Anne Frank

Anne Frank was more than just a girl, she was a symbol for the Jewish hope for good and truth.  On March 13, 1933 Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party won office in Germany.  Anti-Semitic demonstrations occurred almost spontaneously making many Jewish families fear for their life. The Frank’s were one of the 300,000 Jews who fled Germany in the period between 1933 and 1939. On 1935 Nuremberg Laws were made law; laws that main goal was to discriminate against Jews. On May 1940, Germany invaded Netherland and the new government began discriminating and prosecuting Jews trough the implementation of restrictive and prejudice laws. By 1941 Jews were required to always wear the Star of David, and Germany began deporting Jews.  As long with deportation of the Jews, the German government began making Ghettos, a small town where Jews were concentrated in.  By June of 1941 German SS police (mobile killing units) began massive extermination operations of the Jewish people. By July of 1941 Hitler’s SS Chief Heinrich Himmler implemented the “Final Solution” so Germany could more efficiently deal with the Jewish problem.   In fear for their life the Frank family went into hiding on July 6, 1942 in a tiny apartment building that they shared with another family.  Anne Frank, just 13 years old at the time wrote almost every day ranging from her emotions, to what she ate that day.  On August 7, 1944 after two years of hiding Anne Frank and her family was captured by the SS police.  A couple of weeks before the British liberated the camp on April 15, 1945 Typhus swept through the camp with Anne Frank one of the victims.  Anne Frank is buried in a mass grave somewhere in Europe.

           

            Anne Frank, a 15 year old girl was forced to hide for two years of her life, tortured and kept in captivity for 6 months, all to die and be buried in a mass grave weeks before the Concentration Camp was taken over by the British.  Anne had normal teenage problems that she wrote about in her diary.  She serves as an individual aggregate to all Jewish kids who were forced into hiding, as she is unbiased, truthful, and open in her writing. It gives that horrific period of time a face and a voice.  It is one thing to see pictures, and videos; it is another to read a first hand eyewitness account from a 13 year-old girl. Having an eyewitness account allows the reader to connect emotionally with the writer.  Seeing pictures can cause emotion, but when someone reads a diary of a brave, intelligent, and optimistic young girl it brings the emotion to a whole new level.  Anne Frank provided a face to 1.5 million Jewish children exterminated during the Holocaust simply because of their religion.

-Jake Wasserman