Anne Fra a diary from June 12, 1942, to August 1, 1944. Initially, she wrote it strictly for herself. Then, one day in 1944, Gerrit Bolkestein, a member of the Dutch gover in exile, announced in a radio broadcast from London that after the war he hoped to collect eyewitness ats of the suffering of the Dutch people uhe German occupation, which could be made available to the public. As an example, he specifically mentioned letters and diaries.
Impressed by this speech, Anne Frank decided that when the war was over she would publish a book based on her diary. She begaing aing her diary, improving oext, omitting passages she didnt think were iing enough and adding others from memory. At the same time, she kept up her inal diary. In the scholarly work The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition (1989), Annes first, ued diary is referred to as version a, to distinguish it from her sed, edited diary, which is known as version b.
The last entry in Annes diary is dated August 1, 1944. On August 4, 1944, the eight people hiding in the Secret Annex were arrested. Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl, the two secretaries w in the building, found Annes diaries strewn allover the floor. ,Miep Gies tucked them away in a desk drawer for safekeeping. After the war, when it became clear that Anne was dead, she gave the diaries, unread, to Annes father, Otto Frank.
After long deliberation, Otto Frank decided to fulfill his daughters wish and publish her diary. He selected material from versions a and b, editing them into a shorter version later referred to as version c. Readers all over the world know this as The Diary of a fauna Girl.
In making his choice, Otto Frank had to bear several points in mind. To begin with,
the book had to be kept short so that it would fit in with a series put out by the Dutch publisher. In addition, several passages dealing with Annes sexuality were omitted; at the time of the diarys initial publication, in 1947, it was not ary to write openly about sex, aainly not in books for young adults. Out of respect for the dead, Otto Frank also omitted a number of unflattering passages about his wife and the other residents of the Secret Annex. Anne Frank, who was thirteen when she began her diary and fifteen when she was forced to stop, wrote without reserve about her likes and dislikes.
When Otto Frank died in 1980, he willed his daughters manuscripts to the herlands State Institute for War Dotation in Amsterdam. Because the authenticity of the diary had been challenged ever sis publication, the Institute for War Dotation ordered a thh iigation. Ohe diary roved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to be ge ublished in its ey, along with the results of an exhaustive study. The Critical Edition tains not only versions a, band c, but also articles on the background of the Frank family, the circumstances surrounding their arrest aation, and the examination into Annes handwriting, the dot and the materials used.
The Anne Frank-Fonds (Anne Frank Foundation) in Basel (Switzerland),. which as Otto Franks sole heir had also ied his daughters chts, then decided to have anew, expanded edition of the diary published feneral readers. This ion in no way affects the iy of the old one inally edited by Otto Frank, which brought the diary and its message to millions of people. The task of pthng the expanded edition was given to the writer and translator Mirjam Pressler. Otto Franks inal sele has now been supplemented wit