50 Fun Facts About The Diary of Anne Frank

Which actress, still in high school, made her Broadway debut as Anne Frank in a 1997 revival?

Natalie Portman took the role at the Music Box Theatre two years before Star Wars made her famous. She visited the Anne Frank House twice to prepare for it.

To which imaginary friend did Anne Frank address the letters that make up most of her diary?

Kitty probably took her name from a character in the Joop ter Heul novels Anne loved. In autumn 1942 Anne wrote to a whole circle of imaginary friends before settling on one.

Which Hollywood star, born within weeks of Anne Frank, turned down the chance to play her on screen?

Audrey Hepburn, who spent her own teens in the occupied Netherlands, wrote back that she felt too old for the part and lacked the skill to play Anne.

Which piece of furniture hid the doorway to the Secret Annex where Anne Frank spent two years?

A bookcase that swung open like a door was built by the father of helper Bep Voskuijl. It hid the entrance until police came across it during the 1944 raid.

In which language did German-born Anne Frank write the diary she kept while in hiding?

Dutch was the language she had spoken since her family moved to Amsterdam when she was four. The diary has since been translated into more than 70 others.

Who was the only one of the eight people hidden in the Secret Annex to survive the Holocaust?

Otto Frank was too ill to be marched out of Auschwitz and was freed there by Soviet troops in January 1945. He devoted the rest of his life to his daughter's diary.

Which kind of object in space, first spotted in 1942, was later named in honour of Anne Frank?

An asteroid found in 1942, the year she began her diary, was named 5535 Annefrank in 1995. NASA's Stardust probe flew past it in 2002.

The couple who adapted Anne Frank's diary for Broadway also co-wrote which Christmas film classic?

It's a Wonderful Life is among the screenplays of Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, who also wrote The Thin Man and Father of the Bride before taking on the diary.

Which helper saved Anne Frank's diary pages after the arrest and kept them unread in a drawer?

Miep Gies said that if she had read the pages she would have had to destroy them, because they named every helper and their black-market suppliers.

For which occasion did Anne Frank receive the red-checked notebook that became her diary?

Her 13th birthday present was no surprise, because she had picked the notebook out herself in a bookshop near home the day before. Within a month she had taken it into hiding.

The Secret Annex where Anne Frank wrote her diary lay at the back of which Amsterdam building?

Her father's company carried on trading on the floors below while eight people kept silent upstairs. By day they had to stay quiet so the warehouse staff would not hear them.

Whose summons to a Nazi labour camp sent the family into the Secret Annex the very next day?

Margot Frank was 16 when the notice arrived on 5 July 1942, and the family left home the next morning. She kept a diary of her own, but no trace of it has been found.

Which badge does Anne Frank's diary describe Jews in the occupied Netherlands being forced to wear?

A yellow star is among the humiliations she records, alongside the arrests and deportations of neighbours. Rumours of gassings reach the annex only as vague hearsay.

Which Allied operation of June 1944 gave Anne Frank and the others in hiding hope of liberation?

The Normandy landings began on 6 June 1944, and the group in the annex knew of them. They were arrested on 4 August, six weeks before Allied troops reached the Netherlands.

Which career did Anne Frank write in her diary that she wanted to pursue after the war?

A journalist was her stated goal in an April 1944 entry, where she also wonders whether she will ever write something great. She drafted part of a novel in hiding too.

In the play The Diary of Anne Frank, which festival does Anne mark with homemade gifts for everyone?

Hanukkah closes the first act, when the party is cut short by a crash from the offices below. Anne's singing is what steadies everyone afterwards.

In The Diary of Anne Frank, what is the profession of Mr. Dussel, the last person to join the annex?

A dentist some forty years older than Anne, he was given a bed in her small room. Their clashes fill many of her sharpest entries.

In which concentration camp did Anne Frank die in early 1945, weeks before British troops freed it?

Bergen-Belsen was liberated on 15 April 1945. She had been sent there from Auschwitz the previous autumn, and the exact date of her death was never recorded.

Which major American award did the Broadway play The Diary of Anne Frank win, along with a Tony?

The Pulitzer Prize for Drama went to its writers, Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett. The original production ran for 717 performances on Broadway.

In which format did Ari Folman and David Polonsky retell Anne Frank's diary?

A graphic novel came first, and Folman then directed the 2021 animated film Where Is Anne Frank in the same visual style, with her imaginary friend brought to life in the present day.

In which city was Anne Frank born in 1929, before her family fled Nazi rule for Amsterdam?

Frankfurt was home until Hitler took power in 1933. Her father went ahead to set up a business in Amsterdam, and Anne followed at the age of four.

Opekta, the firm run by Anne Frank's father, sold an ingredient that helped households make what?

Jam was what Opekta's pectin was sold for, and its adverts urged households to make their own. A sister firm, Pectacon, traded in spices.

What prompted Anne Frank in March 1944 to begin rewriting her diary with publication in mind?

A radio broadcast from London by an exiled government minister promised a public record of the occupation built from diaries and letters. She began redrafting hers on loose sheets.

Which famous American wrote the introduction to the first US edition of Anne Frank's diary in 1952?

Eleanor Roosevelt introduced the Doubleday edition, which became a best-seller. Judith Jones, a young Doubleday employee in Paris, had pulled the book out of a pile of rejected submissions.

Under which title was Anne Frank's diary first published in Amsterdam in 1947?

Het Achterhuis literally means the back house, usually rendered in English as the secret annex. The first printing of 3,000 copies soon sold out.

In the play The Diary of Anne Frank, which gift from her father does Mrs. Van Daan prize most?

