Anne Frank
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Moby, what are you doing here?
00:13Dear Tim and Moby, my class is about to start reading Anne Frank's diary.
00:18Can you tell me about her?
00:20From Will.
00:21Sure, Will.
00:23Anne Frank was a German girl, born in 1929.
00:26When she was very young, her family moved to Amsterdam, in the Netherlands.
00:31They fled Germany to escape anti-Jewish laws passed by the Nazis.
00:36That was a German political party that rose to power by promoting racist ideas.
00:40Especially anti-Semitism, hatred of Jewish people like the Franks.
00:45But a few years after the Franks left, Germany invaded Poland, touching off World War II.
00:52Within months, the Nazis occupied half of Europe, including the Netherlands.
00:57And just as in Germany, they pushed through laws restricting Jewish rights.
01:02Jews were banned from going to the movies, restaurants, and other public places.
01:06They had to wear a yellow star on their clothes.
01:09They even had to turn in their bicycles.
01:12And then, Jews started being arrested and sent off to prison camps.
01:17This was the start of the Holocaust, the systematic murder of 6 million Jews by the
01:21Nazis during World War II.
01:26Like many Jews, the Franks went into hiding.
01:29The family was more fortunate than most.
01:31They had a place to hide.
01:33Anne's father, Otto Frank, managed a jam factory in Amsterdam.
01:38It was run out of a building that looked small from the street.
01:41But there was a whole separate addition to it in the back.
01:44The upper floors could only be reached through a hidden entrance.
01:48Anne called this hiding place the Secret Annex.
01:51In July of 1942, Anne moved in with her parents and her sister, Margot, along with their friends,
01:57the Van Dans.
01:58A dentist, Anne called Albert Dussel, joined them a few months later.
02:02It was a cramped space for eight people to be cooped up together 24-7.
02:07And since they were living above a business, they had to stay quiet all day long.
02:11The slightest noise could spell disaster for everyone in the Annex.
02:26Only four of Otto's employees knew about the hidden guests.
02:30These helpers kept the business running and brought the Franks food, clothes, and other
02:34supplies.
02:35All of them ran the risk of jail time and even death for their kindness.
02:40That's how we know all this, from what Anne wrote in her diary.
02:44And she wrote about everything.
02:46Bedtime always begins in the Annex with an enormous hustle and bustle.
02:51Nothing stays where it is in the daytime.
02:54I sleep on a small divan, which is only five feet long, so we have to add a few chairs
02:58to make it longer.
03:00Upstairs it sounds like thunder.
03:03But it's only Mrs. Van D's bed being shoved against the window, so that Her Majesty can
03:08sniff the night air through her delicate little nostrils.
03:12Yeah, some of her portraits of the other residents could be pretty harsh.
03:17But imagine having to live with seven other people in a space the size of a classroom,
03:22with only one bathroom.
03:23Three, four, or five times a day, there's bound to be someone waiting outside the bathroom
03:29door, hopping impatiently from one foot to another, trying to hold it in and barely managing.
03:36Is Mr. Dusselcare not a wit?
03:41She applied that same brutal honesty to herself.
03:44I haven't had many people tell me I was pretty.
03:47I once asked Margot if she thought I was ugly.
03:51She said that I was cute, and had nice eyes.
03:54A little vague, don't you think?
03:58The Franks moved into the Annex a month after Anne turned thirteen.
04:03They thought it would just be for a few months, until the war ended.
04:06But the war dragged on, and on.
04:10Through it all, Anne took refuge in her diary.
04:13It was a friend she could tell anything, from her fears for the future, to her crush on
04:17Peter Van Dan.
04:19Yesterday, I asked Peter, why do you always want me to smile?
04:24Because you get dimples in your cheeks.
04:26It's the only mark of beauty I possess.
04:28I know I'm not beautiful.
04:30I don't agree.
04:31I think you're pretty.
04:33Before we went downstairs, he gave me a kiss.
04:36Through my hair.
04:37Half on my left cheek, and half on my ear.
04:42D-Day has come.
04:43Early this morning, the Allies began the assault on the northwestern face of the European Union.
04:47The invasion has begun.
04:49Is this really the beginning of the long-awaited liberation?
04:53I have the feeling that friends are on the way.
04:56Maybe, Margot says, I can even go back to school in October or September.
05:03No.
05:04After a little more than two years, the diary suddenly stops.
05:10The annex was discovered by the Nazis, and everyone was arrested.
05:14Just weeks before her capture, she wrote this entry.
05:17I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.
05:23I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness.
05:28I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us, too.
05:33I feel the suffering of millions.
05:36And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better.
05:43That this cruelty, too, shall end.
05:45That peace and tranquility will return once more.
05:52Anne ended up at a camp called Bergen-Belsen.
05:55She died of a fever in early 1945.
06:00She was 15 years old.
06:04More than 50,000 others died at Bergen-Belsen.
06:07And millions upon millions were tortured and murdered in the Holocaust.
06:12But we know Anne.
06:14Her diary reminds us that each of those millions had a story.
06:19Anne's diary was saved by one of the family's helpers, Miep Gies.
06:24It was published in 1947 with the help of Anne's father.
06:28Otto Frank was the only resident of the secret annex to survive the war.
06:33Today, Anne Frank, the diary of a young girl, is read all over the world in dozens of languages.
06:39And the secret annex has been turned into a museum.
06:42More than a million people visit each year.
06:46In one of the diary's final entries, Anne dreams of getting it published once the war is over.
06:52You've known for a long time that my greatest wish is to be a journalist, and later on, a famous writer.
06:58We'll have to wait and see if these grand illusions, or delusions, will ever come true.
07:04In any case, after the war, I'd like to publish a book called The Secret Annex.
07:09I also need to finish my latest project.