Answer:
This diary is the story of Anne— a young Jewish girl and aspiring writer in hiding from the Nazis. When her family’s hiding place (the "Secret Annex") was raided, Anne and her family were imprisoned in concentration camps.
Anne’s diary, a devastating and relatable coming-of-age story, was left behind in the Secret Annex, but kept safe by a family friend, Miep Gies. Anne's father, Otto Frank, was the Secret Annex's sole survivor of the Holocaust. After Otto was liberated from a concentration camp, Miep gave him the diary. Otto Frank edited the diary and removed a few sensitive passages—some that weren’t so nice about Anne’s mom, other Secret Annex members, or parts that seemed too sexual for a teenager in the 1940's. However, the most currently printed versions are more complete.
It's impossible to overstate how phenomenally influential The Diary of a Young Girl is. It was first published in 1947 in Dutch as Het Achterhius (Secret Annex), but later became the most translated Dutch book ever—it's been translated into seventy languages in sixty countries. So far, it's sold 30 million copies. It's also been produced as a play and has been adapted into several films.
In 1960, the building containing the Secret Annex was made in to a museum called The Anne Frank House. Anne’s diary has also inspired numerous educational and human rights organizations in her name.
Anne Frank wanted to be a writer. And it's tragic, moving and life-affirming that she became a well-known writer around the world after her death in a Nazi concentration camp. But then again, the poignant mix of the tragic, the moving, and the life-affirming runs throughout The Diary of Anne Frank. It's what makes this book so incredible.
