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Anne Frank

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   CAPTION: Anne Frank

   Anne Frank
       Born:      June 12, 1929
                  Frankfurt am Main, Germany
       Died:      February or March, 1945
                  Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Lower Saxony, Germany
   Occupation(s): Posthumously published writer
    Nationality:  Dutch

   Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank ( June 12, 1929 – February/March, 1945) was
   a German-born stateless Jewish girl who wrote a diary while in hiding
   with her family and four friends in Amsterdam during the German
   occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. Her family had moved to
   Amsterdam in 1933, after the Nazis gained power in Germany but were
   trapped when the Nazi occupation extended into The Netherlands. As
   persecutions against the Jewish population increased, the family went
   into hiding in July 1942 in hidden rooms in her father Otto Frank's
   office building. After two years in hiding the group was betrayed and
   transported to concentration camps. Seven months after her arrest, Anne
   died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen within days of her sister, Margot
   Frank. Her father, Otto, the only survivor of the group, returned to
   Amsterdam after the war ended, to find that her diary had been saved.
   Convinced that it was a unique record, he took action to have it
   published. It was published originally in Dutch under the name Het
   Achterhuis: Dagboekbrieven van 12 Juni 1942 – 1 Augustus 1944 (The
   Backhouse: diary notes from 12 June 1942 – 1 August 1944).

   The diary, which was given to Anne Frank on her thirteenth birthday,
   chronicles her life from June 12, 1942 until August 1, 1944. It was
   eventually translated from its original Dutch into many languages and
   became one of the world's most widely read books. There have also been
   several film, television, and theatrical productions, and even an
   opera, based on the diary. Described as the work of a mature and
   insightful mind, it provides an intimate examination of daily life
   under Nazi occupation; through her writing, Anne Frank has become one
   of the most renowned and discussed of Holocaust victims.

Early life

   The apartment block on the Merwedeplein where the Frank family lived
   from 1934 until 1942
   Enlarge
   The apartment block on the Merwedeplein where the Frank family lived
   from 1934 until 1942

   Anne Frank was born on June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, the
   second daughter of Otto Heinrich Frank ( May 12, 1889– August 19, 1980)
   and Edith Holländer ( January 16, 1900– January 6, 1945). Margot Frank
   ( February 16, 1926–February/March, 1945) was her sister. Her given
   name was Annelies Marie, but to her family and friends, she was simply
   "Anne". Her father sometimes called her "Annelein" ("little Anne").

   The family lived in an assimilated community of Jewish and non-Jewish
   citizens, and the children grew up with Catholic, Protestant, and
   Jewish friends. The Franks were Reform Jews, observing many of the
   traditions of the Jewish faith without observing many of its customs.
   Edith Frank was the more devout parent, while Otto Frank, a decorated
   German officer from World War I, was interested in scholarly pursuits
   and had an extensive library; both parents encouraged the children to
   read.

   On March 13, 1933, elections were held in Frankfurt for the municipal
   council, and Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party won. Anti-Semitic demonstrations
   occurred almost immediately, and the Franks began to fear what would
   happen to them if they remained in Germany. Later in the year, Edith
   and the children went to Aachen, where they stayed with Edith's mother,
   Rosa Holländer. Otto Frank remained in Frankfurt, but after receiving
   an offer to start a company in Amsterdam, he moved there to organise
   the business and to arrange accommodation for his family.

   Otto Frank began working at the Opekta Works, a company which sold the
   fruit extract pectin, and found an apartment on the Merwedeplein
   (Merwede Square) in an Amsterdam suburb. By February 1934, Edith and
   the children had arrived in Amsterdam, and the two girls were enrolled
   in school--Margot in public school and Anne in a Montessori school.
   Margot demonstrated ability in arithmetic, and Anne showed aptitude for
   reading and writing. Her friend Hannah Goslar later recalled that from
   early childhood, Anne Frank frequently wrote, shielding her work with
   her hand, and refusing to discuss the content of her writing. These
   early writings have not survived. Anne and Margot were also recognized
   as highly distinct personalities, Margot being well mannered, reserved,
   and studious, while Anne was outspoken, energetic, and extroverted.

