The atrocities which occurred during the Holocaust are to this day some of the most shocking in history.
Young victim Anne Frank immortalised herself in a diary, writing about her life in hiding before she was taken to a concentration camp where she tragically died. It was to become one of the most poignant and important historical accounts of all time.
As we know, Anne and her family were caught hiding in a secret annex in Amsterdam by the Nazis and taken to the camps.
Anne, who was 15 at the time, died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp two months before it was liberated by Allied forces.
Her father Otto was the only member of the family who survived and discovered the diary when he returned to their old hiding place after the war.
Published as ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’ in 1952, the diary was translated into 67 languages.
It’s been widely thought for years that Anne and the seven other Jews who were hiding in the annex for two years were betrayed and given up to the German occupiers.
However, a new study conducted by Amsterdam’s Anne Frank House Museum found no concrete evidence of this.
“During their day-to-day activities, investigators … often came across Jews in hiding by chance,” explained historian Gertjan Broek.
To add to this theory, two men were also arrested for dealing fake coupons in the same building as the hiding place, meaning it’s certainly plausible the Nazis could’ve stumbled upon them by accident.
There may never be a definitive answer but through ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’, Anne Frank and her family will never be forgotten.
