Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children
Number 381
Anne Frank
Hello Everyone
Last year, l wrote a blog post about Samuel Pepys.
He wrote a really famous diary and it reminded me that one day l also wanted to tell you about another famous diarist.
This one was not a man but a young girl. Her name was Anne Frank and l am sure that your local library will have her book for you to read, if you are interested in reading this interesting diary.
lt was written in the Second World War.
The book is called The Diary of a Young Girl and documents Anne’s life in hiding from 1942 to 1944.
Anne was born in Frankfurt in Germany on 12th June 1929, but lived most of her life near Amsterdam in the Netherlands. She moved there when she was four years old.
The Franks were amongst 300,000 Jews who fled Germany between 1933 and 1939. The Nazis there were persecuting Jews.
The Jews lived in fear of losing their lives.
The Nazis were a political party that had taken control of Germany and set plans to invade other countries in order to take control of them too.
The Nazis occupied the Netherlands in May 1940.
ln 1942, as the persecution of the Jewish population was increasing, the Frank family went into hiding in some concealed rooms at the top of the building where Anne’s father worked.
Because they were Jewish, they were in fear of being captured and killed.
A bookcase hid the entrance to the rooms the family shared with some other Jews that also went into hiding.
They were all arrested by the Nazi Gestapo (uniformed police) who searched the house in August of 1944.
The family was then transferred to concentration camps where all but the father, Otto, died. The concentration camps were like big prisons with terrible living conditions and Anne and her older sister Margot are thought to have died from a disease called Typhus in late autumn of 1944 just weeks before British soldiers liberated the camp. They would have been in a state of severe malnutrition because of lack of food in the camp and this would have left them susceptible (open) to disease.
Anne was given an autograph book as a thirteenth birthday present but decided to use it as a diary. She wrote in it regularly as a quiet occupation whilst in hiding, to fill her time and express how she felt. The family had to be very quiet while they hid, so that nobody would hear them.
Before going into to hiding, Anne gave her friend and neighbour some of her personal possessions and the family cat for safe keeping. She did not know what the future held in store for her.
The family thought they were in imminent danger of being transported to a concentration camp.
On the morning of Monday, 6th July 1942, the family moved into their hiding place. lt was a three-storey space entered into from a landing above the offices that Otto worked in. The entrance was covered by a large bookcase. The doorway was completely concealed.
His most trusted employees would be their helpers.
The family would, in effect, seem to disappear.
Because they could not go out to get food, they needed people to bring them supplies and also any important news about the developments of the war. They also had a radio that they used to listen to the BBC news at night after the workers in the building below had gone home.
Of course, it was very dangerous for these people to help the family. They knew they would probably be killed too if they were found out.
The Frank family left their apartment in a state of disarray so that it would look as if they had fled in a hurry. Otto left a note that seemed to suggest that they had left for Switzerland. Switzerland was a neutral country and was safe refuge for people fleeing from the war.
But the family had not left town. They were in the secret annex. They could not leave their hiding place from then on – even if there was an air raid and bombs were dropping all around them.
As by this time, Jews were not allowed to use public transport, the family had walked several miles from their home to get to their new living quarters. They wore many layers of clothing because they did not want to be seen carrying large suitcases.
Jews had had restrictions put on them for quite a while. They could not attend schools with other children or enter some places. Their movements were restricted and they were forced to wear yellow, cloth stars on their jackets to show everyone that they were Jews. The star had six points. lt is called the Star of David.
Then on 13th July 1942, the Franks were joined by another Jewish family that needed to go into hiding, the van Pels, a couple with their son of sixteen, Peter.
Later in November, an acquaintance of the family, a dentist called Fritz Pfeffer also came to live in the annex.
At first, Anne wrote about how she was pleased to have new people to talk to, but tensions grew within the group as they were forced to live together in such close quarters.
Anne had to share a bedroom with Fritz and grew to resent his presence. She also thought that the van Pels were selfish and took too more than their fair share of food.
Later a romance developed between Anne and Peter, but it lasted for only a while.
Relations between the fugitives (people who had run away and were in hiding) could be really strained at times but the two sisters grew closer. Both girls continued with their studies whilst in the attic, even though they could not go to school.
Anne also talks in her diary about how they all had to be as quiet as they could be when they lived in the annex. They could not move about and make noises during the daytime that might alert the people below to their presence.
The people who worked in the offices below that did not know about the families living above them may have become suspicious and then alert the authorities.
Anne loved to look at the tree outside her window and she waited with enthusiasm for the visits of the helpers so that she could have contact with the outside world.
