1) Anne Frank was a German Jewish girl who went into hiding with her family during the Holocaust in Amsterdam to escape Nazi persecution.
2) She and her family hid in a secret annex for over two years but were eventually arrested in 1944 and transported to concentration camps.
3) Anne and her sister Margot died at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945, only weeks before it was liberated, at the ages of 15 and 19.
5. Going into Hiding: In the morning on July 6, 1942 Anne’s father moved the family into hiding. The apartment that they were currently staying in was left in a disarray so that it would give the impression that they had left suddenly. They all wore several layers of clothing because they couldn’t care luggage with them. They left all there possessions behind including Anne’s cat Moortje. They moved into the Achterhuis ( a Dutch word that translates into the “Secret Annex.”
6. The house in the middle is now the Anne Frank House or “Secret Annex”
10. The others in the Annex Hermann van Pels – died in Auschwitz; only one of the group to have went to the gas chamber. Auguste van Pels- Rottgen – Date and place of death unknown. Peter van Pels – Died after the death march. Roughly around May 1945 Fritz Pfeffer – Died December 20, 1944 in Neuengamme Concentration Camp of sickness.
11. Arrested: Karl Silberbauer was the Nazi officer who arrested Anne Frank and her family in 1944. He had no clue who made the tip-off of were the family was hiding. According to Otto Frank ; Silberbauer acted accordingly and behaved correctly without using cruelty during the arrest.
13. Auschwitz Auschwitz was the largest of the Nazi Germany’s concentration camps that were operational during WWI. The camp commander Rudolf Hoss testified at the Nuremburg Trails that up to 3 million people had died at Auschwitz. About 90% of these people were Jews. Most of the victims were killed in the gas chamber using Zyklon B; other deaths were caused by starvation, forced labor, lack of disease control, individual executions, and medical experiments.
19. Bergan –Belsen Concentration Camp Bergan – Belsen is located in Germany. It was originally a prisoner of war camp but in 1943 was turned into a concentration camp. In October selections were made from Auschwitz and more than 8,000 women including Auguste van Pels, Margot Frank, and Anne Frank were transported to Bergan– Belsen. Here they lived in tents that were set up to house the overflow of prisoners . Over 50,000 deaths had occurred at Bergan - Belsen between 1943 and June 1945. Among those that died their was Margot and Anne Frank.
20. In March 1945 a typhus epidemic spread through the camp and killed approximately 17,000 prisoners . Margot fell sick first and in her weakened state fell from her bed and died. It was only a few days later that Anne died from the same sickness. It is stated that the death of both the Frank girls came only weeks before the camp was liberated by the British troops in April of 1945. Anne and Margot are buried among the mass graves that are their today but the exact whereabouts is unknown.
24. Otto Frank survived his internment in Auschwitz. After the war ended he returned to Amsterdam where he was sheltered by Jan and Miep Gies, as he attempted to locate his family. Even after he learned of his wife’s death of starvation in Auschwitz he keep hope of for his daughters. It was several weeks later that he also learned of their deaths. Extended family of both Otto and Edith Frank fled Germany and settled in the United States, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
25. A statue of Anne Frank done by Mari Andriessen outside of Westerkerk in Amsterdam
26. The Anne Frank Tree in the garden behind the Anne Frank House.