Anne Frank Study Questions and Project

Anne Frank Study Questions and Project
Due Monday, October 6, 2008

1. Who Was Anne Frank?
a) About one week after Anne received her diary she wrote in it the saying, "Paper has more patience than people." (June 20, 1942.) Why did Anne think she could confide more in her diary than in people?
Almost two years later Anne wrote: "Will I ever be able to write something great, will I ever become a journalist or a writer? I hope so, oh, I hope so very much, because writing allows me to record everything, all my thoughts, ideals and fantasies." (April 5, 1944.) Did Anne's diary mean something different to her after she had been in hiding?
b) On March 7, 1944, Anne wrote a long entry about how she had changed during her life in the Annex: "When I think back to my life in 1942, it all seems so unreal. The Anne Frank who enjoyed that heavenly existence was completely different from the one who has grown wise within these walls . . . I look back at that Anne Frank as a pleasant, amusing, but superficial girl, who has nothing to do with me."
In what ways did Anne show that she was becoming a young woman by the age of fourteen? How did Anne envision herself as a grown woman? How was this different from her image of her mother? What did Anne read that influenced her perspective on becoming a woman? Whom did Anne talk to about her new feelings, and why?
c) Anne lived in the Annex with her family and four other people for over two years. At times the confinement overwhelmed her: "All the bickering, tears, and nervous tension have become such a stress and strain that I fall into my bed at night crying and thanking my lucky stars that I have half an hour to myself." (October 29, 1943.)
How did Anne cope with all of the "stress and strain" of living in the Annex? One of Anne's struggles focused on a writing table in the room she shared with Mr. Pfeffer. Why was this table so important to Anne? Do you agree with how Anne handled the disagreement? What would you have done? What do you consider private space?

2. Anne Frank in the World
a) What were the ways the residents of the annex got information about the outside world? How did their sources of information reflect their view of events? Compare Anne's description of an event during World War II with an "outside" (newspaper, history book) description.
b) Anne often worried about her Jewish friends. On November 27, 1943, Anne described her dream about her friend Hanneli Goslar. What do you think this dream was about? Why was the dream so disturbing for Anne? Compare this dream to Anne's original description of Hanneli (June 15, 1942).
Hanneli Goslar was sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp with her family. During the winter of 1944-45 Hanneli and Anne met at the camp, on either side of a fence, three times. The last time Hanneli managed to get a small Red Cross package over the fence to Anne. Hanneli survived the Holocaust and moved to Israel, where she still lives in 1995, often speaking about Anne Frank and the Holocaust.
Imagine you are writing a magazine article about Anne Frank's childhood friends. Construct an interview of Hanneli Goslar. Base the first set of questions on Anne's diary, and the second set on Hanneli's life during the Holocaust. What other information would you include in your article?
c) The Frank family relied on the support of a number of non-Jewish helpers. These helpers were always in danger of being found out and severely punished. "This morning Mr. van Hoeven was arrested. He was hiding two Jews in his house. It's a heavy blow for us, not only because those poor Jews are once again balancing on the edge of an abyss, but also because it's terrible for Mr. van Hoeven . . . Mr. van Hoeven is a great loss for us too. Bep can't possibly lug such huge amounts of potatoes all the way here." (May 25, 1944.)
What did Anne think about the helpers? Did she think that they were heroes? Find Anne's descriptions of each of the helpers to back up your view. What is your definition of a hero?
d) On June 20, 1942, Anne listed many of the restrictions the Nazis placed on Jews during the Third Reich. Make a list, based on the diary, of what Anne could no longer do. How would your day be different if you had to follow these laws? Describe a typical day for you under these restrictions.

3. Beyond the Diary
a) When Anne wrote about the growing anti-Semitism in the Netherlands, she said: "Oh, it's sad, very sad that the old adage has been confirmed for the umpteenth time: `What one Christian does is his own responsibility, what one Jew does reflects on all Jews.'" (May 22, 1944.)
What is a stereotype? Create your own definition. How did stereotypes contribute to the dehumanization process that happened in Anne's world? Do any of the stereotypes that Anne wrote about still exist? What other stereotypes exist today?
b) Anne was very concerned about the world around her. After her fifteenth birthday she wrote: "One of the many questions that have often bothered me is why women have been, and still are thought to be, so inferior to men. It's easy to say it's unfair, but that's not enough for me; I'd really like to know the reason for this great injustice!" (June 13, 1944.)
Study the attitudes of the early 1940s and today. Why did Anne believe that women were considered inferior? Was Anne a feminist ahead of her time?
c) Anne wrote: "I don't believe the war is simply the work of politicians and capitalists. Oh no, the common man is every bit as guilty; otherwise, people and nations would have rebelled long ago!" (May 3, 1944.)
Otto Frank was the only survivor of the Secret Annex. Anne Frank and the other inhabitants died. Who was responsible? Was it the leaders? Was it those who enforced the legislation? Was it those who transported them on cattle cars? Was it those who administered the concentration and death camps? Was it the townspeople near the camps?

