1942 Going into hiding

On 12 June 1942, Anne received a diary for her thirteenth birthday. A few weeks later, in July 1942, the Nazis began deporting Jews from the Netherlands to camps in German-occupied Poland. Margot also received a call-up. Anne's parents didn’t want her to go, so the four of them went into hiding. Their hiding place was in the annex of the building where Opekta, Otto’s company, was housed. The office staff knew about it and helped them. Another Jewish family joined them: Hermann van Pels, his wife Auguste, and their son Peter. Four months later, someone else joined them:  Fritz Pfeffer. They were never allowed to go outside. It could sometimes be scary or dangerous because of the possibility of break-ins or when the city was bombed. Anne read and learned a lot, and she wrote in her diary, which became a friend to her. In 1944, she decided to rewrite her diary into a novel about the Secret Annex, which she planned to publish after the war.