A fur coat is the thing she is forever stroking in the attic. Anne spills milk on it, and in the second act her husband has it sold over her protests.

In the play The Diary of Anne Frank, what does Mrs. Frank catch Mr. Van Daan doing one night?

Stealing food makes the usually mild Mrs. Frank demand that he leave the hiding place at once. The row only ends when a helper arrives with good news about the war.

In The Diary of Anne Frank, what is the name of the cat that Peter brings with him into hiding?

Mouschi shared the annex with eight people, and in the 1959 film Peter's father wants him gone for eating too much. Anne's own cat had to be left behind with neighbours.

Which actress gave the Oscar she won for the film The Diary of Anne Frank to the Anne Frank House?

Shelley Winters won Best Supporting Actress as Mrs. Van Daan, having promised to give any Oscar for the role to the museum. She handed the statuette over in 1975.

To which country did neighbours wrongly believe Anne Frank's family had escaped in July 1942?

Switzerland was a false trail the family laid on purpose. They left their flat in disarray, with a note hinting they had gone to the country where relatives already lived.

Which kind of tree, visible from the Secret Annex, does Anne Frank describe in her diary?

A horse chestnut that campaigners went to court to save from felling was blown down by gales in 2010. Saplings from it now grow at museums, schools and parks in the United States.

Deniers claimed parts of Anne Frank's diary were written with which tool, rare before the 1950s?

A ballpoint pen was used only for page numbers and on two slips of paper added later, none of it Anne's own writing. Forensic tests matched the ink, paper and handwriting to her.

Which Nazi hunter found the officer who arrested Anne Frank, to answer claims she never existed?

Simon Wiesenthal began the search after protesters at a 1958 performance of the play dared him to prove it. In 1963 he found the man, by then a Vienna police inspector.

The red-checked book Anne Frank chose as her first diary was really sold for collecting what?

Autographs were what the little book was made for, but she had filled it with entries by December 1942. She carried on in school exercise books and on loose sheets.

In which capital city were hundreds of library copies of Anne Frank's diary vandalised in 2014?

Tokyo libraries found 265 damaged copies of the diary and related books across 31 branches. Israel donated 300 new copies to replace them.

Which kind of school did Anne Frank attend in Amsterdam until Jewish children were barred in 1941?

Montessori schooling began for her in 1934, and she soon felt at home there. After the ban she moved to the Jewish Lyceum, and her old school now bears her name.

In the play The Diary of Anne Frank, what makes Anne scream in the night and wake the whole attic?

A nightmare brings both parents to her room, but Anne sends her mother away and asks her father to stay. He tells her afterwards how hurtful that rejection is.

In the play The Diary of Anne Frank, the daytime rules ban loud talk, moving about and using what?

Running water was off limits while the workers were downstairs, along with anything louder than a whisper. Only at six o'clock could everyone move around again.

In the play The Diary of Anne Frank, which New Year gift do the helpers carry up to open Act 2?

A cake arrives in January 1944, when the families have been hidden for close to a year and a half. The same visit brings word that a worker downstairs is blackmailing one of the helpers.

In the play The Diary of Anne Frank, who does the final scene say reported the hiding place?

A thief who broke into the offices during the first act is blamed in the play. In reality nobody knows whether the eight were betrayed or found by chance.

In the play The Diary of Anne Frank, which present knitted by Anne does Mr. Frank find as it opens?

A scarf is the first thing he picks up in the bare rooms, and he puts it around his neck. Moments later he is handed the diary and begins to read it aloud.

In the play The Diary of Anne Frank, which noise from below does Mr. Dussel insist is a warning?

A ringing telephone sounds for the third time while Mr. Frank refuses to go down and answer it. Soon afterwards a car pulls up outside and the door is battered in.

What was the real name of the man called Mr. Dussel in Anne Frank's diary and the play based on it?

Fritz Pfeffer joined the annex in November 1942. His partner Charlotte Kaletta later broke off contact with the family's circle, offended by how the diary and the play portrayed him.

On which Amsterdam canal stands the building whose rear annex hid Anne Frank, now a museum?

Prinsengracht 263 was bought in the 1950s by a clothing firm that planned to demolish the row. A foundation set up to protect it opened the house to visitors in 1960.

Which fashion model made her screen debut as Anne in the 1959 film The Diary of Anne Frank?

Millie Perkins was an international cover girl with no acting credits when she was chosen. Life magazine gave seven pages to her debut.

Which director of the film The Diary of Anne Frank had filmed inside Dachau just after it was freed?

George Stevens reached the camp two days after its liberation with an army film unit. He spent the rest of 1945 compiling footage used as evidence at the Nuremberg trials.

Which acting teacher's daughter was the first to play Anne in The Diary of Anne Frank on Broadway?

Susan Strasberg, daughter of Lee Strasberg of the Actors Studio, was nominated for a Tony for the role while still a teenager. She also won a Theatre World Award for it.

Which Amsterdam newspaper ran the 1946 article that helped Anne Frank's diary find a publisher?

Het Parool, founded as a resistance paper during the occupation, printed historian Jan Romein's praise of the unpublished diary. The piece caught the eye of the publisher Contact.

To which UNESCO programme were the notebooks of Anne Frank's diary added in 2009?

Memory of the World recognises documentary heritage rather than places, and the Netherlands put the notebooks forward. They are written in grey, blue and black fountain-pen ink.

Which disease, raging through the camp, is believed to have killed Anne Frank in early 1945?

Typhus swept the overcrowded camp in the first months of 1945 and is thought to have killed her sister too, within days of Anne. Both were buried in its mass graves.