60 Fun Facts About Anne Frank

In which German city was Anne Frank born in 1929?

The family lived in the Dornbusch area, where the Anne Frank Educational Centre opened in 1997.

What was Anne Frank's full first name?

She was born Annelies Marie Frank at the Maingau Red Cross Clinic.

To which city did the Frank family move in 1934 after Hitler came to power?

Otto Frank went first to set up a business; the family reunited there in February 1934.

What did Otto Frank's company Opekta sell?

His second firm, Pectacon, sold herbs and spices for sausage-making.

What was the name of Anne's older sister?

Margot was three years older and, despite early language problems, became a star pupil in the new country.

What kind of education did Anne receive from 1934 at an institution later renamed in her honour?

She met her friend Hanneli Goslar there; the 6th Montessori School became the Anne Frank School in 1957.

Why was Otto Frank's application for a US visa never processed?

All the paperwork was lost when the consulate was bombed on 14 May 1940.

The only known film footage of Anne shows her doing what in July 1941?

She is visible for about a second, leaning out to see the bride and groom; the couple later gave the film to the Anne Frank House.

For which birthday did Anne receive the red-and-white checkered book she used as a diary?

It was an autograph book with a small lock, given on 12 June 1942.

What name did Anne give her diary?

Kitty was a character in the Joop ter Heul novels by Cissy van Marxveldt that Anne loved.

What forced the Franks into hiding ten days earlier than planned, on 6 July 1942?

The notice from the Central Office for Jewish Emigration arrived on 5 July.

What did Anne Frank ask neighbour Toosje Kupers to look after before going into hiding?

She also gave her a book and a tea set; a note asked the Kupers to care for the cat Moortje.

On which canal was the building containing the Secret Annex?

The Anne Frank House there received about 1.2 million visitors a year between 2011 and 2020.

What concealed the door to the Secret Annex?

It was built by Johannes Voskuijl, father of the helper Bep.

Which country did Otto Frank's note hint the family had fled to?

The apartment was left in disarray to suggest a sudden departure.

Which four employees knew about the people in hiding and acted as their helpers?

Jan Gies and Johannes Voskuijl also helped; all knew they risked the death penalty.

Who joined the Franks in the annex on 13 July 1942?

Hermann, Auguste and 16-year-old Peter; Anne renamed them Van Daan in her edited diary.

What was the profession of Fritz Pfeffer, the eighth person to join the annex in November 1942?

Anne had to share her room with him and found him insufferable; she called him Albert Düssell in the diary.

From whom did Anne receive her first kiss in the annex?

She had at first dismissed him as shy and awkward, and later questioned whether her feelings were real or a product of confinement.

Which helper did Otto Frank say was Anne's closest friend, 'the young typist'?

Anne's sister took an elementary Latin correspondence course in Bep's name.

What career did Anne say she wanted in her diary entry of 5 April 1944?

'I want to go on living even after my death!' she wrote in the same entry.

Which exiled Dutch minister's March 1944 broadcast prompted Anne to edit her diary for publication?

He promised a public record of the occupation, including letters and diaries.

On what date was Anne's last diary entry written?

The annex was raided shortly afterwards.

Which SS officer led the police raid on the Secret Annex, three days after the final diary entry?

Simon Wiesenthal tracked Silberbauer down in 1963 to disprove claims that Anne never existed.

To which transit camp were the eight prisoners sent after their arrest?

Having been caught in hiding they were classed as criminals and put in the Punishment Barracks.

Which two secretaries gathered Anne's papers from the annex floor after the arrest?

Gies resolved to give them back to Anne after the war, and instead gave them to Otto in July 1945.

What did the Anne Frank House's 2016 research suggest as a possible alternative to betrayal for the raid?

The report also noted other activities in the building might have drawn police, without ruling out betrayal.

Which Jewish Council member did a 2022 cold-case team name as the suspected informant, a theory scholars called thin?

The Dutch publisher recalled the book after historians disputed that the council even had a list of hiding places.

What was notable about the 3 September 1944 train that took the annex group east from the transit camp?

Of its 1,019 passengers, 549 were gassed on arrival, including every child under 15.

How many months earlier had Anne turned 15, the age that spared her from immediate gassing at Auschwitz?

She was one of the youngest spared from her transport, and never learned that all eight from the annex survived the selection.

Why was Anne prevented from joining an October 1944 transport to the Liebau labour camp?

Her mother and sister chose to stay with her rather than go.

To which camp were Anne and her sister moved from Auschwitz in the autumn of 1944?

Their mother Edith was left behind and died of disease, starvation and exhaustion.

