The Diary of a Young Girl
84 years ago today a thirteen-year-old girl was given an autograph book, bound with red-and-white checked cloth, for her birthday. She decided to use it as a diary and chronicle her life; tragically, only for the next two years.
That was Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl, born in Germany, who became an unassuming diarist and Holocaust victim. She documented her life in hiding in Amsterdam, as the Germans occupied the Netherlands.
She wrote several times that she would never allow anyone to read her work. However, she later heard a radio broadcast which said the Dutch government wanted to create a public record of Dutch people's oppression under German occupation. She began editing her writing, removing some sections, with a hope of it being a record after the war.
The family, still in hiding in August 1944, was discovered, removed, split up, and ended up in various concentration camps.
Anne Frank died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in February or March 1945. Probably from a typhus epidemic that spread through the camp, killing 17,000 prisoners. No records were kept of her exact date of death!
Her father survived and returned to Amsterdam at the end of the war. He sought out the friends who had kindly sheltered his family. They had kept Anne's diary for him. He later learned of the death of his entire family.
This wonderful young girl lives on in her legacy, with The Anne Frank Foundation.
I have read "The Diary of a Young Girl" twice. Once when I was much younger, and more recently.
I wrote this article as a simple acknowledgement to a brave young girl. I can not do her life justice with my words.
Rest Well Anne x
I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn
Anne Frank