Anne Frank A life from Beginning to end

Introduction

            TRANSLATED FROM THE DUTCH

            BY B. M. MOOYART DOUBLEDAY

            WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

                ELEANOR. ROOSEVELT

Anne Maries Frank was born in Frankfurt, Germany

on June 12, 1929 to her parents Edith and Otto Heinrich

Frank.

Somehow or other, it is said that shortly after her birth

those working the nursing station at the hospital had

confused her surname of Frank as being her first name.

As a result, when her father Otto came asking about his

"little girl" the attending clerks insisted that he had a little

boy instead.

Despite this initial mix up, Otto was indeed able to join

his wife and visit with his new baby girl who would

become known as Anne.

She was an eight-pound bundle of joy—little did her

parents know

the tragic yet powerful roles she would play just a little

over a decade laterAnne's father Otto was a decorated War 1 

veteran, and despite his later ill-treatment by his own country 

he was patriotic German.

Otto had marred Edith Hollander shortly after the war, on

his 36th birthday, May 12, 1925. The couple have their first

child Margot one year later in 1926. Margot would grow up

to be a protective big sister for Anne and was overjoyed

when the infant was brought home from the Maingau

Red Cross clinic. The growing family made their

residence in a spacious two-floor apartment in Frankfurt.

They very much enjoyed their home in Frankfurt, and as

the years passed their holden quickly made many friends

in the neighborhood, which was multicultural and housed

residents that practiced a number of different religious.

The Franks themselves were liberal Jews, observing only

some of the traditions and customs of Judiasm.

But their relationship with their landlord, who was

avid supporter of the burgeoning Nazi party, much to be

desired. The Nazis from the beginning had -speog-

lated the Jewish people with blistering rhetoric, blaming

German-Jewish culture as a whole for the recent

troubles the nation had faced after World War 1.

And it was in Adolf Hitler that they had found their

most virulent spokesman.

Jewish families like the Franks were well aware of the

dangers that such sentiment posed for them, but they

had seen such demagogues before. These outbreaks

not hatred had emerged at other dark times of Europ-

ean history, but after the initial eruption of belligerence

they had always simmered back down below the surface.

And many had hoped that this particularly virulent

strains of antisemitism they were now seeing would soon

pass as well.

But after the stock market crash of 1929 sent the entire

world eco okay spinning out of control, an already

vulnerable Germany was sent into an immediate crisis.

The fear and despair that the central public felt were

used as more fuel to the fire for Hitler and his Nazi

Party, and instead of their animosity giving way to the

better angels of society, the absolute worst inclinations

of humanity would take root. Young Anne Frank had

arrived into the world just as it began to descend into

the most damnable of hells.