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Year 1944
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Diary of Anne Frank, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Inner Self, Outer Self, and Isolation
Growing Up
Love and Sexuality
Human Nature: Generosity and Greed
World War II: Fear, Suffering, and Hope
Summary
Analysis
On August 4th, 1944, the Franks, the van Daans, Mr. Dussel, Mr. Kleiman, and Mr. Kugler are arrested by an SS sergeant and members of the Dutch Security Police – it's assumed that someone tipped off the police. Miep and Bep are spared. The police ransack the Annex and take the majority of their valuables. After the police leave, Miep finds Anne's diaries on the floor of her room. She gathers them up for safekeeping.
It's ultimately not known who betrayed the residents of the Secret Annex to the police. After the diary's publication, it was determined that there were three suspects: Mr. van Maaren (Opekta's warehouse manager); Lena van Bladeren-Hartog (the wife of Mr. van Maaren's assistant); and Tonny Ahlers (a Dutch Nazi with ties to Mr. Frank).
Themes
Mr. Kugler and Mr. Kleiman are imprisoned in Amsterdam and are eventually transferred to a camp in Holland. Mr. Kleiman is released in September 1944, due to ill health. Mr. Kugler successfully escapes the camp in March 1945.
Mr. Kugler later immigrated to Canada, where he lived until his death in 1981. Mr. Kleiman remained in Amsterdam until his death in 1959, just one year before the Anne Frank museum opened its doors.
Themes
The Franks, the van Daans, and Mr. Dussel are imprisoned in Amsterdam, and are soon after transferred to Westerbork and then Auschwitz. Mr. van Daan dies in a gas chamber in 1944, shortly before the gas chambers are dismantled. Mrs. van Daan is transferred to Bergen-Belsen, then Buchenwald, and then Theresienstadt. She is transferred to one more unknown camp after that, where she dies on an unknown date. Peter is forced to march from Auschwitz to Mauthausen in the March 1945 "death march." He dies in May shortly after his arrival there, and only days before Mauthausen is liberated.
According to a survivor, Mr. van Daan essentially gave up on life soon after he arrived at Auschwitz; he was gassed only three weeks into his imprisonment there. Mrs. van Daan was briefly with Anne and Margot in Bergen-Belsen. Mr. Frank was on the same work detail in Auschwitz as Peter, and protected him during his time there. Peter insisted on joining the death march, arguing that his odds of survival would be better if he went.
Themes
Mr. Dussel dies in the Neuengamme camp in December 1944.
Records show that Mr. Dussel died of an illness, likely dysentery or cholera.
Themes
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Mrs. Frank dies in Auschwitz-Birkenau in January 1945 due to hunger and exhaustion. At the end of October, 1944, Margot and Anne are transferred from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen. Margot and Anne both die of typhus in either February or early March of 1945, only weeks before the camp was liberated by the British.
Mrs. Frank experienced a mental breakdown after Anne and Margot were taken away from her. She essentially starved herself to death saving food for Margot and Anne, whom she was sure were still at Auschwitz.
Themes
Mr. Frank survives life in Auschwitz, and returns to Amsterdam in 1945. Miep gives him Anne's diaries, and Mr. Frank resolves to have them published.
Mr. Frank eventually moved to Switzerland, where he lived until his death at the age of 91.
Themes
