From the Diary of Anne Frank- About the Author & Introduction

From the Diary of Anne Frank

By– Anne Frank

Anne Frank – A Short Biography

About the Authoress

Anne Frank (12 June 1929—February/March 1945) was a German Jew. The twelve-year-old Jewish girl wrote ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ while in hiding with her family and four friends in Amsterdam during the Nazis’ occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. After two years in hiding, the group was betrayed and transported to a concentration camp in Bergen where Anne and her elder sister Margot died of typhus in 1945. Her father, Otto, the only survivor of the group found her diary and got it published in English under the name ‘The Diary of a Young Girl

Introduction of the lesson- From the Diary of Anne Frank

INTRODUCTION

Anne Frank was a young Jewish girl. She lived with her parents in Germany. But Hitler’s Nazi Party was against the Jews. The Nazis were killing the Jews or forcing them to work in the concentration camps. The Frank family fled from Germany in 1933 and took shelters in the Netherlands. But in 1940, Germany attacked the Netherlands and captured it. Now the Nazis started arresting the Jews and sending them to the concentration camps. The Frank family went into hiding. They lived secretly in the upper floors of their business premises. They hid there for 25 months. Their non-Jewish friends gave them food.

Anne had started writing her diary before going into hiding. In August 1944, the Germans came to know of their hiding. They were arrested and sent to Germany. Anne, her sister, Margot and her mother soon died in a concentration camp. Her father survived and published part of Anne’s diary. In this diary, Anne gives a moving and tragic account of the difficulties faced by her family and the other Jews.

The part of the diary reproduced in this chapter is about the days when Anne was a schoolgirl and she and her family had not yet moved to the secret quarters.

(ऐनी फ्रैंक एक छोटी यहूदी लड़की थी। वह अपने माता-पिता के साथ जर्मनी से रहती थी । मगर हिटलर की नाजी पार्टी यहूदियों के विरुद्ध थी । नाजी लोग यहूदियों को मार रहे थे या उन्हें यातना शिविरों में काम करने के लिए मज़बूर कर रहे थे । फ्रैंक परिवार 1983 में जर्मनी से भाग आया और नीदरलैंइस में शरण ली । मगर 1940 में जर्मनी ने नीदरलैंइस पर आक्रमण किया और उस पर कब्ज़ा कर लिया । अब नाज़ियों ने यहूदियों को केद करना एवं उसे यातना शिविरों में भेजना आरंभ कर दिया । फ्रैंक परिवार छिप गया । वे अपने व्यापार के कार्यालय की ऊपरी मंजिलमें गुप्त रूप से रहने लगे । वे वहाँ पर 25 महीने छिपे रहे । उनके गैर –यहूदी मित्रों ने उन्हें भोजन दिया ।

ऐनी ने छिपने से पहले अपनी डायरी लिखनी आरंभ कर दी थी । अगस्त, 1944 में जर्मन लोगों को उनके छिपने का पता चल गया । उन्हें कैद करके जर्मनी भेज दिया गया । ऐनी, उसकी बहन मार्गट एवं उसकी माता की एक यातना शिविर से मौत हो गई ।

उसका पिता बच गया और उसने ऐनी की डायरी के एक भाग को प्रकाशित करवाया । इस डायरी में ऐनी अपने परिवार एवं अन्य यहूदियों द्वारा उठाई गई कठिनाइयों का मार्मिक वर्णन करती है ।