The family always assumed that they would return to a normal life and the daughters would go to school after the war ended. Margot took a shorthand course to equip herself with a skill in order to get a job when she was older. Anne thought that she might like to become a journalist.
Her last diary entry was 1st August 1944.
lt is not known exactly why the Gestapo decided to search the house where they found the people who were in hiding.
lt is possible that an informant gave them information. lt is possible that other people in the building became suspicious of the helpers’ movements in the stockroom.
lt is possible that a policeman investigating a burglary at the premises in April 1944 found the bookcase concealing the secret door. Maybe the thief had heard a noise upstairs when he had broken in and told someone.
Another theory suggests that a daughter of the man who constructed the bookcase telephoned the Gestapo because she disapproved of her father helping Jews.
lt is also possible that the police were in the house investigating ration card fraud and happened upon the annex while they were searching for evidence.
At the beginning of this year, investigators concluded that a man called Arnold van den Bergh, a Jewish lawyer in Amsterdam probably told the authorities about the Franks to save his own family from being killed in the gas chambers of the concentration camps.
But all the team have to go on is a note and circumstantial evidence.
We may never really know the truth of what actually happened.
Some of the family’s helpers were arrested and detained in gaol but none of them were executed. Some were questioned by police but allowed to return to the offices the day after the police raid and were able to collect Anne’s papers so that they could be returned to her after the war.
One helper tried to buy the family’s release after the Franks were arrested; but to no avail.
After the war, Otto returned to Amsterdam to find that Anne’s diary and a bundle of loose papers had been kept by one of the family’s helpers.
Otto’ wife and children were dead but he still had other extended family members who had fled Germany in the mid 1930s living in Switzerland, the United States and Britain.
He read through his daughter’s diary and notes and found the true extent of all her thoughts and feelings. He decided which parts he wanted to publish and which should be kept private.
Otto read in the notes that Anne dreamed of becoming an author.
He decided to make her dream come true.
Anne’s diary was first published in 1947.
The book called The Backhouse was originally written in Dutch.
lt was first published in English in 1952 when it was renamed The Diary of a Young Girl, but has now been translated into over 60 languages.
Several films were made about Anne’s life. One made in 1959 received an Oscar.
Eleven saplings from the horse chestnut tree in the garden by the annex that she loved to look at were distributed to museums, schools, parks and Holocaust remembrance centres at the beginning of this century.
Anne is now thought of as an important hero of the Second World War.
Many people want her writings to continue to serve as an education to the generations of people who did not live through the war so that they can understand a little more about it.
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Thank you!
And see you again next Fun Friday!
Love and kisses
Salty Sam
www.christina-sinclair.com
Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week
Bob: Did you know that our neighbour is really into meditation?
Bill: Really? Well, l suppose it’s better than sitting around all day doing nothing!
Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of material from this blog without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.
Links may be used to www.christina-sinclair.com
Picture Gallery
Bombing wreckage in the Second World War
Czech citizens having to greet soft-invading Nazi troops, October, 1938
Anne’s house in Amsterdam
The secret annex was behind a bookcase
THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK
The children went round to Auntie Alice’s cottage this week to start working with her as ‘sort of business partners’.
She had told them that to start with, they would need to furnish themselves with notebooks. They may need to write notes and keep a record of things they had done.
Learning how to do something through taking lessons and doing research is always the first thing to do before you start any new project.
The children must, however, make sure that they completed all of their homework from school during the week before they came to help her at the weekends.
Once the school holidays started, they could be there during the week and spend all their weekends with their parents – because they wouldn’t be at work then.
Auntie Alice had lots of things to do. Some of them the children could help with and some of them they couldn’t.
Bees make honey.
Bees also make other products like wax (that can be made into things like candles and soap) and pollen balls that can be sold to people to eat.
Auntie Alice planned to make beeswax soap when the children were not around.
The chemicals she was going to use were very dangerous to work with and precautions had to be taken. The windows of the room she was working in had to be open to let in lots of fresh air but the doors of the room had to be kept shut so that her pets could not come in.
When you are a bee-keeper opening hives to inspect your bees, there is a danger of getting stung.
If this happens, it is best to scratch the sting out with your nail rather than try to pull it out.
Of course, you don’t want to get stung in the first place, and this is why you will wear protective clothing when you go into the hives. But you don’t want a bee to sting you because that bee will then die and that is not a very nice thought either.
The best thing to do when entering a hive is to remain calm and blow smoke over the bees to make them more docile (calm). It helps if you have a colony of bees that have a sweet temperament.
Auntie Alice had set up two more hives so that when an older queen left a hive to make way for a new queen to take over, she was able to catch the old queen and the swarm that followed her. It landed in a hedge and she put it in one of the empty hives.
