Amsterdam is a pretty city. It is crisscrossed with canals. Boats go up and down the canals all hours of the day. Anne was only four years old in 1934 when she moved there. Amsterdam quickly became her home.
The Franks’ new apartment was not as large as the one in Frankfurt. But it had room for guests. Otto and Edith missed their old friends and family. So they were very happy when Oma came to live with them. They hoped other relatives would visit, too. Many other Jewish families moved from Germany to Amsterdam. The Franks soon had a circle of German Jewish friends. At school, half the children in Anne’s class were Jewish. Some had even come from Frankfurt, just like her.
Anne was a good student, although she hated math. She was a chatterbox, and often teachers had to scold her to be quiet. In her free time she liked playing Ping-Pong. She started a Ping-Pong club called the Little Bear Minus 2 Club. There were five members. The name of the club came from the number of stars in the Little Bear constellation. Anne had thought there were five stars. But really there were seven. That explains the “minus 2” in the club’s name.
Anne liked to read—history books and Greek myths and a popular series of books about a girl named Joop who was adventurous and lively like Anne.
Anne liked ice-skating and riding her bike with her friend Hanne. Hanne went along with all of Anne’s pranks. Sometimes Anne and Hanne stood on the balcony of the Franks’ apartment and poured water on the people in the street below.
Anne was a good swimmer. Amsterdam was not far from the seashore. Many photos show Anne and Margot at the beach in swimsuits. In one photo, skinny little Anne has a blanket wrapped around her. She later wrote that she had been freezing when the picture was taken. Her mother often worried that Anne would catch cold because she was sick a lot. She missed many days of school because of coughs and flu.
She loved going to the movies. Anne cut out pictures of movie stars from magazines. She even had daydreams about being a movie star herself one day. But she wasn’t sure she’d be pretty enough. She thought she was an ugly duckling.
In many ways, Anne’s childhood was very much like most kids’. Except every once in a while something scary would happen.
In 1938, her uncle Walter was arrested in Germany just because he was Jewish. He was sent to a labor camp. It was like a prison. Eventually Uncle Walter was lucky enough to win his freedom by agreeing to leave Germany forever. He ended up moving to the United States.
But how safe was the Netherlands? In 1938, Hitler reunited Austria and Germany. Austria was on the southern border of Germany. The people there spoke German, and most were happy to be part of this powerful empire. They cheered Hitler’s soldiers when they marched into the city of Vienna.
The Dutch, however, hated Hitler. Most people couldn’t stand the idea of being under his control. But did it matter what they thought? In March of 1939, Germany invaded Czechoslovakia. What if Hitler decided to make the Netherlands part of his empire, too?
Otto and Edith Frank had to make a hard decision. Should the family stay in Amsterdam or move again? And if they did move, where would they go? To England? To the United States? To a country in South America? It was very hard to get permits into other countries. Besides, Anne and her sister were happy in Amsterdam. And even though Edith was not happy, she liked knowing that her relatives in Germany were nearby. In 1939, Otto Frank was fifty years old. He felt that he was too old to start his life over yet again.
In the end, the Franks decided not to uproot the family for a second time. They would stay in Amsterdam.
THE WHITE ROSE
NOT ALL GERMANS BELIEVED In ADOLF HITLER OR HIS HATEFUL IDEAS. SOME RISKED THEIR LIVES TO STAND UP TO THE NAZIS. In THE CITY OF MUNICH, A GROUP OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS WROTE PAMPHLETS AGAINST THE NAZIS THAT WERE GIVEN OUT ALL OVER GERMANY. THE PAMPHLETS WARNED THAT HITLER WAS DESTROYING THE FREEDOM OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE. IT WAS TIME TO STAND UP FOR JUSTICE AND TOLERANCE.
SOPHIE SCHOOL
HANS SCHOLL
THE STUDENTS WERE LED BY A BROTHER AND SISTER NAMED HANS AND SOPHIE SCHOLL. THEY CALLED THEIR GROUP “THE WHITE ROSE.” THE NAZIS SOON PUT An END TO THE WHITE ROSE AND KILLED ITS LEADERS. TODAY, MANY GERMAN SCHOOLS, STREETS, AND LANDMARKS ARE NAMED In HONOR OF THE BRAVE YOUNG PEOPLE WHO WERE NOT AFRAID TO SPEAK OUT. |