Which childhood friend spoke to Anne through a barbed-wire fence at the camp in early 1945?

Nanette Blitz met her in person and described her as bald, emaciated and wrapped in a blanket.

From what disease is Anne believed to have died?

The epidemic killed 17,000 prisoners in the camp; research in 2015 suggested she died as early as February.

How long after her sister's death is Anne said to have died?

Witnesses said her sister fell from her bunk and was killed by the shock; both were buried in a mass grave.

On what date did British troops liberate the camp where Anne died?

It was long assumed the sisters died only weeks before, but they may have died as early as February.

Which member of the Frank family was the only one to survive the Holocaust?

He returned home in June 1945 and was sheltered by Jan and Miep Gies.

What was the Dutch title under which the diary was first published in 1947?

It means 'the back house', rendered in English as The Secret Annex.

Which historian's 1946 Het Parool article 'A Child's Voice' drew publishers to the diary?

He wrote that it embodied 'all the hideousness of fascism, more so than all the evidence at Nuremberg put together'.

Into roughly how many languages has the diary been translated?

The first English edition, The Diary of a Young Girl, appeared in 1952.

In which country did the diary have its most notable early success, selling 100,000-plus copies?

In Britain, by contrast, it was out of print by 1953.

Which award did Goodrich and Hackett's 1955 Broadway play based on the diary win?

The 1959 film followed; biographer Melissa Müller thought the dramatisation romanticised and sentimentalised Anne's story.

How many pages of the diary did Otto Frank remove before publication, only revealed in 1999?

They criticised his strained marriage; the Dutch state paid US$300,000 to get them back in 2001.

Which pen name did Anne give the second family in the annex in her edited diary?

Fritz Pfeffer became Albert Düssell; Otto restored his own family's real names but kept the other pseudonyms.

Who wrote the introduction to the first American edition of Anne Frank's diary?

Kennedy said in 1961 that 'no voice is more compelling than that of Anne Frank'.

Which statesman said in 1994 that reading Anne's diary in prison gave him 'much encouragement'?

He likened her fight against Nazism to his own against apartheid.

In what year did the Anne Frank House museum open to the public?

A foundation set up in 1957 with Otto Frank saved the canal-side building from demolition.

What kind of tree was the 'Anne Frank tree', visible from the annex, which was blown down in 2010?

Eleven saplings were distributed to museums and schools, the first planted in Indianapolis in 2013.

Roughly how many schools worldwide were named after Anne Frank as of 2018?

A hundred are in Germany and 89 in France.

Which schoolteacher did Otto Frank sue in the early 1960s for calling the diary a forgery?

Stielau recanted; a 1986 forensic study and a 1998 Amsterdam ruling later reconfirmed the diary's authenticity.

Which asteroid was named in Anne's honour in 1995?

UNESCO added her writings to its Memory of the World register in 2009.

The 'Kitty' Anne addressed her diary to was borrowed from novels by which Dutch author?

Kitty is a character in the Joop ter Heul books Anne loved; she added the salutations while editing the diary for publication.

Otto Frank's second company, Pectacon, founded in 1938, wholesaled which goods?

Hermann van Pels, a butcher who had fled Osnabrück, joined it as a spice adviser and later hid in the annex with his family.

In which Amsterdam square did the Franks live from 1933 until going into hiding?

The apartment was restored to its 1930s look in 2005 and now hosts a persecuted writer each year; the first was Algerian poet El-Mahdi Acherchour.

In which Swiss city is the Anne Frank Fonds, set up by Otto Frank in 1963, based?

Otto willed the diary's copyright to the Fonds, which represents the Frank family and funds education against racism.

Where was the first sapling from the fallen Anne Frank tree planted, in April 2013?

Eleven saplings were distributed; others went to Little Rock's desegregation-battle school and Manhattan's Liberty Park honouring 9/11 victims.

In 2009 UNESCO added Anne Frank's diary to which international register?

Ten years earlier Time had named her among the heroes and icons of the 20th century.

Which country has the most schools named after Anne Frank, about a hundred as of 2018?

France had 89, Italy 45 and the Netherlands 17, including the Montessori school in Amsterdam Anne herself attended.

Who called Anne Frank the 'lost little daughter' of Franz Kafka?

The comparison sits alongside a Madame Tussauds likeness unveiled in 2012 and an asteroid named for her in 1995.

Roughly how many visitors a year did the Anne Frank House average between 2011 and 2020?

The Foundation formed in 1957 to save the Prinsengracht building from demolition; the rooms are left unfurnished so visitors can walk freely through them.