Annelies Marie “ANNE” FRANK;  Anne Frank was a German-Dutch diarist of Jewish origin born on this date (d: 1945. She is one of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. She gained fame posthumously with the publication of The Diary of a Young Girl (originally Het Achterhuis in Dutch; English: The Secret Annex), in which she documents her life in hiding from 1942 to 1944, during the German occupation of the Netherlands in WWII. It is one of the world’s best known books and has been the basis for several plays and films.

Born in Frankfurt, Germany, she lived most of her life in or near Amsterdam, Netherlands, having moved there with her family at the age of four and a half when the Nazis gained control over Germany. Born a German national, she lost her citizenship in 1941 and thus became stateless. By May 1940, the Franks were trapped in Amsterdam by the German occupation of the Netherlands. As persecution of the Jewish population increased in July 1942, the Franks went into hiding in some concealed rooms behind a bookcase in the building where Anne’s father, Otto Frank, worked. From then until the family’s arrest by the Gestapo in August 1944, she kept a diary she had received as a birthday present, and wrote in it regularly. Following their arrest, the Franks were transported to concentration camps. In October or November 1944, Anne and her sister, Margot, were transferred from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they died (probably of typhus) a few months later. They were originally estimated by the Red Cross to have died in March, with Dutch authorities setting March 31 as their official date of death, but research by the Anne Frank House in 2015 suggests it is more likely that they died in February.

Otto, the only survivor of the Frank family, returned to Amsterdam after the war to find that her diary had been saved by his secretary, Miep Fies, and his efforts led to its publication in 1947. It was translated from its original Dutch version and first published in English in 1952 as The Diary of a Young Girl, and has since been translated into over 70 languages.

But there were two diaries from Anne. One was A Diary of a Young Girl and the other was The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition.

The first edition (A Diary of a Young Girl) is the edited version. Such edits were made by Anne’s father, Otto Frank, and some came from Anne herself.

So, what was left out of The Diary of a Young Girl? Lot’s of stuff, actually.

For one, Anne’s mother is painted in a very different light, a more positive light. Secondly, Anne made her writing better when she edited her diary. She added things she’d forgotten, reworked some parts, and sometimes cut out whole sections. 

Lastly, Anne was much more explicit in her sexuality. In her unedited version, we come to learn Anne likes girls.

Anne Frank’s words for herself:

“I remember that once when I slept with a girl friend I had a strong desire to kiss her, and that I did do so … I go into ecstasies every time I see the naked figure of a woman, such as Venus, for example … If only I had a girl friend!”

It is not, as some would suggest, speculation that Anne Frank was bisexual. It’s there in her own hand for all to see. Of course, unlike the homosexuals who were rounded up, Anne died because she was Jewish. Not because of her sexuality. Nevertheless, she was capable of and desired an intimate relationship with another girl. One does not ourtweigh the other. She can be both a Jewish icon and a bisexual one without diminishing either. She was a little girl,  becoming a young woman, murdered by Nazis. Never forget. May she rest in power.