Primay 4, essay winner Montessori Academy In 1939 Anne Frank was living in Amsterdam, when she received a diary for her 10th birthday. Shortly after Anne's birthday, the news spread that the German soldiers would be approaching Amsterdam. Since Anne Frank's family was Jewish it was unsafe to live in a house of their own. They soon found some nice people who would gladly let them hide in a secret annex behind a false bookcase in their warehouse. Anne and her family stayed hidden for two years.

Then on August 4th, 1944 Anne's family was found.

They were put on the last train to ever leave Holland for the concentration camp in Auschwitz. Later Anne and her sister Margot were sent to a different camp where both girls died from Typhus. During Anne's time hiding in the annex, she wrote in her diary. She wrote about what it was like living in a tiny room, her fears and her hopes about the future. Soon after Anne was sent away a friend found Anne's diary in the annex and gave it to a publisher. Now Anne's diary has been published in fifty seven different languages and more than twenty five million copies have been sold.

I learned about Anne Frank by reading a book called Witnesses to War. it told me about Anne Frank and seven other Jewish children who lived at the time of World War II. I had a lot of different feelings while I read the book. I felt sad and sometimes even mad. If Anne Frank and other Jewish people did not know how to write they would not be able to tell the world their stories. Then we wouldn't know how Jewish families were being treated and how terrible the Nazis were. We also wouldn't know how important it is to make sure the Holocaust never happens again.

I feel grateful that Anne Frank wrote her story and I was able to read it.

Everyone's life is important to the world in its own special way and someday you may have an important story to tell and you need to know how to read and write to be able to tell your story.

Olivia French, age 9, Montessori Academy.

EDUCATION MONTH ED