Thirteen-year-old Anne Frank began keeping her now-famous diary on June 12, 1942. She would spend a little more than two years confiding in its pages, sharing stories from daily life, observations, and hopes for the future from the cramped annex in Amsterdam she occupied with her family and several other Jews in hiding. The last entry in her diary is dated August 1, 1944, after which she was arrested and deported.
“I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support.” Anne Frank's diary begins with these now-famous words. Her book, published by her father in 1947, has become a landmark of world literature in its singular account of innocence in the face of barbarism.
