Aftermath

After the war, when it was clear Anne had not survived, the diary was returned to Otto Frank, and he was persuaded to publish it. Fifty years later, it is still an international bestseller.

Millions of copies have been sold, and Anne Frank’s name is known around the world. The narrow canal side house where she hid is a museum that is visited by more than 600,000 people a year.

With the profits from the sale of the diaries, Otto Frank set up a charitable foundation, which helped pay for the medical expenses of Christians who had helped Jews during the war. As long as he was alive, Otto Frank ran the foundation, and sought to control his daughters’ image.

Otto Frank, in his last will, gave the original diary to the state of Holland to the War Documentation Center in Amsterdam. They keep it there in a big safe, and they turn the pages every three months to preserve it there ...

A few years ago a Dutch newspaper Het Parool published newfound excerpts of Anne's diary that include bitter observations about her parents' near-loveless marriage. In a front-page article, the Amsterdam daily printed the text from three of the five missing pages which have stirred up controversy in the Netherlands.

Though she never lived to see her 16th birthday, Anne Frank's innermost thoughts scribbled on scraps of paper challenge us, and shame us, a full fifty years after her death. Her life serves as eulogy to the millions of children who perished in World War II.

She did not leave her legacy as an ode to the past - but as a beacon of hope to the future ...

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