During the day the people in hiding stay quiet because there are workers in the
warehouse who do not know that there are people hiding in the building. The
people in hiding usually sit and read. Anne, Margot and Peter do their homework.
Anne’s parents took their school books to the hiding place so that they do not get
behind and can start school again after the war. In her small room Anne writes a lot
in her diary. She misses her friends so makes up a very good friend: Kitty. Anne
writes to her about her feelings and experiences in the secret annex. She dreams
of becoming a famous writer or journalist after the war. When her diary is full she
writes in notebooks and on loose sheets of paper. The people in hiding often listen
to the news on the radio. Sometimes the news is good, like when the German army
suffers a heavy defeat at Stalingrad in Russia. But sometimes the helpers bring
bad news and tell them of Jewish men, women and children being arrested in
Amsterdam. First they are taken to Camp Westerbork and then sent on to Eastern
Europe. Anne thinks that most of them are being murdered there by the Nazis. On
6 June 1944 the people in hiding hear some good news. A large army has invaded
Europe to liberate the occupied countries of Europe. The people in hiding are given
hope. Anne thinks that she will be able to go back to school in October. But on 4
August 1944 a car suddenly stops in front of Otto Frank’s business premises. Led
by a Nazi, three Dutch policemen enter the building. They go to the hiding place.
The people in hiding have been betrayed! Whoever did that has never been
discovered. The people in hiding are arrested and taken by truck to prison. Anne’s
diary, notebooks and loose sheets of paper are left behind in the hiding place. Miep
and Bep find them when they go to look there. Miep keeps them in her desk
drawer. The Nazis take the people in hiding to Westerbork, a large camp in
Drenthe in the north east of The Netherlands. From there they are sent with
thousands of other Dutch Jews to the Auschwitz concentration camp. On the
platform in Auschwitz the men are separated from the women. Anne and Margot
see their father for the last time. Later they are sent to another camp, Bergen-
Belsen, here they die in March 1945 shortly before the camp is liberated. On 5 May
1945 The Netherlands is liberated and is a free country again. Otto Frank is the
only one of the eight people in hiding to survive. In June 1945 he returns to The
Netherlands. On his return, Miep Gies, one of the helpers who looked after the
people in hiding, gives him Anne’s diary, notebooks and loose sheets of paper.
Otto reads that Anne wanted to publish a book after the war and from all her writing
Otto makes a book: the Secret Annex. First it is published in Dutch and then in
more than 70 other languages. Otto Frank received thousands of letters from
readers all over the world. He dedicated the rest of his life to Anne’s diary. A year
before his death he said: ‘I am nearly 90 and getting weaker. But the task that
Anne gave me, continues to give me strength to fight for reconciliation and for
human rights all over the world.’