Anne Frank And Her Significant Role In History
Everybody knows the name Anne Frank. However, there are still many things about her story that some people still don’t know. For instance, many people don’t know that she was diagnosed and treated for depression. Anne is remembered mainly for her diary which she left behind. Anne Frank was significant in history because while living through the traumatic events of WWII she was able to cope through writing in her diary. That diary became her legacy as it provided a firsthand account of the persecution of Jews under the Nazi regime.
Hitler’s Antisemitism had a huge part in his ideology once he was in power and even before. However, Anti-Semitism did not originate from Hitler. Jews have been sufferers of discrimination and persecution in Europe since the Middle Ages, usually because of religious reasons. There were two Austrian Politicians who had a huge impact on Hitler’s ideology. The first was Georg Ritter von Schönerer who was a German nationalist. His beliefs circled around the fact that the German speaking regions of Austria and Hungary needed to be included in the German Empire. He also believed that Jews should never be considered full-fledged German citizens. The second was Viennese mayor Karl Luegar, who Hitler learned many antisemitism beliefs and how he could use those beliefs as a successful political strategy. In 1933 when Hitler rose to power, he implemented many of those beliefs into practice.
As early as 1920, maybe even before Hitler considered Jews unhuman. He considered them germs that needed to be destroyed. Those beliefs are what led to the mass murder of Jews in the 1940’s. Hitler wanted the German people to be pure. For this reason, not only Jews but also people with physical, or mental disabilities, alcoholics and criminals were subject to elimination as well. Under Hitler’s regime these people lost their individual freedoms including but not limited to freedom of press, speech, and assembly. Individuals lost the right to privacy, so those officials could read people's mail, listen in on telephone conversations, and search private homes without a warrant.
The Nazis used a term to describe the people they deemed were unimportant. This term was Lebensunwertes Leben, or in this case 'life unworthy of life'. They especially used this term to describe the Jews. From almost the beginning of it all, the Nazi’s policy was to kill specifically Jewish civilians in mass quantities. Jews were rounded up usually late at night, but it could happen at any time. They weren't allowed to take anything with them. They were usually marched out through the streets and lined up. Men, women, and children were put into separate lines. The Nazi’s usually had registers of all the Jews in town and took roll to make sure they were all there before they transported them to the concentration camps. The SS Guards would then get on bicycles and would tell them to follow. Whoever could not keep up was shot.
Once they got to the railway station over one hundred people were pushed and squeezed into each of the rail cars. The Jews were never told where they were going. After arriving at the camps men and women were separated. The ones that were not immediately killed were taken to a room where they were given a number that would be tattooed on their left forearm. The SS did something called “selection” where around 1,800 people were selected to walk past the guards. The ones who were not rejected went to the gas chambers to be killed.
For these reasons many Jews went into hiding. They lived in constant fear and danger. A careless remark, a false accusation, and even nosey neighbors could lead to discovery and death. For many Jews the choice to go into hiding meant leaving behind everything and for the people helping to hide them it meant that they were possibly risking their lives. When it came time to go into hiding everyone had something to lose and all hoped to come out of the end of the war with their lives. Some people in hiding hid in plain sight by changing their appearance and using counterfeit identification papers. Others hid in attics, cellars, basements, or other shelters. Both options held extraordinary risks including death.
Almost every Jewish family who went into hiding relied on other people for help and were completely dependent on them for food and water as well as news of what was going on in the world. They trusted that their helpers would keep their secret. Jews were hidden by numerous people including former employees, neighbors and even by strangers. Thousands of Jews went into hiding during World War II but by far the most famous of them all was Anne Frank and her family.
Anne Frank and her family along with four other people lived in the “secret annex” for 761 days. Life in the secret annex for Anne Frank was stressful and difficult and many times filled with fear and frustration. According to Anne Sundays in hiding were the most miserable days. Sundays consisted of cleaning and sleeping for the good portion of the day. However, during the week things were quite different.
The members of the secret annex usually woke up around 6:45 during the week. During this time, they would each take turns using the bathroom and getting ready for the day. During the week between 8:30 and 9:00 A.M. no noise could be made. Everyone had to walk around in socks so as not to make a lot of noise. After 9 any noise was less suspicious because the workers in the offices were now at work. They usually used the rest of the morning reading, studying and preparing lunch. At 1 pm the radio was turned on to listen to the news. After lunch most members of the Annex took a nap. Anne usually used that time to write in her diary and study. By 6 everyone in the offices and warehouse had gone home so the members were no longer restricted to the secret annex. Before leaving the helpers would go up to the annex to see if anyone needed anything. During the evening Anne and her sister did chores and after dinner everyone gathered around and read, talked or listened to the radio. By the time the sun went down the windows had to be blacked out. Outside they could constantly hear the sounds of the air raid alarms, bombings, and even air combat. Most times they didn’t sleep at night and were always constantly terrified.
