Eighty years after her death, Anne Frank still lives on through her diary
In March 1945, Anne Frank died of typhus at the age of 15 in Germany's Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The Jewish teenager's account of her final years became a global phenomenon following the publication of the diary she kept while hiding from Nazi persecution in Amsterdam. Since its first release in 1947, Anne Frank's diary has become one of the most widely read books in the world.
Who hasn't read Anne Frank's diary? Translated into 70 languages and having sold more than 30 million copies, the book has become an international bestseller. The diary's author, a Jewish German teenager, died 80 years ago in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. We don't know the exact day she died. The Red Cross reported that Anne and her older sister Margot died of typhus sometime between the beginning and the end of March 1945.
It wasn't until July that year that Otto Frank, the two girls' father, received confirmation of his daughters' deaths. Otto was the only member of his family to survive the Nazi's death camps. The same year, his former colleague Miep Gies gave him the personal diary of his youngest daughter. During the war, Gies had helped the Frank family hide themselves in a secret annex on the grounds of Otto's business in Amsterdam. After the family's arrest in August 1944, she managed to keep Anne's writings safe.
Although Otto Frank had until then received nothing but rejections from publishers, this review finally drew their attention. The diary was published in the Netherlands one year later with a first printing of 3,000 copies.
Read more on FRANCE 24 EnglishRead also:80 years ago Anne Frank started her diary, a landmark of world literatureSearching for Anne Frank in the 21st century
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