Photograph of Anne Frank smiling at her school desk, taken by a school photographer in December 1941 (Anne Frank House collection)

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Anne Frank: A Timeline of Her Life and Legacy

The short life behind one of the most widely read personal accounts of the Holocaust.

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1929 Born in Frankfurt 1933 Family flees to Amsterdam 1942 Receives her diary 1942 Goes into hiding 1944 Discovered and arrested 1945 Dies in Bergen-Belsen

1929 Born in Frankfurt, Germany

Annelies Marie 'Anne' Frank is born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, the second daughter of Otto and Edith Frank.

1933 Family emigrates to Amsterdam

As the Nazi Party takes power in Germany, the Frank family, who are Jewish, emigrates to Amsterdam in the Netherlands, where Otto Frank establishes a business.

1942 Receives a diary for her 13th birthday

On June 12, 1942, Anne receives a checkered autograph book for her birthday and begins using it as a diary, addressing entries to an imagined friend she calls 'Kitty.'

1942 The family goes into hiding in the Secret Annex

Weeks later, following a call-up notice for Anne's older sister Margot to report for forced labor in Germany, the family goes into hiding in a concealed set of rooms above Otto Frank's business premises, later known as the Secret Annex.

1944 The hiding place is discovered

On August 4, 1944, after more than two years in hiding, the Frank family and four others sharing the annex are discovered, betrayed to the German security police by an informant whose identity has never been conclusively established, and arrested.

1945 Dies at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

After deportation to Auschwitz and later transfer to Bergen-Belsen, Anne Frank dies there, likely of typhus, in February or March 1945, only weeks before the camp's liberation by British forces in April.

Last updated: August 2026

History Timelines. (August 2026). Anne Frank: A Timeline of Her Life and Legacy. Retrieved from https://history-timelines.org.uk/people/anne-frank/

This is a solemn subject, and this timeline is presented with that in mind. It traces the life of Anne Frank from her birth in Frankfurt through her years in hiding in Amsterdam to her death in a Nazi concentration camp, and the posthumous publication of her diary.

Childhood and Emigration

Anne Frank was born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, the younger of two daughters born to Otto and Edith Frank, a Jewish family with roots in Frankfurt going back generations. Following the Nazi Party’s rise to power in 1933, and the antisemitic laws and violence that followed, the Franks emigrated to Amsterdam in the Netherlands, where Otto Frank set up a business dealing in pectin and, later, spices. Anne attended a Montessori school in Amsterdam and, by most accounts, adapted well to her new city, though the family’s situation grew steadily more precarious after Germany invaded and occupied the Netherlands in May 1940, bringing anti-Jewish restrictions with it.

Hiding, the Diary, and Betrayal

A worn diary cover with a pen resting on top, lit by a single warm light

For her thirteenth birthday on June 12, 1942, Anne received a small autograph book with a checkered cover, which she began using as a diary, addressing her entries to an imagined confidante she named “Kitty.” Weeks later, after her older sister Margot received an order to report for forced labor in Germany, the family went into hiding in a concealed annex of rooms above and behind Otto Frank’s business premises at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam. They were joined there by another Jewish family, the van Pelses, and later by a dentist named Fritz Pfeffer, making eight people sharing the cramped, sealed-off space for more than two years, sustained secretly by a small number of Dutch helpers. Throughout this period, Anne kept writing, documenting daily life in hiding as well as her own developing thoughts on identity, fear, and hope. On August 4, 1944, the hiding place was discovered and the group was arrested by German security police; the identity of whoever alerted the authorities has never been conclusively confirmed, and several theories remain unresolved.

Deportation, Death, and the Diary’s Legacy

The eight people from the annex were deported first to the Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands and then to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Anne and Margot were later transferred to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, where conditions were marked by overcrowding, disease, and starvation. Both sisters died there, likely of typhus, in February or March 1945, only weeks before British forces liberated the camp in April 1945. Of the eight people who had hidden in the annex, only Otto Frank survived the war. After his return to Amsterdam, he was given Anne’s diary, recovered and preserved by one of the family’s Dutch helpers, and arranged for its publication in 1947 under the Dutch title Het Achterhuis (“The Secret Annex”). Published in English in 1952 as The Diary of a Young Girl, it has since been translated into dozens of languages and remains one of the most widely read personal accounts of the Holocaust, studied for both its historical testimony and its portrait of a young writer’s inner life under extraordinary circumstances. The building at Prinsengracht 263 where the family hid is preserved today as the Anne Frank House, a museum and educational institution visited by well over a million people annually, and the diary itself continues to be used widely in schools as an entry point for younger readers into the history of the Holocaust and the Second World War.