Biographies
by Anne Frank
Why read a teenager's diary?
Anne Frank was 13 when her Jewish family went into hiding in Amsterdam in July 1942, as the German occupiers began deporting Jews. For many readers, her diary is where the Holocaust first becomes real, because it is one girl's life, told in her own sharp, funny voice.
Hear a sample · read by Laura
Anne's family of four shared the back rooms of her father's office with the van Pels family and a dentist, Fritz Pfeffer. A bookcase hid the door. In working hours the warehouse men below couldn't know they were there, so they kept silent and ran no water.
Miep Gies, Bep Voskuijl, Johannes Kleiman and Victor Kugler worked for Anne's father, Otto Frank. With Miep's husband Jan and Bep's father Johan, who built the bookcase, they kept the eight alive. They found food and brought books and news, knowing they could be arrested for it.
In March 1944 a Dutch minister in exile urged listeners to keep their wartime diaries. Anne began rewriting hers as a book, Het Achterhuis (The Secret Annex). She cut passages and planned new names for the others in hiding. In print, the van Pels family became the van Daans.
On 4 August 1944 the hiding place was raided and all eight were arrested. Anne died in Bergen-Belsen in 1945, aged 15. Miep Gies had saved her papers. She gave them to Otto Frank, the only one of the eight to survive, and he had them published in 1947.
Kitty
Anne wrote her diary as letters to Kitty, the close friend she wished she had.
The Secret Annex
For just over two years, eight people hid in the Secret Annex behind her father's office in Amsterdam.
Close quarters
With eight people squeezed into a few rooms, small quarrels grew big, and Anne often felt misunderstood.
Growing up
Even in hiding she kept growing up, thinking hard about who she wanted to be.
A writer
She dreamed of being a writer and began rewriting her diary to publish after the war.
A story from the book
In January 1944 Anne leafed back through her diary and was shocked by how harshly she had written about her mother. She wrote a new entry trying to understand that angrier girl, and saw how much she had changed since.
Hot take · true or myth?
Anne's father survived the war and got her diary published.
True. Anne died in Bergen-Belsen in 1945, aged 15. Otto Frank was the only one of the eight to survive. Miep Gies gave him Anne's papers, and the diary came out in Dutch in 1947.
One thing to try
Each evening for a week, write a few lines as a letter to someone, the way Anne wrote hers to an imaginary friend called Kitty. Put down one ordinary detail and one thing you felt but didn't say. At the end of the week, read it back, as Anne did.
Knotd has the key ideas from 250+ non-fiction books, each in a few minutes, in plain words. The Diary of a Young Girl comes with a Hot Take round to make it stick.
Get the whole book on KnotdOpen in the appWhy read a teenager's diary? Anne Frank was 13 when her Jewish family went into hiding in Amsterdam in July 1942, as the German occupiers began deporting Jews. For many readers, her diary is where the Holocaust first becomes real, because it is one girl's life, told in her own sharp, funny voice.
Life behind the bookcase; The people who hid them; Writing for future readers; How the diary survived.
Each evening for a week, write a few lines as a letter to someone, the way Anne wrote hers to an imaginary friend called Kitty. Put down one ordinary detail and one thing you felt but didn't say. At the end of the week, read it back, as Anne did.
Yes. Knotd has the key ideas from The Diary of a Young Girl in a few minutes, in plain words, plus a Hot Take round to test them. It's one of 250+ non-fiction books in the app.
