The Diary of a Young Girl
The Diary of a Young Girl
For two years a thirteen-year-old girl wrote in secret about ordinary life while the world outside tried to kill her.
Written in Hiding
Anne Frank's diary covers June 12, 1942 to August 1, 1944, the years she and her family spent in the hidden rooms above an Amsterdam warehouse as the Nazis occupied the Netherlands. Written to an imaginary friend named Kitty, the diary records Anne's inner life with extraordinary self-awareness: her longing for freedom, her conflicts with her mother, her first love, her ambitions as a writer, and her determination to remain herself in conditions designed to make that impossible. She was arrested in August 1944 and died in Bergen-Belsen in February or March 1945.
Reading The Diary of a Young Girl
Intimacy
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Entry
"Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.
"Anne Frank · The Diary of a Young Girl
Anne's father Otto Frank, the diary's sole surviving author, spent years compiling and editing the diary before publication. He lived until 1980 and devoted his remaining decades to the diary's distribution and Anne's legacy.
The diary has been translated into more than 70 languages and sold over 30 million copies. The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, where the family hid, receives over 1.2 million visitors per year and is one of the most visited sites in Europe.