Anne Frank was thirteen years old when she went into hiding. During those two years she was a normal teenager full of hormones and was sometimes moody and self-absorbed. She went through puberty while in hiding. She often had to deal with the same things all teenage girls go through while never really having the privacy to do so. Many things such as her difficult relationship with her mother, her body changing through puberty, as well as her feelings for Peter she had to work through and figure out while in the presence of seven other people. Being a teenage girl is hard but it's especially challenging when you must deal with it in front of so many other people.
During the two years that Anne Frank was in hiding she grew up very fast. Anne thought and felt much deeper than most girls her age. There is no doubt that the extreme living conditions she was in contributed to that. When she first went into hiding, she was a typical thirteen-year-old girl. She was silly and goofy and liked to challenge and question authority and argue with the other members of the secret annex. The first part of her time in hiding she also fought with her mother quite a bit. She was hopeful for the future and looked forward to getting back to her life outside of the annex. However, over time she greatly matured and over time she started to appreciate and understand her mother more. Yet you also see her hopefulness turn into loneliness, isolation, and many deep thoughts.
One line from Anne’s diary really shows just how mature she had become. “Although I’m only fourteen, I know quite well what I want, I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child, I feel quite independent of anyone”. This particular line really shows how she grew and matured into who she was at the time of her death.
Anne kept several notebooks full of her writings while in hiding. After running out of room in the diary she got for her birthday she would then write in notebooks that the people helping to hide her would bring her. During this time Anne decided she wanted to be a professional writer when she grew up. Shortly before her death she started rewriting and editing her diary so that it could be published after the war as part of eyewitness accounts of the war.
Everyone knew Anne as this happy, talkative, caring girl but by October 29, 1943 she had been diagnosed with depression and was writing about it on almost a daily basis. One entry in her journal really opens a window into not just how Anne but all members of the secret annex were feeling by this point. “I swallow Valerian pills every day against worry and depression, but it doesn’t prevent me from being even more miserable the next day. A good hearty laugh would help more than ten Valerian pills, but we’ve almost forgotten how to laugh. I feel afraid sometimes that from having to be so serious ill grow a long face and my mouth will droop at the corners” (Frank, 109). That line is particularly heartbreaking because just by reading it you really feel the sadness and pain that she was in.
Research has shown that one of the most successful therapies to process trauma is through writing. When you write through the trauma you don’t have to write for anyone else to ever read it. The purpose is to create a story that puts together all the pieces of the traumatic memories you hold to yourself. This is what Anne was doing. Without even realizing it she created a safe place where she could tell her story.
After two years and one month in hiding Anne and her family were betrayed. To this day it is still unknown by who. On August 4, 1944 Anne, her family and the four other people in hiding were arrested and sent to different concentration camps. Anne and her sister were transferred to Bergen-Belsen where Anne was the last to die from Typhus at just 15. She died just weeks before the camp was liberated. Anne’s father Otto Frank was the only one of the eight to survive the war.
Anne once wrote in her diary “It’s difficult in these times: ideals, dreams, and cherished hopes rise within us, only to meet the horrible truth and be shattered. It’s really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and Imposible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again. In the meantime, I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out” (Frank, 263). Through everything right up until the end she continued to believe that people were morally good and that things would get better she continued to have hope that everything would go back to the way it was before the war.
Shortly after Anne and her family were arrested Miep Gies, who helped hide them found Anne’s diary. She gathered the diary, the other notebooks, and hundreds of loose papers that Anne had written. Since she believed that Anne would return home one day, she kept them and for respect to her privacy she never read them. Once she heard of Anne’s death, she gave the diaries and papers to her father. Years later in an interview she stated that if she had known what was written in them, she would have destroyed them for fear of them being found and her being arrested.
As Anne’s father was reading her writings, he initially believed they were not meant to be shared. However, Anne talked in her diary about wanting to share her story with the world. With that considered, her father realized that he wasn’t invading her privacy by publishing the diary but fulfilling her wish instead. There was some stuff however that he decided not to publish and share with the world.
“Anne died, sick and alone in a camp created to ensure her death. This is her tragedy, and one she shared with millions of others. We read her words of being scolded by teachers, of playing with Peter’s cat to pass the time, of making poetry into presents for holidays and birthdays, of finding humor in the ordinary. For a moment we are there, in the attic, as part of a young girl’s life, but what we are delivered is a life unrealized, a future confirmed but not seen, and a narrative of one of many gone too soon. This is a book that must be shared, in its entirety, for generations to come to remind us of what is at stake when too much is taken and so much is precious.” (The significance of Anne Frank’s private humanity)
All of this is what made Anne Frank’s story known. If it wasn’t for Hitler's crazy beliefs which led to families going into hiding them there would never have been a story to tell which means there would never have been a diary and none of us would even know who Anne Frank was. If one little detail had been different this piece of history would have been completely rewritten.
