Google Doodle honours Anne Frank

OV Digital Desk
6 Min Read
Google Doodle honours Anne Frank

Google today honoured Anne Frank on the 75th Anniversary of ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ with a video doodle depicting moments from her life in the book. The book was first-hand narration of Anne about the years she spent in hiding.

The Diary of Anne Frank bears witness to discrimination and violence. Anne’s father, Otto Frank, decided to publish her texts soon after the war, with the aim of warning against anti-Semitism and ethnic marginalisation, as well as creating a foundation for dialogue between generations and countries. He wanted his daughter’s diary to give a voice to all victims of Nazism.

Today marks the 75th anniversary of the publication of the first edition of Anne Frank’s diary, and today’s Doodle opens the door to the past but also raises awareness of the present. There are still millions of children around the world today who are fleeing from war, ethnic marginalization, and racism. We hope this Doodle serves as a reminder of their destiny and helps give them a voice in the spirit of Otto Frank’s charitable vision as reflected in the creation of the Anne Frank Fonds Basel and its partners today, UNICEF and UNESCO.

Doodle features real excerpts from her diary, which describes what she and her friends and family experienced in hiding for over two years. The doodles were created by Google Doodle art director Thoka Maer. The illustrator has talked about the sense of responsibility to preserve the memory of the Holocaust.

Who was Anne Frank?

Annelies Marie “Anne” Frank (12 June 1929 – February or March 1945), a German-Dutch diarist of Jewish heritage. One of the most discussed Jewish victims of the ugly Holocaust, she gained fame posthumously with the 1947 publication of “The Diary of a Young Girl” in which she documents her life in hiding from 1942 to 1944, during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. It is one of the world’s best-known books and has been the basis for several plays and films.

Anne Frank was a Jewish girl who was killed in the Holocaust in 1945 at the age of 15, after having hidden from the Nazis in a secret annexe in Amsterdam for over two years. During her time in hiding, Anne Frank wrote a diary, in which she expressed her hopes, fears and ambitions for the future as well as what it was like to hide in fear of your life for all that time. After the war, her father Otto Frank, who miraculously survived Auschwitz concentration camp, made her diary into a book.

Pictured: Anne Frank
Pictured: Anne Frank
Early Life of Anne Frank

Anne Frank was born on 12 June 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany, she lived most of her life in or near Amsterdam, Netherlands, having moved there with her family at the age of four and a half when the Nazis gained control over Germany.

In 1933 Anne’s family — her father, Otto, her mother, Edith, and her older sister, Margot—moved to Amsterdam from Germany following the rise of Adolf Hitler. In 1940 the Netherlands was invaded by Germany, which began to enact various anti-Jewish measures, one of which required Anne and her sister to enrol in an all-Jewish school the following year. Born a German national, she lost her citizenship in 1941 and thus became stateless. The following month Margot received an order to report to a labour camp. Facing arrest if she did not comply, the family went into hiding on 6 July 1942, moving into a “secret annexe” at Otto’s business in Amsterdam, the entrance to which was soon hidden behind a moveable bookcase. The Franks were later joined by four other Jews—Hermann and Auguste van Pels and their son, Peter, and Fritz Pfeffer—and were aided by several friends, including Miep Gies, who brought food and other supplies.

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On August 4, 1944, the Frank family was found out by the Nazi Secret Service, arrested, and taken to a detention center where they were forced to perform hard labour. They were then forcibly deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland where they lived in cramped, unhygienic conditions. A few months later, Anne and Margot Frank were transported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. In addition to the brutal, intentional killings of prisoners by Nazi forces, deadly diseases spread rapidly. Eventually, Anne and Margot succumbed to the inhumane conditions they were forced to live in. Anne Frank was just 15 years old.

Although Anne Frank did not survive the horrors of the Holocaust, her account of those years, commonly known as “The Diary of Anne Frank,” has since become one of the most widely read works of non-fiction ever published. Translated into upwards of 80 languages, Frank’s memoir is a staple in today’s classrooms, utilized as a tool to educate generations of children about the Holocaust and the terrible dangers of discrimination and tyranny.

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