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The first entry of what became The Diary Of A Young Girl was written 80 years ago this month. We asked fifth-graders at Anne Frank Elementary School in Philadelphia what they learned from it.
- Overview
- Background
- Life in hiding and capture
- Diary: compilation and publication
The Diary of a Young Girl, journal by Anne Frank, a Jewish teenager who chronicled her family’s two years (1942–44) in hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II. The book was first published in 1947—two years after Anne’s death in a concentration camp—and later became a classic of war literature.
In 1933 Anne’s family—her father, Otto; her mother, Edith; and her older sister, Margot—moved to Amsterdam from Germany following the rise of Adolf Hitler. In 1940 the Netherlands was invaded by Germany, which began to enact various anti-Jewish measures, one of which required Anne and her sister to enroll in an all-Jewish school the following year....
Over the next two years, Anne wrote faithfully in the diary, which she came to consider a friend, addressing many of the entries to “Dear Kitty.” In the journal and later notebooks, Anne recounted the day-to-day life within the annex. The close quarters and sparse supplies led to various arguments among the inhabitants, and the outgoing Anne came to find the conditions stifling. Heightening tensions was the ever-present concern that they would be discovered. However, many entries involve typical adolescent issues—jealousy toward her sister; annoyance with others, especially her mother; and an increasing sexual awareness. Anne wrote candidly about her developing body, and she experienced a brief romance with Peter van Pels. She also discussed her hopes for the future, which included becoming a journalist or a writer. In addition to the diary, Anne penned several short stories and compiled a list of “beautiful sentences” from other works.
After learning of plans to collect diaries and other papers to chronicle people’s wartime experiences, Anne began to rework her journal for possible publication as a novel entitled Het Achterhuis (“The Secret Annex”). She notably created pseudonyms for all the inhabitants, eventually adopting Anne Robin as her alias. Pfeffer—whom Anne had come to dislike as the two often argued over the use of a desk—was named Albert Dussel, the surname of which is German for “idiot.”
Of the eight people in the secret annex, only Otto Frank survived the war. He subsequently returned to Amsterdam, where Gies gave him various documents she had saved from the annex. Among the papers was Anne’s diary, though some of the notebooks were missing, notably most of those from 1943. To fulfill Anne’s dream of publication, Otto began sorting through her writings. The original red-and-white checkered journal became known as the “A” version, while her revised entries, written on loose sheets of paper, were known as the “B” version. The diary that Otto ultimately compiled was the “C” version, which omitted approximately 30 percent of her entries. Much of the excluded text was sexual-related or concerned Anne’s difficulties with her mother.
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After Otto was unable to find a publisher, the work was given to historian Jan Romein, who was so impressed that he wrote about the diary in a front-page article for the newspaper Het Parool in 1946. The resulting attention led to a publishing deal with Contact, and Het Achterhuis was released on June 25, 1947. An immediate best seller in the Netherlands, the work began to appear elsewhere. In 1952 the first American edition was published under the title Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl; it included an introduction by Eleanor Roosevelt. The work was eventually translated into more than 65 languages, and it was later adapted for the stage and screen. All proceeds went to a foundation established in Anne’s honour. In 1995, 15 years after Otto’s death, a new English version of the Diary was published. It contained material that had been previously omitted. In an effort to extend the copyright date—which was to begin expiring in various European countries in 2016—Otto was added as a coauthor in 2015.
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The Diary of a Young Girl is a diary written in Dutch by Anne Frank. She began it in 1942, confiding to Kitty. She wrote it while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The family was caught in 1944 and Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
The Diary of a Teenage Girl is a play in one-act by Marielle Heller based on the novel of the same name by Phoebe Gloeckner. [1] The play was first performed at the 3LD Art & Technology Center in New York City in 2010. It was produced by Aaron Louis in association with New Georges & The Essentials and starred writer Marielle Heller in the lead ...
Sep 15, 2010 · In 1942, with Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, they and another family lived cloistered in the “Secret Annex” of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they ...
The Diary of a Young Girl, commonly referred to as The Diary of Anne Frank, is a book of the writings from the Dutch-language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The family was apprehended in 1944, and Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. Anne's diaries were retrieved ...
Het Achterhuis: Dagboekbrieven 12 juni 1942 - 1 augustus 1944 = The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank. The Diary of a Young Girl, also known as The Diary of Anne Frank, is a book of the writings from the Dutch language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
