Anne heard someone open the door hidden in the bookcase and came up the secret staircase. Was it friend or enemy? 

When she sits in the living room to open her birthday present Anne, who has just turned 13, doesn´t think about all of the terrible things. The Frank family, who are Jews, live in Amsterdam. The Second World War is in progress and Germany, which has occupied (taken over) Holland, is persecuting the Jews. 

   Anne packs up books, a puzzle, a broach and then something which one day will cause the world to know who Anne was. A red diary. At once this becomes her most cherished present. 

   – I´ll pretend that the diary is my best friend to whom I can entrust my most secret thoughts. I christen her Kitty, says Anne to her big sister Margot. On 12 June, 1942, Anne writes her first page in Kitty. 

 

Secret Escape

The Frank family has escaped from Germany to Holland, but now the war and the Nazis have caught up with them. 
   – Enjoy your freedom as long as you can, says Anne´s beloved father Otto to her. 
   But one day Anne learns that her family is going into hiding. At 7:30 in the morning on 6 July 1942, the family leave their home. 

They go by foot because Jews are forbidden to cycle or take the tram, bus automobile. Over several months, Anne´s parents have secretly moved things to the two top floors of a garden house behind the building where Pappa Otto´s firm is located. 

   Soon another family arrives to hide in the garden house. The son, Peter is 15 and 13 year old Anne describes him for Kitty: 

   »A rather boring and shy boy who´s companionship I don´t expect very much of.' 

   Everyone is afraid of being discovered and there are often arguments. 

   »I think it´s terrible that adults become angry so easily and argue about the slightest small thing. I had always thought that only children quarrelled.' 

   Anne has heard about how the Germans and the Dutch Nazis knock on every door and ask whether jews are living there. Many of Anne´s friends have been taken away. 

»And all of this only because we are Jews!' 

 

The first kiss 

Anne comes to like 'boring´ Peter more and more. In the attic they can meet each other alone. Anne tells Kitty: 

   »When Peter and I sit amidst the junk and the dust, closely together with arms about each other, he with a lock of my hair in his hand, when the birds outside sing, when one sees how the trees are beginning to be green, when the sun attracts and the sky is so blue, oh, then there is so much I want.' 

   One night there is a break-in at the garden house. Somebody notifies the police. Those concealed are scared to death they will be discovered. 

   »We heard only each other´s breath...Eight hearts pounded, there was a rustling sound from the bookcase. Now we are lost, I whispered. Something fell down in the shelves. The steps retreated.' 

Some days later something happened which Anne had dreamed about for a long time. 

   »He kissed me on the hair, partly on the left cheek and partly on the ear. I ran downstairs without looking around. Dear Kitty! Do you think that Mamma and Pappa would like me to let a boy kiss me?' 

 

Friend or enemy? 

4 August, 1944 is a fine summer day. It is between ten and half past ten in the morning when a car stops in front of the house. Five men enter the building. A little while later Anne hears the bookcase door open and heavy steps climb the secret staircase. Friends or enemies? 

   The men who come up the stairs carry raised pistols. They know everything...the eight secret inhabitants in the garden house have been betrayed. Anne and the others stand with their hands in the air when a German policeman gives orders: 

   – All money and jewellery shall be handed over to me! The policeman doesn´t care about Kitty, Anne´s diary. 

   The policeman doesn´t believe they have lived in the garden house for two years. Otto shows him the marks on the wall which shows how Anne has grown. Together with each mark is written a date. 

 

The last train 

3 September, 1944 a train leaves Holland. It is the final transport of Jews from the country and its goal is the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. The inhabitants of the garden house are on the train. 

   For three days they sit pressed together in a freight car. When they arrive, the men and women are separated from one another. This is the last time Pappa Otto and his daughters see each other. Some months later Anne and Margot are also forced to part with their mother Edith. They are taken to the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen in Germany. Life in the camp is horrible. Many are gassed or shot to death. Many die of starvation. Anne and Margot have had their heads shaved. It is winter and they live in an over-crowded barracks without heat. The sisters grow more and more thin and become ill with Typhus. 

 

   One day in March 1945 Margot dies. Two days later Anne also dies. Less than one month later, the camp is liberated by the English.