   In 1938, Otto Frank started a second company in partnership with
   Hermann van Pels, a butcher, who had fled Osnabrück in Germany with his
   family. In 1939, Edith's mother came to live with the Franks, and
   remained with them until her death in January 1942. In May 1940,
   Germany invaded the Netherlands, and the occupation government began to
   persecute Jews by the implementation of restrictive and discriminatory
   laws, and the mandatory registration and segregation of Jews soon
   followed. Margot and Anne were excelling in their studies and had a
   large number of friends, but with the introduction of a decree that
   Jewish children could only attend Jewish schools, they were enrolled at
   the Jewish Lyceum.

The period chronicled in the diary

Before going into hiding

   Yellow stars of the type that all Jews were required to wear during the
   Nazi occupation.
   Enlarge
   Yellow stars of the type that all Jews were required to wear during the
   Nazi occupation.

   For her thirteenth birthday on June 12, 1942, Anne received a small
   notebook which she had pointed out to her father in a shop window a few
   days earlier. Although it was an autograph book, bound with
   red-and-white plaid cloth and with a small lock on the front, Anne had
   already decided she would use it as a diary. She began writing in it
   almost immediately, describing herself, her family and friends, her
   school life, boys she flirted with and the places she liked to visit in
   her neighbourhood. While these early entries demonstrate that, in many
   ways, her life was that of a typical schoolgirl, she also refers to
   changes that had taken place since the German occupation. Some
   references are seemingly casual and not emphasized. However, in some
   entries Anne provides more detail of the oppression that was steadily
   increasing. For instance, she wrote about the yellow star which all
   Jews were forced to wear in public, and she listed some of the
   restrictions and persecutions that had encroached into the lives of
   Amsterdam's Jewish population.

   In July 1942, Margot Frank received a call-up notice from the
   Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung (Central Office for Jewish
   Immigration) ordering her to report for relocation to a work camp. Anne
   was then told of a plan that Otto had formulated with his most trusted
   employees, and which Edith and Margot had been aware of for a short
   time. The family was to go into hiding in rooms above and behind the
   company's premises on the Prinsengracht, a street along one of
   Amsterdam's canals.

Life in the Achterhuis

   The main façade of the Opekta building on the Prinsengracht in 2002.
   Otto Frank's offices were in the front of the building, with the
   Achterhuis in the rear.
   Enlarge
   The main façade of the Opekta building on the Prinsengracht in 2002.
   Otto Frank's offices were in the front of the building, with the
   Achterhuis in the rear.

   On the morning of Monday, July 6, 1942, the family moved into the
   hiding place. Their apartment was left in a state of disarray to create
   the impression that they had left suddenly, and Otto Frank left a note
   that hinted they were going to Switzerland. The need for secrecy forced
   them to leave behind Anne's cat, Moortje. As Jews were not allowed to
   use public transport, they walked several kilometres from their home,
   with each of them wearing several layers of clothing as they did not
   dare to be seen carrying luggage. The Achterhuis (a Dutch word denoting
   the rear part of a house, translated as the "Secret Annexe" in English
   editions of the diary) was a three-story space at the rear of the
   building that was entered from a landing above the Opekta offices. Two
   small rooms, with an adjoining bathroom and toilet, were on the first
   level, and above that a large open room, with a small room beside it.
   From this smaller room, a ladder led to the attic. The door to the
   Achterhuis was later covered by a bookcase to ensure it remained
   undiscovered. The main building, situated a block from the Westerkerk,
   was nondescript, old and typical of buildings in the western quarters
   of Amsterdam.

   Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman, Miep Gies, and Bep Voskuijl were the
   only employees who knew of the people in hiding, and with Gies' husband
   Jan Gies and Voskuijl's father Johannes Hendrik Voskuijl, were their
   "helpers" for the duration of their confinement. They provided the only
   contact between the outside world and the occupants of the house, and
   they kept them informed of war news and political developments. They
   catered for all of their needs, ensured their safety and supplied them
   with food, a task that grew more difficult with the passage of time.
   Anne wrote of their dedication and of their efforts to boost morale
   within the household during the most dangerous of times. All were aware
   that if caught they could face the death penalty for sheltering Jews.

