Anne Frank

Anne Frank 1929-45, German diarist, b. Frankfurt as Anneliese Marie Frank. In order to escape Nazi persecution, her family emigrated (1933) to Amsterdam, where her father Otto became a business owner. After the Nazis occupied the Netherlands, her family (along with several other Jews) hid for just over two years (1942-44) in a "secret annex" that was part of her father's office and warehouse building. During those years, Anne kept a diary characterized by poignancy, insight, humor, touching naiveté, and sometimes tart observation. The family was betrayed to the Germans in 1944, and at 15 Anne died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Anne's diary was discovered by one of the family's helpers and after the war was given to her father, the only immediate family member to survive the Holocaust . Edited by him, The Diary of a Young Girl (1947) became an international bestseller and has been translated into English (1952) and 66 other languages. It was also adapted into a play (1955) and a film (1959). A critical edition was published in 1986, and a complete edition, containing almost a third more material, appeared in 1995 on the 50th anniversary of her death. Anne Frank also wrote stories, fables, and essays, which were published in 1959. The Franks' Amsterdam hiding place is now a museum, there is a foundation established by her father, and institutions devoted to her exist in New York, Berlin, London, and other cities.

Bibliography: See biographies by M. Müller (tr. 1998) and C. A. Lee (1999); M. Gies, Anne Frank Remembered (1988); R. Van Der Rol and R. Verhoeven, Anne Frank, Beyond the Diary: A Photographic Remembrance (1995); C. A. Lee, The Hidden Life of Otto Frank (2003); W. Lindwer, The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank (documentary film, 1988 and book, 1992); J. Blair, dir., Anne Frank Remembered (documentary film, 1995).

Diary of Anne Frank, The, play by Albert Hackett⧫.

Diary of Anne Frank, The (1955), a play by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett. [Cort Theatre, 717 perf.; Pulitzer Prize, Tony, NYDCC Awards.] Shortly after the war Otto Frank ( Joseph Schildkraut) returns with his former stenographer, Miep Gies ( Gloria Jones), to the attic where Mr. Kraler ( Clinton Sundberg) had hidden the Frank family and some other Jews from the Gestapo. There Frank discovers the diary kept by his thirteen‐year‐old daughter Anne ( Susan Strasberg). His thoughts fly back to the months they spent there, often in silence lest they give away their whereabouts; to happy moments such as a Chanukah celebration and to bitter ones such as catching a fellow Jew stealing their food. The announcement of Allied landings brings hope of a quick release, but shortly before the liberation their hiding place is betrayed. Anne and the others are sent to the gas chambers. Only Mr. Frank manages to escape. Now he reads the last line in the diary. “In spite of everything,” Anne writes, “I still believe people are really good at heart.” “She puts me to shame,” the still bitter Frank acknowledges. The play was based on the real Anne Frank's diary (published in English as Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl), which had become a worldwide best‐seller after the war. The Kermit Bloomgarden production was widely praised, Richard Watts Jr. of the New York Post noting, “By wisely shunning any trace of theatricality or emotional excess, the playwrights have made the only‐too‐true story deeply moving in its unadorned veracity.” It was successfully produced in almost every major theatre center, with noteworthy New York revivals in 1978 and 1997. New Yorker Albert HACKETT (1900–95) and his wife, Francis GOODRICH (1891–1984), a native of Belleville, New Jersey, began their careers as performers. Their first two plays were the moderately successful comedies Up Pops the Devil (1930) and Bridal Wise (1932). After a long, successful career as film writers they returned to Broadway with the short‐lived The Great Big Doorstep (1942).