Around this time, some 70 years ago, a young girl died.
There was nothing too strange about that, for in the last year of the Second World War, young people were still dying in their droves every day.
This girl, however, was Anne Frank. She died aged 15.
The precise date of her death at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is unknown, and whether from starvation or an epidemic of typhus cannot be clear.
But though she was one of 70,000 Soviets and Jews to perish at the camp between 1941 and 1945, she has become a symbol of hope, determination and perseverance for the world.
Anne entered her adolescence in captivity, trapped in a tiny apartment in Amsterdam to avoid being sent to Nazi labour camps like so many other Jews.
During her incarceration she began writing her now-famous diary, detailing everyday life in a backdrop of fear, hunger and potential betrayal.
As a work of fiction, it would be a best-seller.
But as an account of what she actually went through, it is astonishing.
She details the little triumphs of growing up, the trials of being confined with a sister, a first kiss shared in secret and, during all of that, she shows a maturity and determination that was beyond her years.
She just got on with it. Grumpy, yes. But never really railing and raging against the world for the unfairness of it all.
After two years the families living in that apartment were betrayed and sent as criminals to the labour camps.
Anne died just a few weeks before the Allied forces liberated Bergen-Belsen, on April 15, 1945.
To mark the 70th year since this remarkable girl’s death, the Anne Frank Trust has chosen the day before the anniversary of the camp’s liberation to launch its #NotSilent campaign, where people are asked to read aloud a passage from her diary.
She was an aspiring journalist and wrote: “I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death!”
Let’s ensure that her wish remains granted.
by Emma Judd
You can also support the #NotSilent campaign by making a donation to the Anne Frank Trust UK, who in 2014 worked with over 46.000 young people across Great Britain!
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