   In late July, the Franks were joined by the van Pels family: Hermann,
   Auguste, and 16-year-old Peter, and then in November by Fritz Pfeffer,
   a dentist and friend of the family. Anne wrote of her pleasure at
   having new people to talk to, but tensions quickly developed within the
   group forced to live in such confined conditions. After sharing her
   room with Pfeffer, she found him to be insufferable, and she clashed
   with Auguste van Pels, whom she regarded as foolish. Her relationship
   with her mother was strained, and Anne wrote that they had little in
   common as her mother was too remote. Although she sometimes argued with
   Margot, she wrote of an unexpected bond that had developed between
   them, but she remained closest emotionally to her father. Some time
   later, after first dismissing the shy and awkward Peter van Pels, she
   recognised a kinship with him and the two entered a romance.

   Anne spent most of her time reading and studying, while continuing to
   write and edit her diary. In addition to providing a narrative of
   events as they occurred, she also wrote about her feelings, beliefs and
   ambitions, subjects she felt she could not discuss with anyone. As her
   confidence in her writing grew, and as she began to mature, she wrote
   of more abstract subjects such as her belief in God, and how she
   defined human nature. She continued writing regularly until her final
   entry of August 1, 1944.

Arrest and concentration camps

   On the morning of August 4, 1944, the Achterhuis was stormed by the
   German Security Police (Grüne Polizei) following a tip-off from an
   informer who was never identified. Led by Schutzstaffel Oberscharführer
   Karl Silberbauer of the Sicherheitsdienst, the group included at least
   three members of the Security Police. The occupants were loaded into
   trucks and taken for interrogation. Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman
   were taken away and subsequently jailed, but Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl
   were allowed to go. They later returned to the Achterhuis, where they
   found Anne's papers strewn on the floor. They collected them, as well
   as several family photograph albums, and Gies resolved to return them
   to Anne after the war.

   The members of the household were taken to the Gestapo headquarters
   where they were interrogated and held overnight. On August 5, they were
   transferred to the Huis van Bewaring (House of Detention), an
   overcrowded prison on the Weteringschans. Two days later the eight
   Jewish prisoners were transported to Westerbork, The Netherlands.
   Ostensibly a transit camp, by this time more than 100,000 Jews had
   passed through it. Having been arrested in hiding, they were considered
   criminals and were sent to the Punishment Barracks for hard labour.

   On September 3, the group was deported on what would be the last
   transport from Westerbork to the Auschwitz concentration camp. They
   arrived after a three days' journey, and were separated by gender, with
   the men and women never to see each other again. Of the 1019
   passengers, 549 people-–including all children under the age of fifteen
   years-–were selected and sent directly to the gas chambers where they
   were killed. Anne had turned fifteen three months earlier and was
   spared, and although everyone from the Achterhuis survived this
   selection, Anne believed her father had been killed.
   Memorial for Anne and Margot Frank at the former Bergen-Belsen site,
   along with floral and pictorial tributes.
   Enlarge
   Memorial for Anne and Margot Frank at the former Bergen-Belsen site,
   along with floral and pictorial tributes.

   With the other females not selected for immediate death, Anne was
   forced to strip naked to be disinfected, had her head shaved and was
   tattooed with an identifying number on her arm. By day, the women were
   used as slave labour; by night, they were crowded into freezing
   barracks. Disease was rampant and before long Anne's skin became badly
   infected by scabies.

   On October 28, selections began for women to be relocated to
   Bergen-Belsen. More than 8,000 women, including Anne and Margot Frank
   and Auguste van Pels, were transported, but Edith Frank was left
   behind. Tents were erected to accommodate the influx of prisoners, Anne
   and Margot among them, and as the population rose, the death toll due
   to disease increased rapidly. Anne was briefly reunited with two
   friends, Hanneli Goslar (nicknamed "Lies" in the diary) and Nanette
   Blitz, who both survived the war. Blitz described her as bald,
   emaciated and shivering. Goslar said that although Anne was ill
   herself, she told her that she was more concerned about Margot, whose
   illness seemed to be more severe and who remained in her bunk, too weak
   to walk. Anne told both her friends that she believed her parents were
   dead.

   In March 1945, a typhus epidemic spread through the camp killing an
   estimated 17,000 prisoners. Witnesses later testified that Margot fell
   from her bunk in her weakened state and was killed by the shock, and
   that a few days later Anne was dead too. They estimated that this
   occurred a few weeks before the camp was liberated by British troops on
   April 15, 1945, and although the exact dates were not recorded, it is
   generally accepted to have been between the end of February and the
   middle of March.

