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Anne Frank

Anne Frank wrote her last diary entry 70 years ago

Lori Grisham
USA TODAY Network
Anne Frank at age 13 in 1942. She made her last diary entry 70 years ago on Aug. 1, 1944.

Seventy years ago, Anne Frank made her final diary entry from her hiding place in Amsterdam on Aug. 1, 1944.

Anne lived in the Secret Annex at 263 Prinsengracht with her family for two years during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II, documenting her life faithfully in her diary during that time. In her last entry, Anne was introspective and wondered about how people would perceive her.

"I'm afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I'm afraid they'll mock me, think I'm ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously," she wrote.

"I'm used to not being taken seriously, but only the 'lighthearted' Anne is used to it and can put up with it: the 'deeper' Anne is too weak."

Three days later on Aug. 4, the SS, working on a tip from an informer who has never been identified, raided the hiding place. All eight people in hiding were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Anne Frank died at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany from typhus in March 1945.

Her father, Otto, was the only person from the hiding place to survive. He returned to Amsterdam and recovered Anne's diary, which he published for the first time in the Netherlands on June 25, 1947.

Since then, Anne's diary has inspired films and stage performances. The diary has been translated into at least 67 languages and more than 30 million copies have been sold, according to the Anne Frank Center USA.

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