Google honours Jewish German-Dutch diarist, Holocaust victim Anne Frank with diary doodles

Google on Saturday paid a tribute to the Holocaust victim and the well-known Jewish German-Dutch diarist Anne Frank with diary doodles. On the 75th anniversary of the release of Anne's diary -- "The Diary of a Young Girl", Google honoured Frank with an animated slideshow. The diary was written by her between the age of 13 and 15 and it was published 75 years ago on this day. Her diary is known as one of the most moving and widely read accounts to date and considered among the most essential books in modern history.

Moreover, the doodles include excerpts from her diaries that depict her experiences of hiding for more than two years with her friends and family during the Nazi oppression. This special doodles feature Anne Frank and displays her regular activities, in which it can be seen that she has been writing a diary, riding bikes, going to school, and even hiding in her father’s office. One of the slide reads, “After May 1940 the good times were few and far between”.  

The doodles were created by Google Doodle art director Thoka Maer. The scenes depicted in the doodles were illustrated based on Frank's own description of various events that were mentioned in her diary.

Who is Anne Frank?  

On June 12, 1929, Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt, Germany, however, her family quickly relocated to Amsterdam, Netherlands, to avoid the rising discrimination and brutality that millions of minorities were subjected to at the claws of the emerging Nazi party. When Anne was 10-year-old, the Second World War began. Germany attacked the Netherlands shortly after. The Nazi dictatorship targeted Jews in particular, leading to forced transfer to cruel concentration camps, death, or incarceration. Millions of Jews were compelled to leave their homes or go into hiding because they were unable to follow their religion openly and safely. In order to evade persecution in the spring of 1942, Anne's family confined themselves in a covert annex in her father's office building. 

Further, the Frank family had to act swiftly and leave almost everything behind to take shelter, just like millions of other people. A "checkered hardback notebook" that Anne had received as a birthday present just a few weeks earlier, was one of her few belongings. The diary quickly turned into her means of permanently altering the world. She wrote a personal description of her life in the "secret annex" throughout the course of the 25 months of hiding, from little details to her most profound fears and hopes. Anne combined her writing into one coherent tale titled "Het Achterhuis" ("The Secret Annex") in the hopes that her journal entries would be published after the war. 

The Nazi Secret Service discovered the Frank family on August 4, 1944. They were apprehended, transferred to a prison facility, and subjected to hard labour. Then, they were forcibly transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, where they were forced to dwell in close quarters and filth. Margot (the elder sister of Anne Frank) and Anne Frank were sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany a few months later. Along with the cruel, deliberate execution of detainees by Nazi soldiers, fatal illnesses spread everywhere. The horrible conditions Anne and Margot had to endure ultimately claimed their lives. Anne Frank was only 15-year-old.   

Despite not surviving the atrocities of the Holocaust, Anne Frank's narrative of those years, known as "The Diary of Anne Frank," has subsequently grown to become one of the most widely read nonfiction books ever written. Frank's book, which has been translated into more than 80 languages, is a mainstay in schools today and is used to teach future generations of students about the Holocaust and the deadly perils of intolerance and tyranny. 

Famous quote from Anne Frank's diary

One of the most famous quotes from Anne Frank's diary is: "Although I'm only fourteen, I know quite well what I want, I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child, I feel quite independent of anyone."  

(Image: Google)