In early 1942,
Anne Frank was your average teenager.
She lived with her family in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands,
and loved reading and writing.
When she was 13, she started keeping a diary,
which she named Kitty.
Little did she know that her diary would, one day,
become one of the most famous books in the world.
You see, Anne was growing up in a world
that was at war for the second time.
(EXPLOSION)
(CANNON BLASTS) (SCREAMING)
She and her family had fled from Germany to the Netherlands
to escape this man, Adolph Hitler, and his political party,
known as the Nazis.
HITLER: Sieg Heil. CROWD: (SHOUT) Heil.
(FOOTSTEPS)
Hitler was obsessed with the idea of a pure German race,
which he called Aryan,
and he wanted that race to control all of Europe.
The Nazis started persecuting people
who they didn't think were worthy members of society,
mostly Jewish people, like Anne and her family.
(CHANTING IN GERMAN)
The Nazis discriminated against Jews and took away their rights.
Eventually, they went one step further and planned to wipe out
Europe's Jewish population.
So, they started arresting them and sending them to thousands
of specially-built prisons called concentration camps.
Millions of Jewish people were deliberately killed,
or died from terrible living conditions.
And these events are now known as the Holocaust.
The Frank family thought they'd be safe in the Netherlands,
but in 1940, the country was invaded by the Nazis.
And in 1942,
Anne's older sister, Margot, was ordered to go to work in a camp.
So, the Franks went into hiding in a secret apartment
behind her dad Otto's business.
They were joined by a Jewish man and another Jewish family,
and they were helped by Otto's loyal friends.
Anne continued to write in her diary as she lived a strange new life.
The place they lived in was small and cramped,
and they could never go outside.
Everyone had to stay completely silent during the day
so that people on the other side of the walls wouldn't hear them
and report them to the Nazis.
Sadly, on 4 August 1944,
the thing the Franks feared most happened.
The Nazis discovered the secret apartment
and sent everyone there to a concentration camp.
Anne, her mother and her sister all died in this concentration camp
called Bergen-Belsen
before it was liberated by British troops in 1945
when the war ended.
The only one to survive the concentration camp
was Otto, Anne's Dad.
In 1947, he decided to publish Anne's diary so her story
and her memory could live on.
Since then, 30 million copies have been sold,
and it's been translated into 70 different languages.
It's read by kids and adults all around the world.
The secret apartment is now a museum that stands as a reminder
of Anne, her family and the millions of other Jewish people
who died during one of the worst events in human history.