so many other inmates, had little food, clothing, or medicine.

Sanitary conditions were abysmal. As the liberating armies came closer, the German military began dismantling the camps and conditions for the inmates deteriorated even further. Half of the approximately 200,000 inmates at Bergen-Belson had typhus or some other contagious disease according to one estimate. Many died after the camp was liberated because of these epidemics.

Years later, Hannah Pick-Gos lar, Anne's childhood friend, described a brief meeting with Anne in Bergen-Belson: Rachel van Amerongen-Frankfoorder was one of the last to see the Frank sisters and this is her recollection of them:' They showed the recognizable symptoms of typhus-that gradual wasting away, a sort of apathy, with occasional revivals, until they became so sick that there wasn't any hope. And their end... I didn't pay any special attention to them because there were so many others who also died.'s he goes on to recall:' The dead were always carried outside, laid down in front of the barracks, and when you were let out in the morning to go to the latrine, you had to walk past them. That was as dreadful as going to the latrine itself, because gradually everyone got typhus. In front of the barracks there was a kind of wheelbarrow in which you could take care of your needs.

Sometimes you had to take these wheelbarrows down to the latrine. Possibly it was on one of those trips that I passed the bodies of the Frank sisters, one or both-I don't know. At the time, I assumed that the bodies of the Frank girls had been put down in front of the barracks. And then the heaps would be cleared away. A huge hole would be dug and they were thrown into it. That I'm sure of.

That must have been their fate, because that's what happened to other people. I don't have a single reason for assuming that it was any different for them than for the other women with us who died at the same time. ' Anne was an incredible person who throughout her whole terrible experience still remained positive about life until the very end and left a positive message of hope to all she met. The holocaust was an example of atrocious human treatment of other human beings because of their race, colour or beliefs. Annes experiences that she shares with us through the diary are experiences that no human should have to go through ever yet it still happens in the world around us and it should not be tolerated in any shape way or form.