"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."
Anne Frank was born today, June 12th, 88 years ago in Frankfurt. In 1933, Her father Otto Frank moved the family to Amsterdam to escape from the escalating anti-Semitism in Germany. There Anne grew up attending the Montessori School, riding her bicycle, and fending off flirtatious schoolboys. But within 7 years, Germany invaded her adoptive Holland and by 1942, all known Jews were being deported or shipped off to concentration camps.
On July 5 1942, the Germans summoned Anne's older sister, Margot, for deportation. It was then that Otto made the decision take the family and go into hiding in the "secret annexe" with four other Jews, a room built above a factory in an industrial part of Amsterdam, whose entrance was hidden behind a bookshelf. Keeping quiet during the day while the workers worked, the Franks lived there for 25 months, before an informant betrayed their hiding place to the Gestapo.
During those 25 months, Anne kept a diary, which her father helped publish posthumously in 1947. Otto Frank was the family's sole survivor. [JG]
On July 5 1942, the Germans summoned Anne's older sister, Margot, for deportation. It was then that Otto made the decision take the family and go into hiding in the "secret annexe" with four other Jews, a room built above a factory in an industrial part of Amsterdam, whose entrance was hidden behind a bookshelf. Keeping quiet during the day while the workers worked, the Franks lived there for 25 months, before an informant betrayed their hiding place to the Gestapo.
During those 25 months, Anne kept a diary, which her father helped publish posthumously in 1947. Otto Frank was the family's sole survivor. [JG]
Anne at the Montessori School she attended in Amsterdam
(now the Anne Frank School) until 1940, when Jewish children
were ordered to attend separate schools.
(now the Anne Frank School) until 1940, when Jewish children
were ordered to attend separate schools.
MY FAVORITE QUOTES
10. "I feel wicked sleeping in a warm bed, while my dearest friends have been knocked down or have fallen into a gutter somewhere out in the cold night. I get frightened when I think of my close friends who have now been delivered into the hands of the cruelest brutes that walk the earth. And all because they are Jews!"
9. "Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction."
8. "Pim is expecting the invasion any day. Churchill has had pneumonia, but is improving slowly. The freedom-loving Gandhi is on his umpteenth fast."
7. "We didn't make much fuss about Chanuka [that year]: we just gave each other a few little presents and then we had the candles. Because of the shortage of candles we only had them alight for ten minutes, but it is all right as long as you have the song."
6. "I'm mad on Mythology and especially the Gods of Greece and Rome. They think here that it is just a passing craze, they've never heard of an adolescent kid of my age being interested in Mythology. Well, then, I shall be the first!"
5. "I lay still in bed, feeling at once that I had been horrible to push [Mummy] away so rudely. But I knew too that I couldn't have answered differently. It simply wouldn't work. I felt sorry for Mummy; very, very sorry, because I had seen for the first time in my life that she minds my coldness. I saw the look of sorrow on her face when she spoke of love not being forced. It is hard to speak the truth, and yet it is the truth: she herself has pushed me away., her tactless remarks and her crude jokes, which I don't find at all funny, have now made me insensitive to any love from her side. Just as I shrink at her hard words, so did her heart when she realized that the love between us was gone."
4. "A voice sobs within me: "There you are, that's what has become of you: you're uncharitable, you're supercilious and peevish, people dislike you and all because you won't listen to the advice given."...Oh I would like to listen, but it doesn't work...I twist heart round again so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and what I could be, if...there weren't any other people living in the world."
3. "Although I'm only fourteen, I know quite well what I want, I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child, I feel quite independent of anyone."
2. "I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart."
1. "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."
9. "Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction."
8. "Pim is expecting the invasion any day. Churchill has had pneumonia, but is improving slowly. The freedom-loving Gandhi is on his umpteenth fast."
7. "We didn't make much fuss about Chanuka [that year]: we just gave each other a few little presents and then we had the candles. Because of the shortage of candles we only had them alight for ten minutes, but it is all right as long as you have the song."
6. "I'm mad on Mythology and especially the Gods of Greece and Rome. They think here that it is just a passing craze, they've never heard of an adolescent kid of my age being interested in Mythology. Well, then, I shall be the first!"
5. "I lay still in bed, feeling at once that I had been horrible to push [Mummy] away so rudely. But I knew too that I couldn't have answered differently. It simply wouldn't work. I felt sorry for Mummy; very, very sorry, because I had seen for the first time in my life that she minds my coldness. I saw the look of sorrow on her face when she spoke of love not being forced. It is hard to speak the truth, and yet it is the truth: she herself has pushed me away., her tactless remarks and her crude jokes, which I don't find at all funny, have now made me insensitive to any love from her side. Just as I shrink at her hard words, so did her heart when she realized that the love between us was gone."
4. "A voice sobs within me: "There you are, that's what has become of you: you're uncharitable, you're supercilious and peevish, people dislike you and all because you won't listen to the advice given."...Oh I would like to listen, but it doesn't work...I twist heart round again so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and what I could be, if...there weren't any other people living in the world."
3. "Although I'm only fourteen, I know quite well what I want, I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child, I feel quite independent of anyone."
2. "I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart."
1. "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."
"This is a photograph of me as I wish I looked all the time.
Then I still might have a chance of getting to Holywood.
But at present, I'm afraid, I usually look quite different."
— Anne Frank, October 10 1942
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