Anne Frank was born in the German city of Frankfurt am Main in 1929. On her thirteenth birthday, just before Anne’s family went into hiding in NAZI occupied Amsterdam, Anne Frank was presented with a diary.
During the two years in hiding, Anne wrote about events in the Secret Annex, but also shared her thoughts and feelings. Writing also helped Anne document her experiences, of being a young Jewish woman in hiding from Hitler’s Third Reich.
Anne Frank had planned to publish a book about her time in the Secret Annex. After World War Two ended, her father Otto Frank fulfilled her wish and since then, Anne Frank’s diary has been translated into more than 70 languages.
Here in Manchester, at the St Johns Garden in the city centre, the Anne Frank tree was planted on June 12th 1998. The tree serves as a lasting memorial to Anne Frank and all children killed in wars and conflicts since WW2.
In 2013, a rose dedicated to Anne Frank was also planted at the Manchester Jewish Museum, to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. The rose planted had been grafted from one made in the year of Anne’s birth in 1929, and another from the year of her death in 1945.
What also makes this donation from Maurice meaningful, is that the city of Manchester is home to some of the children and grandchildren of those British soldiers, who as liberators of the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, bore witness to where Anne Frank lost her life.
Anne Frank wrote in her diary; “where there’s hope, there’s life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again.” Anne also wrote; “how lovely to think that no one need wait a moment, we can start now, start slowly changing the world.”
For more information, please visit WoodStreetMission.org.uk or to donate new books for children aged 0-16 years, please send them to Wood Street Mission, 26 Wood Street, Manchester, M3 3EF, The UK.
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