THE LIFE OF ANNE FRANK

An informative volume created with the assistance of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam places Frank’s diary in context.

Archival photos give faces to the Frank family, the other inhabitants of the Secret Annex, and the brave non-Jewish Dutch citizens who assisted the eight Jews to hide for over two years in a few small rooms in the heart of their city. Woodward includes background information on Hitler’s rise to power and the German takeover of the Netherlands as she also details Anne’s early life in Germany (where she was born), then the prewar years in the Netherlands, and finally the fraught years after life began to change due to the Nazi restrictions on Jewish life. Taken all together, the text will help young readers understand the situation that necessitated the move into the rooms behind Anne’s father’s office. They will learn that the Frank family had been trying to leave for the United States since 1938 but, like many others, were prevented from doing so by the difficult process of getting the proper visa. The succinct but meaty two-page spreads are filled with photos of people, a model of the Annex, and artifacts from the period; excerpts from the diary appear in many pages. With the help of this book, the words of Anne’s diary will come alive. The retail edition is sold in a slipcase with both the book and a separate folder with photo reproductions of some of the items Frank had with her in the Annex; the library edition does not include slipcase or folder.

An effective complement to an enduring chronicle of the Holocaust.