Glossary for Students
Allies: Twenty-six Nations led by Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union, opponents of Nazi Germany and its allies known as the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Japan)--in World War II.
Anti-Semitism: Irrational prejudice, discrimination against Jews, dislike, fear, and persecution of Jews.
Aryan: The Nazi term for what they considered the German race. It is not a racial term and has no biological validity. Aryan was made up by the Nazis to refer to a racial ideal that they claimed was "superior"--that is, the "master race." Originally the name of a family of languages of peoples of Europe and India.
Auschwitz-Birkenau: Largest of the Nazi concentration camps, located in Southwestern Poland, with a killing center at Birkenau. Included gas chambers. More than one million Jews were murdered there. Also Auschwitz III, or Monowitz, was a huge slave labor camp complex which serviced I.G. Farben company and manufactured Buna, synthetic rubber. All the inhabitants of the Secret Annex were sent from Westerbork to Auschwitz in September, 1944.
Bergen-Belsen: A concentration camp in northern Germany, plagued by epidemics, overcrowding, and planned starvation. These conditions led to the deaths of more than 34,168 people, including Anne and Margot Frank.
Concentration camps: Prison camps that held Jews, Gypsies, political and religious opponents of the Nazis, resistance fighters, homosexual men and women, and others considered enemies of the state. People died of starvation, slave labor, and disease.
Death camps: Six major death camps whose primary purpose was killing in an assembly-line fashion by gassing. Chelmo, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek, and Auschwitz-Birkenau were located in Poland.
Deportation: Forced removal of Jews in Nazi-occupied countries from their homes under the pretense of resettlement in the East. Most were shipped to death camps.
Dutch Opekta Company: Otto Frank's business, which made pectin, a powdered fruit extract used to make jams and jellies.
Einsatzgruppen: SS mobile killing squads responsible for massacres in Eastern Europe of Jews, communist leaders, and Gypsies.
Final Solution: A phrase used by the Nazis for their plan for the physical destruction of all of Europe's Jewish population.
Forced-labor camps: Camps where prisoners were used as slave labor. On July 5, 1942, Margot Frank received a notice to report for forced labor in Germany.
Genocide: Deliberate, systematic murder of an entire political, cultural, racial, or religious group.
Gestapo: The Secret State Police of the Third Reich, which used terror, arrest, and torture to eliminate political opposition and round up Jews and others.
Ghettos: Areas of cities and towns in Eastern Europe in which Jews were forced to live in extreme, overcrowded conditions that included starvation, cold, and disease. Beginning in 1941, ghetto inhabitants were sent to concentration and death camps or massacred.
Gypsies: A term for Roma and Sinti groups persecuted by the Nazis.
Judenrein: "Jew-free."
Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass): The state-sponsored pogrom unleashed on the Jewish communities of Germany and Austria on November 9 and 10, 1938.
Mein Kampf (My Struggle): Adolf Hitler's autobiography, written during his imprisonment (1924). Mein Kampf details his plan to make Europe judenrein.
National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei [NSDAP]: The Nazi radical, right-wing, anti-Semitic political party headed by Adolf Hitler from 1921 to 1945.
Nuremberg Laws: Laws passed in the fall of 1935, stripping Jews of their political rights by making them stateless.
Occupation: Control of a country by a foreign military power. The Netherlands was occupied by the Nazi government of Germany.
Pogrom: Organized violence against Jews, often with the support of the government.
Razzia: A forced round-up of Jews in the Netherlands.
SS: Schutzstaffel, black-shirted elite guard of Hitler, later the political police in charge of the concentration and death camps.
Swastika: An ancient religious symbol (hooked cross), that became the official symbol of the Nazi Party. Now banned in Germany, the swastika is still used by neo-Nazis around the world.
Third Reich: The Nazi term for Germany and the occupied territories from January 1933 to April 1945.
Underground: A group acting in secrecy to oppose the government and resist the occupying enemy forces.
Weimar Republic: German republic from 1919 to 1933, a parliamentary democracy established after World War I, with Weimar as its capital city.
Westerbork: Jewish transit camp in northeastern Holland where almost 100,000 Jews were deported between 1942 and 1944 to the Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sobibor, Theresienstadt, and Bergen-Belsen concentration and death camps.
Yellow star: This six-pointed Star of David was a Jewish symbol that the Nazis forced Jews above the age of six to wear as a mark of shame and to make Jews visible. In the Netherlands the star carried the Dutch word Jood, meaning "Jew," in the middle. From May 1942 until she went into hiding, Anne Frank wore the yellow star, separating her from the rest of the Dutch population.



Anne Frank Project Rubric
Project Content
IB Scores

Neatness
(1 pt) (100-98) 7

Pictures
(1 pt) (97-90) 6

Poster Content
(1 pt) (89-85) 5

Spelling and Grammar
(1 pt) (84-80) 4

Book Summary
(1 page)
(1 pt) (79-75) 3

Time Line
(1 pt) (74-70) 2

Complete Questions
(1 pt) (69-0) 1