WWII Home / Anne Frank Home
Anne Frank was a young Jewish girl who lived and died
during the Holocaust. The Frank family hid from the
Nazis for two long years in a Secret Annex at the back
of a warehouse. During that time, Anne kept a diary
in which she not only wrote about the horrors of war
but the everyday problems of being a teenager.
Fifty years after Anne's father published The Diary
of Anne Frank,
it has become the world's best-known memoir of
the Holocaust.
If you want to know more about Anne Frank or the Holocaust, be sure to check out our Holocaust and
World War II resources.
Anne Frank Time Line
June 12, 1929:
Anneliese Marie, or Anne, is born in
Frankfurt, Germany.
Summer 1933:
Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany. The first anti-Jewish laws are established. The Franks decide that the family
must move to the Netherlands.
May 10, 1940:
The German army invades the Netherlands.
June 12, 1942:
Anne receives a diary for
her 13th birthday.
July 5, 1942:
Anne's older sister, Margot, receives a call-up notice to report for deportation to a forced-labor camp. The family goes into hiding the next day.
July 13, 1942:
The van Pels, another Jewish family originally from Germany, join the Franks in hiding.
November 16, 1942:
Fritz Pfeffer, the eighth and final
resident of the Secret Annex, joins the Frank and van
Pels families.
August 4, 1944:
The residents of the Secret Annex are
betrayed and arrested.
They are taken to a police station in Amsterdam and eventually
to
Westerbork transit camp.
September 3, 1944:
The eight prisoners are transported
in a sealed cattle car to Auschwitz on the last transport ever to leave Westerbork.
At
Auschwitz, the men are separated from the women.
October 1944:
Anne, Margot, and Mrs. van Pels are transported
to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
Edith Frank
remains in the women's subcamp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
January 6, 1945:
Edith Frank dies at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
January 27, 1945:
Otto Frank is liberated from Auschwitz
by the Russian army. He
is taken first to Odessa and then to France before he
is allowed to make his way back to Amsterdam.
March 1945:
Anne and Margot Frank die at the Bergen-Belsen
concentration
camp within days of each other.
June 3, 1945:
Otto Frank arrives in Amsterdam, where
he is reunited with Miep
and Jan Gies. He knows his wife has died, but he does
not know
that his daughters have died too. He still has hope.
October 24, 1945:
Otto Frank receives a letter informing
him that his daughters died at Bergen-Belsen. Miep gives Anne's diary to Otto.
She found and hid the diary after the Franks' arrest
and had been hoping to return it to Anne.
Summer 1947:
The first 1,500 copies of Anne's diary are published
in Amsterdam.
The Anne Frank time line is excerpted from The Reader's Companion to The Diary of a Young Girl. Copyright 1995 Doubleday. All rights reserved. Published by the Anne Frank Center USA and Bantam Doubleday Dell. Used by permission of the Anne Frank Center USA.
Anne Frank faced the threat of discovery and death every day while living in the Secret Annex. Despite terrible circumstances, however, her strength of spirit comes through in her diary. "...I still believe, in spite of everything," she wrote while in hiding, "that people are truly good at heart." Anne was one of millions of people during the Holocaust who found the courage to get through each day. Discover other Stories of Courage, and write about what you learn.
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