Week 1: Anne Frank

Monday, June 6, 2011

Full name: Annelies Marie Frank

Born: June 12, 1929

Died: Early March 1945 at the age of 15 in a concentration camp

Importance: Famously kept a diary while in hiding with her Jewish family in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam from 1942 to 1944

Pictures:

Key Facts

Anne’s diary, available in more than 60 languages now, was published posthumously and chronicles her years in hiding.

Anne has been quoted and referenced by Eleanor Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Nelson Mandela and has been recognized as one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Important People of the Century.

Allied forces liberated the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, where Anne Frank was held and killed, a few short weeks after her death.

Quotes from Anne Frank

“I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death! And that’s why I’m so grateful to God for having given me this gift, which I can use to develop myself and to express all that’s inside me!”

“Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!”

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

Excerpts from Andy Andrews

Excerpt #1 from The Traveler's Gift:

Anne turned and faced David. “I will have a tomorrow, Mr. Ponder. Margot and Mrs. Petronella, they make fun of me. They call me a Pollyanna. They say that I live in a dream world, that I do not face reality. This is not true. I know that the war is horrible. I understand that we are in terrible danger here. I do not deny the reality of our situation. I deny the finality of it. This, too, shall pass.”

Anne knelt down and reached under the mattress. She pulled out a red-orange checkered clothbound book. “This is my diary,” she said. “Papa gave it to me for my birthday, June twelfth.” She thumbed through the pages quickly until she found what she was looking for. “These are yours,” she said and carefully tore several pages from the small journal.

David took the pages from her hand and watched as she placed what he knew to be her life’s work back under the dirty mattress. “Thank you, Anne.”

Excerpt #2 from The Final Summit:

Number five. David drew a deep breath and sang aloud. “La la la la la la.” Years before, he had gotten in the habit of singing some off-key little nothing when he removed Anne Frank’s pages. There were four of them, folded in half, and they were very small. The papers had been torn from her diary, and for a long time, David cried every time he brought them out. His singing was an unsuccessful diversion to the overwhelming emotion he felt toward the tiny girl and the irony of the words she had written for him: Today I will choose to be happy.