DAY IN HISTORY-JUNE 25, 1947

Anne Frank’s Diary is First Published

Personal journal of young girl becomes international bestseller

Facsimile of the diary of Anne Frank displayed at the Anne Frank Zentrum in Berlin, Germany. Rodrigo Galindez, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Born in Germany in 1929, Anne Frank and her family, who were Jewish, moved to Amsterdam in the Netherlands from Germany in 1934. In 1940, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands.

By 1942, as Jews were being persecuted, Anne’s father Otto Frank felt the situation was getting increasingly dangerous. He and his family went into hiding in the upper part of a building in which he worked. The rooms in which they hid were behind a bookcase, and they had to be quiet all day because workers were downstairs.

For her thirteenth birthday, Anne received a book with blank pages, bound in red-and-white checkered cloth and with a lock on the front. She decided she would use it as her personal diary. She began to keep a record of her life in hiding, reporting on daily activities and recording her impressions of things. Another Jewish family as well as a single dentist joined the Franks in hiding. At first that caused friction with Anne, but she eventually accepted their presence and even developed a romantic relationship with the boy in the family.

The Jews were given food and brought news by a few helpers who maintained their secrecy, most notably Miep Gies and Bep Vosquijil, employees of Otto Frank’s company. Anne became friendly with Bep, but she had a somewhat contentious relationship with her mother, Edith. She wrote about the clashes with her, as well as her interactions with her sister Margot and the others who were in hiding. Anne, who aspired to be a journalist, also described her innermost feelings about many subjects.

Anne continued to make entries in her diary until August 1, 1944. Three days later, German police discovered the secret hiding place and took the occupants into custody. Anne and her family were all eventually sent to concentration camps. Otto Frank was the only member of his family who survived.

Otto Frank returned to Amsterdam, only to learn that his wife and two daughters had perished. He reconnected with Miep Gies, who had returned to the hiding place after the family was arrested and found Anne’s diary. She gave it to Otto, who vowed to publish it in Anne’s honor. At first there was no interest, but the first edition was finally published on June 25, 1947 in the Netherlands. The title in Dutch was Het Achterhuis, translated into English as The Secret Annex.

Two years later, the diary was published in France and Germany. In 1952, English editions were published in the United Kingdom and in the United States, where the title was changed to Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. Subsequently, the diary has been published in more than 70 languages and has sold tens of millions of copies worldwide.

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl is today regarded as a vital record of the plight of Jews during World War II. It is one of the most widely read Holocaust-related books. Anne Frank’s story inspired a Pulitzer Prize-winning play as well as an Academy Award-winning film version. The original red-and-white checkered diary is on display at the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam.

Despite the book’s historical significance, some parents in the U.S. have lobbied school boards to ban Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl from school libraries due to sexual references by an adolescent author. It is almost inconceivable to think such an important work would be unavailable to young readers who deserve to read Anne Frank’s story.

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