Meet the deceased German-born Jewish 15 year old behind ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’, a personal novel that shares her experiences as a Holocaust victim during the Hitler’s empowerment of WWII Germany (Biography.com Editors, 2019).
Annelies Mary Frank, commonly known as Anne Frank, has been credited as a German-born Jewish teenager and victim of the German Holocaust, whose diary is now read by millions (Biography.com Editors, 2019). Born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany on June 12th 1929, Anne was raised by Otto Frank, a German businessman, and Edith Frank, a housewife, in the outskirts of Frankfurt Germany (Anne Frank House, 2019). Anne’s optimistic and courageous personality had been an important factor in her story living as an upper-middle class family (Biography.com Editors, 2019). Living in prior-WWII Germany, Anne lived an average lifestyle while anti-smetic beliefs was becoming a cultural staple in the country (Biography.com Editors, 2019). Unfortunately, Anne passed away on March 1945 at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after she was captured in her hiding place (Biography.com Editors, 2019). Her now famous diary has become a prominent story that spread the truth about the racist and violent fashion of the Nazi government. (Nawotka, 2012) Anne’s lifestyle can be connected to aspects of secondary sociology influences, including social norms and geographical location. Despite living the average lifestyle, Anne’s family was racially separated as anti-semetisim was a social norm in Germany, even prior to WWII.
Anne’s experiences as a child were cut short as her Jewish family had lived in Germany and its surrounding countries as the anti-semetic movement was taking place (Anne Frank House, 2019). During this time, Anne fell in love with journaling in a red checkered diary given to her on her 13th birthday. (Anne Frank House, 2019) “When I write, I can shake off all my cares”, Anne writes in her diary on April 5th, 1944 (Anne Frank Centre USA, 2018). Through this diary, Anne marks down her childhood experiences transitioning from her normal lifestyle in Amsterdam to the hate against her own Jewish family and community, leading her family to go into hiding. (Biography.com Editors, 2019) When Adolf Hitler became chancelor of Germany, Anne’s family grew terrified of what the country has become and settled in Netherlands, Amsterdam on January 13, 1993 (Biography.com Editors, 2019). This is related to Structuralism Anthropology and Claud Levi-Strauss’ idea which explains that these binary opposites are created by cultures for logical reasons. During the Nazi empowerment, the German government had changed the culture to follow anti-semetic beliefs, in which the German-Jewish populations were binary opposites and responsible for the demolition of the country’s economy. Acts of racism against the Jewish population illustrated in Figure 2 pressured Anne’s family to go into hiding, as her parents were afraid of the violent treatment of German Nazis.
In July of 1942, when Anne’s eldest sister Margrot Frank received a letter summoning her to report to a work camp in Germany, the family began hiding in a space at the back of the family’s business building behind a door hidden behind a book shelf, shown in Figure 3 (Anne Frank House, 2019)
Her world famous novel ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ illustrates her experiences living as a victim of the Nazi empowerment in Germany in the eyes of a teenager (Nawotka, 2012). As a diarist, Anne takes her readers on a journey living in hiding for 2 years from 1942 to 1944, all with optimism and courage (Nawotka, 2012). Anne refers to the hiding place as a “Secret Annex” in her diary, where she had spend much of her isolated (Anne Frank House, 2019). “I wander from room to room, climb up and down the stairs and feel like a songbird whose wings have been ripped off and who keeps hurling itself against the bars of its dark cage”, Anne says on October 29, 1943 (Anne Frank Centre USA, 2018). In this phase, Anne’s diary showed how her social interaction with others in the Annex grew difficult for her, and explains that she had felt as if she “[could] hardly care whether [she] lives or dies” (Victory, 2016; Anne Frank Centre USA, 2018). With the given quotes from her diary and knowing that she had been isolated for 2 years, I can connect Anne’s experiences in the annex to Major Depressive Disorder, a psychological mood disorder. Her diary shows that Anne had felt worthless, hopeless, and experienced a loss of appetite and sleep, all of which are symptoms of the mental illness. Her constant lack of interest in living throughout the second year of isolation reveals that she has experienced depressive episodes with no external mental support.
In the media, Anne’s diary is said to give hope and honour the millions of Holocaust victims during WWII (History.com Editors, 2009). ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’, along with the other novels she had written, is now the most read diary in history, showing how important her story is to her readers (Anne Frank House, 2019). Shown in Figure 4, the original copy of Anne’s diary is held in the Anne Frank House Museum, a museum that symbolizes her hardships leading up to her death. Though portrayed as a person of hope in a time of destruction, Anne writes about her traumatic experiences and thoughts as she is isolated from the real world (Victory, 2016). Her diary is a symbol of survival and prejudice that explains the perspective of victims in WWII (Goodrich, 2009). Anne’s father, Otto Frank, discovered the books after her death and decided to publish them for this purpose (Anne Frank House, 2019). However, Otto had purposely removed sections of the diaries before publishing to preserve family privacy and other sensitive issues (Rosenberg, 2019). Most of these concealed passages were recently uncovered, of which one included responses of Anne being sexually attracted to women (Rosenerg, 2019). This can be connected to sociology influence of social norms, as most of what Anne had written when experiencing her transition to adulthood involved aspects of life that were frowned upon and illegal during the 1940s, including gay rights.
While living in Amsterdam as a Jewish-German teenager, many social, religious and cultural aspects of the time and location she had been there affected her psychological well-being (Victory, 2016). Anne experienced anti-semetic racism, social isolation and trauma, all of which put pressure on her mental health (Victory, 2016). A key example of her psychological disorders is seen in her diary, where she addresses her responses to her imaginary friend, “Katty” (Rosenberg, 2019). She grows very found of her diary, possibly to ensure her sanity from being unable to talk to the world outside the Secret Annex (Rosenberg, 2019). These two examples show clear connections to Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), as Anne experiences unstable emotions, lack of interest in socializing, shows signs of suicidal thoughts and feels uncomfortable talking to others (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2019). Due to her isolation, vulnerability as a teenager and stress or personality disorders, Anne’s psychology is often examined in order to learn more about the mental state of Holocaust victims (Goodrich, 2009). Her responses also say that she would throw tantrums when she could not find her diary, as it was her only form of socialization (Anne Frank House, 2019). This possibly shows a form of Anthropomorphism, a disorder where one relates human behaviors to objects (Victory, 2016). Anne grows an attachment to the way she feels with her diary in her isolated environment, making it the only reasons she had decided not to commit suicide (Victory, 2016). The discipline of psychology had an influential movement on the effect of Anne’s experiences on her personality.
Anne’s diaries, however dark and presumptions, shared the truth of the side of the Holocaust that many have not seen. Each word written in her diaries have inspired millions around the world to make a change and find sympathy for the millions of Jewish people killed for no indefinite reason.
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