Anne Frank
Artifact: Anne Frank's diary is important because it is a primary source of the life of someone who had first hand experience in the harshness and difficult life of the Holocaust. It shows us the dangerous and problematic times of the past. Her story educates us now in a way that creates a feeling of passion, emotion, and strength. Her diary is a clearer understanding, and if she did not keep a diary, we would not know exactly how people in that situation felt.
Anne Frank was a young Jewish girl born in 1929 in Frankfurt Germany. Her family moved to the Netherlands in hope of getting away from Germany after Adolf Hitler and the Nazi's came into power in 1933. Her and her family went into hiding behind her father's business in a secret apartment. For her birthday, her father surprised her with the diary she wanted. She kept this diary during the time she was in hiding, and now it has been translated into almost 70 langauges. The Frank's were found in 1944 and sent to separate concentration camps, and her father, Otto, was the only survivor.
Young Diarist: Starting at an early age, Frank was always very interested in writing. She liked to talk about her family, and their different personalities. She always thought of herself being the closest with her father, Otto. She had a close relationship with her sister, Margot, and a difficult one with her mother. Anne had always aspired to become a journalist as she got her first diary from her father on her birthday. In her diary, she wrote things like, "I finally realized that I must do my school work to keep from being ignorant, to get on in life, to become a journalist, because that's what I want." Frank had plans to become someone, and had a dream that she was working towards, until her whole life changed during the time of the Holocaust.