   After the war, it was estimated that of the 110,000 Jews deported from
   the Netherlands during the Nazi occupation, only 5,000 of them
   survived.

   The individual fates of the other occupants of the Achterhuis, their
   helpers, and other people associated with Anne Frank, are discussed
   further. See article: People associated with Anne Frank.

The Diary of A Young Girl

Publication of the diary

   Otto Frank survived and returned to Amsterdam. He was informed that his
   wife had died and his daughters had been transferred to Bergen-Belsen.
   Although he remained hopeful that they had survived, the Red Cross in
   July 1945 confirmed the deaths of Anne and Margot. It was only then
   that Miep Gies gave him the diary. Otto read it and later commented
   that he had not realized Anne had kept such an accurate and
   well-written record of their time together. Moved by her repeated wish
   to be an author, he began to consider having it published. When asked
   many years later to recall his first reaction he said simply, "I never
   knew my little Anne was so deep".

   Anne's diary began as a private expression of her thoughts and she
   wrote several times that she would never allow anyone to read it. She
   candidly described her life, her family and companions, and their
   situation, while beginning to recognize her ambition to write fiction
   for publication. In the spring of 1944, she heard a radio broadcast by
   Gerrit Bolkestein—a member of the Dutch government in exile—who said
   that when the war ended, he would create a public record of the Dutch
   people's oppression under German occupation. He mentioned the
   publication of letters and diaries, and Anne decided to submit her work
   when the time came. She began editing her writing, removing sections
   and rewriting others, with the view to publication. Her original
   notebook was supplemented by additional notebooks and loose-leaf sheets
   of paper. She created pseudonyms for the members of the household and
   the helpers. The van Pels family became Hermann, Petronella, and Peter
   van Daan, and Fritz Pfeffer became Albert Düssell. Otto Frank used her
   original diary, known as "version A", and her edited version, known as
   "version B", to produce the first version for publication. He removed
   certain passages, most notably those which referred to his wife in
   unflattering terms, and sections that discussed Anne's growing
   sexuality. Although he restored the true identities of his own family,
   he retained all of the other pseudonyms.

   He gave the diary to the historian Anne Romein, who tried
   unsuccessfully to have it published. She then gave it to her husband
   Jan Romein, who wrote an article about it, titled "Kinderstem" ("A
   Child's Voice"), published in the newspaper Het Parool on April 3,
   1946. He wrote that the diary "stammered out in a child's voice,
   embodies all the hideousness of fascism, more so than all the evidence
   at Nuremberg put together" His article attracted attention from
   publishers, and the diary was published in 1947, followed by a second
   run in 1950. The first American edition was published in 1952 under the
   title Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. A play based upon the
   diary, by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, premiered in New York
   City on October 5, 1955, and later won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It
   was followed by the 1959 movie The Diary of Anne Frank, which was a
   critical and commercial success. Over the years the popularity of the
   diary grew, and in many schools, particularly in the United States, it
   was included as part of the curriculum, introducing Anne Frank to new
   generations of readers.

   In 1986, the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation
   published the so-called "critical edition" of the diary. It includes
   comparisons from all known versions, both edited and unedited. It also
   includes discussion asserting its authentication, as well as additional
   historical information relating to the family and the diary itself.

   In 1999, Cornelis Suijk-—a former director of the Anne Frank Foundation
   and president of the U.S. Centre for Holocaust Education
   Foundation-—announced that he was in the possession of five pages that
   had been removed by Otto Frank from the diary prior to publication;
   Suijk claimed that Otto Frank gave these pages to him shortly before
   his death in 1980. The missing diary entries contain critical remarks
   by Anne Frank about her parents' strained marriage, and shows Anne's
   lack of affection for her mother

   Some controversy ensued when Suijk claimed publishing rights over the
   five pages and intended to sell them to raise money for his U.S.
   Foundation. The Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, the formal
   owner of the manuscript, demanded the pages to be handed over. In 2000,
   the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science agreed to donate
   US$300,000 to Suijk's Foundation, and the pages were returned in 2001.
   Since then, they have been included in new editions of the diary.

