Anne Frank: The Biography - Softcover

Melissa M?ller,Melissa Muller

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1408842106 ISBN 13: 9781408842102

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2014

Synopsis

Tracing anne franks life from an early childhood in an assimilated family to her adolescence in german-occupied amsterdam, melissa m llers biography, originally published in 1998, follows her life right up until her desperate end in bergen belsen this updated edition includes the five missing pages from anne franks diary, a number of new photographs, and brings to light many fascinating facts surrounding the franks as well as an epilogue from miep gies, who hid them for two years, it features new theories surrounding their betrayal, revelations about the pressure put on their helpers by the nazi party and the startling discovery that the family applied for visas to the us this authoritative account of anne franks short but extraordinary life has been meticulously revised over seven years

About this title

Review:

One of this book's great strengths is writer Melissa Müller's ability to situate Anne Frank's famous diary within a larger historical and biographical context--more than half of it covers the years before the Franks went into hiding. Equally important is her discovery of the existence of five pages Otto Frank removed from his daughter's original diary and entrusted shortly before his death to Cor Sujik, international director of New York's Anne Frank Center. Sujik showed these pages to Müller, who accurately notes in the biography that they "enhance our understanding of the diary's author."

Until now, readers have known the eight people sequestered in the secret annex through Anne's eyes only. Müller reveals everyone's correct names (they were changed for the diary's publication) and tactfully corrects a teenager's skewed perceptions when necessary, always reminding us of the claustrophobic closeness and material deprivation that sometimes fueled Anne's uncharitable comments about, for example, the middle-aged dentist with whom she was forced to share a room. Müller also plausibly identifies the Dutch informant who betrayed the secret annex's inhabitants to the Gestapo. Horror suffuses Müller's grim recap of the Franks' ordeal at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, though there is some comfort in survivors' reports that Anne, her mother, and her older sister formed "an inseparable trio," all former quarrels forgotten in their fierce struggle to save each other. They failed, and Müller does not gloss over that tragedy. But she reminds us that, "In the end, the Nazi terror could not silence Anne's voice, which still rings out for all of us."

About the Author:

Melissa M ller is an Austrian-born journalist and author, whose other books include A Garden of Eden in Hell: The Life of Alice Herz-Sommer, written with Reinhard Piechocki, and Until the Final Hour, which describes Traudl Junge's life and her experiences as Hitler's last private secretary, and was a major source for the movie Downfall. Her original edition of Anne Frank: The Biography, informed the Emmy Award-winning adaptation, Anne Frank.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1408842106
• ISBN 13: 9781408842102
• Binding: Paperback