Anne Frank


THE COLLECTED WORKS

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Message and Legacy

Preface by the Anne Frank Fonds, Basle

The range of Anne Frank’s work is small yet at the same time extensive. When the Frank family was deported from its hiding place in Amsterdam by the National Socialists, Anne was fifteen years old. The families in the secret annexe had been betrayed. Anne and her sister died after deportation to Auschwitz and then to Bergen-Belsen.

Seen against this background, the range of Anne Frank’s preserved work is immense. In this complete edition, all known texts by Anne Frank have been published together for the first time: diaries, stories, essays, compositions and letters. They are not only evidence of the extraordinary talent of the girl, who was born in Frankfurt am Main, but also show a tradition and culture of writing that had been cultivated in the family (and that may seem somewhat whimsical today – and not only to young people).

In this complete edition, the Anne Frank Fonds has made all texts by Anne Frank available in one volume and has done so in a popular edition complete with context, explanations and additional material. The complete edition is suitable as primary and secondary literature for students and for teachers. It brings together, in Mirjam Pressler and Francine Prose, renowned experts on Anne Frank texts and, in Gerhard Hirschfeld, an outstanding and widely recognized historian.

The Anne Frank Fonds was founded in 1963 by Anne Frank’s father, Otto, the only survivor of the family, and was designated as its universal heir. After the first publication of the diary in 1947 and the reactions from around the world, Otto Frank dared to hope that it would not only be a unique testimony of contemporary history but also a lasting global success. The Anne Frank Fonds uses income from book sales and theatre and film rights for charitable and educational purposes around the world, in the spirit of Anne and Otto Frank.

The main concern of the Anne Frank Fonds is to spread Anne Frank’s timeless message of peace, justice and humanism around the world for each new generation by means of the authentic texts. At the same time, it has always been an aim of the Anne Frank Fonds to present the history of the Jewish Frank family in all its dimensions and in its historical and cultural context. This publication of all Anne Frank’s texts bridges a gap and at the same time closes the circle of her work.

– BASLE, OCTOBER 2013

Further information is available on www.annefrank.ch

ABOUT THE ANNE FRANK FONDS

This book is published under the auspices of the ANNE FRANK FONDS.

As the sole surviving member of his family and sole heir to his daughter Anne, Otto H. Frank established the ANNE FRANK FONDS (AFF) in Basle, Switzerland in 1963, appointing it as his legatee. Since Otto Frank’s death in 1980, the AFF acts as his executor, with the aim of disseminating and protecting from wrongful exploitation his daughter’s writings. Anne’s diaries are registered under UNESCO’s Memory of the World programme.

The AFF is a charitable foundation governed by Swiss law. A board of trustees, chaired for many years by Anne Frank’s cousin Buddy Elias until his death in 2015, serves in an honorary capacity. The purpose of the AFF is to promote charitable work in the spirit of Anne and Otto Frank. It was Otto Frank’s explicit wish that the AFF should contribute to a better understanding between different cultures and religions, to encourage contact between young people from around the world, and to serve the cause of peace.

For more information visit www.annefrank.ch

Diary Version A

Translated by Arnold J. Pomerans and B. M. Mooyaart-Doubleday

Translator’s Note:

Anne Frank used handprinting as well as cursive writing. The difference has been indicated in this edition: cursive writing is printed in roman letters; handprinting in italics.