Unknown texts from the diary of Anne Frank revealed

Annual report 2018

On 15 May the Anne Frank House, together with the Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, presented the text beneath two covered pages from Anne Frank’s first diary, with its red checked cover.

Diary

Anne Frank was thirteen when, on 6 July 1942, she was forced into hiding from the Nazis. She took her red checked diary, which she had been given for her birthday shortly before, with her. Anne wrote her diary during the period in hiding. She reread her diary entries, made improvements and crossed out words and phrases. In her first diary, with its red checked cover, two whole pages were covered up with brown gummed paper.

Covered pages

The covered pages were photographed during a regular check on the condition of the diaries of Anne Frank in 2016. Thanks to image processing technology the text could be deciphered. The texts that have been published for the first time do not stand in isolation; they form a part of the diary entries that Anne Frank began on 12 June 1942. The texts that have now been revealed are included in the academic research into the diaries of Anne Frank and her development as a writer that the Anne Frank House has been carrying out together with the Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands since 2010.

The covered pages become visible
‘Given the great public and academic interest we have decided, together with the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands, to publish these texts and share them with the world. They bring us even closer to the girl and the writer Anne Frank.’
Ronald Leopold, executive director of the Anne Frank House

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