Praise for Anne Frank and the Diary

   In her introduction to the diary's first American edition, Eleanor
   Roosevelt described it as "one of the wisest and most moving
   commentaries on war and its impact on human beings that I have ever
   read". The Soviet writer Ilya Ehrenburg later said: "one voice speaks
   for six million—the voice not of a sage or a poet but of an ordinary
   little girl." As Anne Frank's stature as both a writer and humanist has
   grown, she has been discussed specifically as a symbol of the Holocaust
   and more broadly as a representative of persecution. Hillary Rodham
   Clinton, in her acceptance speech for an Elie Wiesel Humanitarian Award
   in 1994, read from Anne Frank's diary and spoke of her "awakening us to
   the folly of indifference and the terrible toll it takes on our young,"
   which Clinton related to contemporary events in Sarajevo, Somalia and
   Rwanda.

   After receiving a humanitarian award from the Anne Frank Foundation in
   1994, Nelson Mandela addressed a crowd in Johannesburg, saying he had
   read Anne Frank's diary while in prison and "derived much encouragement
   from it." He likened her struggle against Nazism to his struggle
   against apartheid, drawing a parallel between the two philosophies with
   the comment "because these beliefs are patently false, and because they
   were, and will always be, challenged by the likes of Anne Frank, they
   are bound to fail."
   Reconstruction of the bookcase that covered the entrance to the hiding
   place, in the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.
   Enlarge
   Reconstruction of the bookcase that covered the entrance to the hiding
   place, in the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.

   In her closing message in Melissa Müller's biography of Anne Frank,
   Miep Gies attempted to dispel what she felt was a growing misconception
   that "Anne symbolizes the six million victims of the Holocaust",
   writing: "Anne's life and death were her own individual fate, an
   individual fate that happened six million times over. Anne cannot, and
   should not, stand for the many individuals whom the Nazis robbed of
   their lives... But her fate helps us grasp the immense loss the world
   suffered because of the Holocaust."

   The diary has also been praised for its literary merits. Commenting on
   Anne Frank's writing style, the dramatist Meyer Levin – who worked with
   Otto Frank on a dramatisation of the diary shortly after its
   publication – praised it for "sustaining the tension of a
   well-constructed novel" , while the poet John Berryman wrote that it
   was a unique depiction, not merely of adolescence but of "the
   mysterious, fundamental process of a child becoming an adult as it is
   actually happening" . Her biographer Melissa Müller said that she wrote
   "in a precise, confident, economical style stunning in its honesty".
   Her writing is largely a study of characters, and she examines every
   person in her circle with a shrewd, uncompromising eye. She is
   occasionally cruel and often biased, particularly in her depictions of
   Fritz Pfeffer and of her own mother, and Müller explains that she
   channelled the "normal mood swings of adolescence" into her writing.
   Her examination of herself and her surroundings is sustained over a
   lengthy period of time in an introspective, analytical and highly self
   critical manner, and in moments of frustration she relates the battle
   being fought within herself between the "good Anne" she wants to be,
   and the "bad Anne" she believes herself to be. Otto Frank recalled his
   publisher explaining why he thought the diary has been so widely read,
   with the comment "he said that the diary encompasses so many areas of
   life that each reader can find something that moves him personally".

   In June 1999, Time Magazine published a special edition titled TIME
   100: Heroes & Icons of the 20th century. This is a list of the 20th
   century's hundred most influential politicians, artists, innovators,
   scientists and icons. Anne Frank was selected as one of the 'Heroes &
   Icons'. The writer Roger Rosenblatt, author of Children of War, wrote
   Anne Frank's entry. In the article he describes her legacy:

     The passions the book ignites suggest that everyone owns Anne Frank,
     that she has risen above the Holocaust, Judaism, girlhood and even
     goodness and become a totemic figure of the modern world — the moral
     individual mind beset by the machinery of destruction, insisting on
     the right to live and question and hope for the future of human
     beings.

Denials and legal action

   Efforts have been made to discredit the diary since its publication,
   and since the mid 1970s Holocaust denier David Irving has been
   consistent in his assertion that the diary is not genuine. Continued
   public statements made by such Holocaust deniers prompted Teresien da
   Silva to comment on behalf of Anne Frank House in 1999, "for many
   right-wing extremists (Anne) proves to be an obstacle. Her personal
   testimony of the persecution of the Jews and her death in a
   concentration camp are blocking the way to a rehabilitation of national
   socialism".

