The dramatic adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frankby Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett premiered in 1955, just ten years after the end of World War II and the horrific events of the Holocaust. The play opens with Anne’s father, Otto Frank, returning after the war to the attic hiding place where his family and the Van Daan family spent two years trying to avoid capture in German occupied Holland. When the families first...
The dramatic adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett premiered in 1955, just ten years after the end of World War II and the horrific events of the Holocaust. The play opens with Anne’s father, Otto Frank, returning after the war to the attic hiding place where his family and the Van Daan family spent two years trying to avoid capture in German occupied Holland. When the families first go into hiding, the play refers to the “Green Police”—Nazi police who were known by their green uniforms. The play also refers to the Star of David that Jewish people were required to wear on their clothing at all times. In the tense, emotional close of the play, the audience hears German voices and the door below being broken down. Mr. Frank shares the reassuring thought, “For the past two years we have lived in fear. Now we can live in hope.” Anne’s diary ends with their capture. The play, however, has a frame structure that begins with Mr. Frank returning to the attic after the war, flashes back to the period of hiding in the attic, and returns to Mr. Frank speaking with Miep about the events after their capture. The family was first sent to a concentration camp in Holland. Later, they were sent to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland. Anne and her sister Margot were later transferred to the Bergen-Belsen camp in Germany where they died of typhus. Less than two months later, the camp was liberated. Anne’s father Otto Frank was the only survivor of the two families.
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