Anne Frank’s final chronicle & Arrest

Friday August 1 marked the 70th anniversary of teenage diarist and writer Anne Frank’s final entry in her two-year chronicles, three days later on August 4, 1944 she was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Auschwitz.

Anne was moved by her family from Germany to Amsterdam in 1933, the year the Nazis gained control over Germany. By 1940 they were trapped in Amsterdam by the occupation of the Netherlands.

Aged 13, Anne received a blank diary as a gift for her birthday where she then went on to document her life between June 12, 1942 and August 1, 1944.

Three days later Anne was arrested with her family when they were discovered in a ‘secret annex’ of their home in Amsterdam.

The last entry;

“ …… Believe me, I’d like to listen, but it doesn’t work, because if I’m quiet and serious, everyone thinks I’m putting on a new act and I have to save myself with a joke, and then I’m not even talking about my own family, who assume I must be ill, stuff me with aspirins and sedatives, feel my neck and forehead to see if I have a temperature, ask about my bowel movements and berate me for being in a bad mood, until I just can’t keep it up any more, because when everybody starts hovering over me, I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my heart inside out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I’d like to be and what I could be if … if only there were no other people in the world.”
 
Otto Frank, the only survivor of the family returned to Amsterdam after the war, her sister’s diary was found and handed to him. His dedication saw the first publication of his sister’s diary in 1947. The diary was later published in English in 1952 ‘The Diary of a Young Girl.’