   Since the 1950s, Holocaust denial has been a criminal offence in
   several European countries, including Germany, and the law has been
   used to prevent a rise in neo-Nazi activity. In 1959, Otto Frank took
   legal action in Lübeck against Lothar Stielau, a school teacher and
   former Hitler Youth member who published a school paper that described
   the diary as a forgery. The court examined the diary, and, in 1960,
   found it to be genuine. Stielau recanted his earlier statement, and
   Otto Frank did not pursue the case any further.

   In 1958, Simon Wiesenthal was challenged by a group of protesters at a
   performance of The Diary of Anne Frank in Vienna who asserted that Anne
   Frank had never existed, and who told Wiesenthal to prove her existence
   by finding the man who had arrested her. He began searching for Karl
   Silberbauer and found him in 1963. When interviewed, Silberbauer
   readily admitted his role, and identifed Anne Frank from a photograph
   as one of the people arrested. He provided a full account of events and
   recalled emptying a briefcase full of papers onto the floor. His
   statement corroborated the version of events that had previously been
   presented by witnesses such as Otto Frank.

   In 1976, Otto Frank took action against Heinz Roth of Frankfurt, who
   published pamphlets stating the diary was a forgery. The judge ruled
   that if he published further statements he would be subjected to a
   500,000 Deutschmark fine and a six months' jail sentence. Two cases
   were dismissed by German courts in 1978 and 1979 on the grounds of
   freedom of speech, as the complaint was not filed by an "injured
   party". The court ruled in each case that if a further complaint was
   made by an injured party, such as Otto Frank, a charge of slander could
   follow.

   The controversy reached its peak with the arrest and trial of two
   neo-Nazis, Ernst Römer and Edgar Geiss, who were tried and found guilty
   of producing and distributing literature denouncing the diary as a
   forgery, following a complaint by Otto Frank. During their appeal, a
   team of historians examined the documents in consultation with Otto
   Frank, and determined them to be genuine. In 1978, as part of an appeal
   of the cases won against Römer and Geiss, the German Criminal Court
   Laboratory, the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) was asked to examine the kind
   of paper and the types of ink used in the manuscript of the diary.
   Although its findings indicated that ink with which the diary was
   written had been in use during the war, the BKA also concluded that
   "the later corrections made on the loose-leaf pages were written in
   part in black, green and blue ballpoint pen," though the BKA did not
   give any specific details about these alleged ballpoint corrections.
   Deniers of the authenticity of the diary focused in particular on this
   statement, as ballpoint pens did not become widely available until
   after the end of the World War II.

   In 1986, the Dutch "Gerechtelijk Laboratorium" (State Forensic Science
   Laboratory) in Rijswijk conducted another extensive technical
   examination of the manuscript. Though the BKA was invited by the
   "Gerechtelijk Laboratorium" to indicate where on the loose-leaf pages
   it had found the "ballpoint corrections", the BKA was unable to point
   out a single example. The "Gerechtelijk Laboratorium" itself found only
   two slips of paper in ballpoint ink which had been inserted in Anne
   Frank's loose leaf manuscript. The Revised Critical Edition of the
   Diary of Anne Frank (published 2003) reproduces images (pages 167-171)
   of the two slips of paper, and in the chapter summarising the findings
   of the State Forensic Science Laboratory which analysed the materials,
   ink and handwriting in the manuscripts of Anne Frank, H.J.J. Hardy
   writes on the matter:

     The only ballpoint writing was found on two loose scraps of paper
     included among the loose sheets. Figures VI-I-I and 3 show the way
     in which these scraps of paper had been inserted into the relevant
     plastic folders. As far as the factual contents of the diary are
     concerned the ballpoint writings have no significance whatsoever.
     Morever, the handwriting on the scraps of paper and in the diary
     differs strikingly.(page 167)

   A footnote on this page adds:

     The Hamburg psychologist and court-appointed handwriting expert Hans
     Ockleman stated in a letter to the Anne Frank Fonds dated September
     27 1987 that his mother, Mrs Dorothea Ockleman wrote the ballpoint
     texts in question when she collaborated with Mrs Minna Becker in
     investigating the diaries.

