The Diary of a Young Girl
On June 12, 1942, Anne Frank celebrated her birthday by writing the first entry in a new diary. Soon after, her family went into hiding from the Nazis occupying Amsterdam, living in a secret annex within the building where her father, Otto Frank, had worked. For the duration of their stay, Anne faithfully recorded her daily life in her diary, expressing her innermost ambitions, frustrations, and desires. By turns humorous and haunting, her diary has become one of the most important and widely read historical documents from World War II.
Quote:
"In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.”
Author:
Anne Frank was born in Germany in 1929 and moved with her family to Amsterdam in the early 1930s. In 1942, she went into hiding and began writing her now-famous diary, which has been translated into more than 60 languages and read by millions of people around the world.
Published: first published in 1947, definitive edition in 1991
Length: 340 pages
Set in: Amsterdam, The Netherlands