Not only did she get a swarm for free, but she knew the temperament of the bees because she was already working with them.
A while later, the other hive swarmed. This time she found the swarm in a tree, and so Auntie now has four hives full of bees.
Luckily, the bees have plenty of food to eat in her garden because it’s always so full of flowers.
The little knitted items she planned to sell in Betty Clutterbuck’s tea rooms, she would make whilst she was sitting down in the evenings.
She needed a rest after working in the garden all day!
But just about everything else that needs to be done, the children can help with in some way and she planned to take them under her wing to teach them how.
She did know that there would be some crop loss when the raspberries were being picked though – as they disappeared into little mouths!
The children couldn’t wait to get started!
Party Time!
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Quick Quiz
Can you fill in the gaps?
- 24 h _ _ _ s i _ a d _ y
- 52 w _ _ _ s i _ a y _ _ r
- 4 m _ _ _ _ _ _ _ s i _ a q _ _ _ _ _ t
- 12 m _ _ _ _ s i _ a y _ _ r
- 3 s _ _ _ s o _ a t _ _ _ _ _ _ e
- 2 w _ _ _ _ s o _ a b _ _ _ _ _e
- 52 p _ _ _ _ _ g c _ _ _ s i _ a p _ _ k
- 7 d _ _ s i _ a w _ _ k
- 3 c _ _ _ _ _ s i_ a t _ _ _ _ _ c l _ _ _ t
lt’s the Weekend!
HOW TO MAKE A CANDY STRlPE DOLL
This pretty doll makes a lovely companion.
You won’t need more that 100g of yarn in any of the colours used.
Watch out for clothes and accessories in blog posts to follow!
DOLL FRONT AND BACK (KNIT TWO)
Using 4mm knitting needles and white dk yarn cast on 47 stitches
Knit 2 rows of garter stitch
Knit 2 rows of stocking stitch
Change to pink dk yarn
Knit 4 rows of stocking stitch
Change to white
Knit 4 rows of stocking stitch
Change to pink
Knit 4 rows of stocking stitch
Change to white
Knit 44 rows of stocking stitch
Don’t cast off but thread about 20cm from the end of your yarn through your stitches so you can pull the top of the head in.
DOLL LEGS (KNIT TWO)
Using 4mm knitting needles and pink dk yarn cast on 24 stitches
Knit 2 rows of garter stitch
Knit 2 rows of stocking stitch
Change to white dk yarn
Knit 4 rows of stocking stitch
Change to pink
Knit 4 rows of stocking stitch
Repeat the last 8 rows 4 times so that you have 11 stripes
Change to white
Knit 4 rows of stocking stitch
Change to pink
Knit 12 rows of stocking stitch to make the feet
Don’t cast off but thread about 20cm from the end of your yarn through your stitches so you can pull the end of the foot in.
DOLL ARMS (KNIT TWO)
Using 4mm knitting needles and white dk yarn cast on 18 stitches
Knit 2 rows of garter stitch
Knit 28 rows of stocking stitch
Don’t cast off but thread about 20cm from the end of your yarn through your stitches so you can pull the end of the hand in.
TO MAKE UP
- Stuff the arms and legs then bind a length of yarn around the wrists and ankles tightly and secure
- Sew up the back seam of the head and body using over-sew stitching with right sides together
- Sew up the bottom of the body making sure that the back seam is in the centre of the back
- Stuff the body and pull the top of the head in
- Bind a length of yarn tightly around the neck and secure well
- Embroider on a face using grey or black yarn
- Wind some yarn around a piece of card 13cm wide 40 times
- Using sewing thread sew along the strands binding them together 1cm down from the edge on each side of the card
- Slide the hair off the card and sew along the sewing line again this time attaching the hair to the top of the head along the top of the fringe
- Wind yarn around the piece of card 70 times and sew along the strands binding them together with sewing thread on only one side of the card then cut along the opposite side to free the hair and sew along the line again this time to secure the hair to the top of the head along the parting
Please note that the material on this blog is for personal use and for use in classrooms only.
It is a copyright infringement and, therefore, illegal under international law to sell items made with these patterns.
Use of the toys and projects is at your own risk.
©Christina Sinclair Designs 2015
Quick Quiz Answers
- 24 hours in a day
- 52 weeks in a year
- 4 musicians in a quartet
- 12 months in a year
- 3 sides on a triangle
- 2 wheels on a bicycle
- 52 playing cards in a pack
- 7 days in a week
- 3 colours in a traffic light
This blog stands head and shoulders above any other blog for children I have seen!
Thank you very much for your lovely comment. l really appreciate you writing in George.