   With Otto Frank's death in 1980, the original diary, including letters
   and loose sheets, had been willed to the Netherlands Institute for War
   Documentation, who commissioned a forensic study of the diary through
   the Netherlands Ministry of Justice in 1986. They examined the
   handwriting against known exemplars and found that they matched, and
   determined that the paper, glue and ink were readily available during
   the time the diary was said to have been written. Their final
   determination was that the diary is authentic. On March 23, 1990, the
   Hamburg Regional Court confirmed its authenticity.

   Nevertheless, Holocaust deniers have been persistent in their claims
   that the diaries were forged. In 1991, Robert Faurisson and Siegfried
   Verbeke produced a booklet titled: The Diary of Anne Frank: A Critical
   Approach. It claimed that Otto Frank wrote the diary, based on
   assertions that the diary contained several contradictions, that hiding
   in the Achterhuis would have been impossible, and that the style and
   handwriting of Anne Frank were not those of a teenager.

   In December 1993, the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and the Anne Frank
   Funds in Basle instigated a civil law suit in order to prohibit the
   further distribution of The Diary of Anne Frank: A Critical Approach in
   the Netherlands. On December 9, 1998, the Amsterdam District Court
   ruled in favour of the claimants, forbade any further denial of the
   authenticity of the diary and unsolicited distribution of publications
   to that effect, and imposed a penalty of 25,000-guilders per
   infringement.

Legacy

   Statue of Anne Frank, by Mari Andriessen, outside the Westerkerk in
   Amsterdam.
   Enlarge
   Statue of Anne Frank, by Mari Andriessen, outside the Westerkerk in
   Amsterdam.

   On May 3, 1957, a group of citizens including Otto Frank established
   the Anne Frank Foundation in an effort to rescue the Prinsengracht
   building from demolition and to make it accessible to the public. Otto
   Frank insisted that the aim of the foundation would be to foster
   contact and communication between young people of different cultures,
   religions or racial backgrounds, and to oppose intolerance and racial
   discrimination.

   The Anne Frank House opened on May 3, 1960. It consists of the Opekta
   warehouse and offices and the Achterhuis, all unfurnished so that
   visitors can walk freely through the rooms. Some personal relics of the
   former occupants remain, such as movie star photographs glued by Anne
   to a wall, a section of wallpaper on which Otto Frank marked the height
   of his growing daughters, and a map on the wall where he recorded the
   advance of the Allied Forces, all now protected behind Perspex sheets.
   From the small room which was once home to Peter van Pels, a walkway
   connects the building to its neighbours, also purchased by the
   Foundation. These other buildings are used to house the diary, as well
   as changing exhibits that chronicle different aspects of the Holocaust
   and more contemporary examinations of racial intolerance in various
   parts of the world. It has become one of Amsterdam's main tourist
   attractions, and is visited by more than half a million people each
   year.

   In 1963, Otto Frank and his second wife Elfriede Geiringer-Markovits
   set up the Anne Frank Fonds as a charitable foundation, based in Basel,
   Switzerland. The Fonds raises money to donate to causes "as it sees
   fit". Upon his death, Otto willed the diary's copyright to the Fonds,
   on the provison that the first 80,000 Swiss francs in income each year
   was to be distributed to his heirs, and any income above this figure
   was to be retained by the Fonds to use for whatever projects its
   administrators considered worthy. It provides funding for the medical
   treatment of the Righteous Among the Nations on a yearly basis. It has
   aimed to educate young people against racism and has loaned some of
   Anne Frank's papers to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in
   Washington, D.C. for an exhibition in 2003. Its annual report of the
   same year gave some indication of its effort to contribute on a global
   level, with its support of projects in Germany, Israel, India,
   Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States

   Elementary schools in both Dallas, Texas ( Dallas ISD) and in
   Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ( School District of Philadelphia) have been
   named "Anne Frank Elementary School" for her.

   The life and writings of Anne Frank has inspired a diverse group of
   artists and social commentators to make reference to her in literature,
   popular music, television, and other forms of media. For a partial list
   of such references, see List of references to Anne Frank in popular
   culture.

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