Claim: Anne Frank was a diarist.

Annelies Marie `` Anne '' Frank -LRB- -LSB- ʔanəliːs maˈʁiː ˈʔanə ˈfʁaŋk -RSB- ; -LSB- ʔɑnəˈlis maˈri ˈʔɑnə ˈfrɑŋk -RSB- ; 12 June 1929 -- February or March 1945 -RRB- was a German-born diarist . One of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust , she gained fame posthumously following the publication of The Diary of a Young Girl -LRB- originally Het Achterhuis ; The Secret Annex -RRB- , in which she documents her life in hiding from 1942 to 1944 , during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II . It is one of the world 's most widely known books and has been the basis for several plays and films .   Born in Frankfurt , Germany , she lived most of her life in or near Amsterdam , Netherlands , having moved there with her family at the age of four-and-a-half when the Nazis gained control over Germany . Born a German national , Frank lost her citizenship in 1941 and thus became stateless . By May 1940 , the Franks were trapped in Amsterdam by the German occupation of the Netherlands . As persecutions of the Jewish population increased in July 1942 , the family went into hiding in some concealed rooms behind a bookcase in the building where Anne 's father worked . From then until the family 's arrest by the Gestapo in August 1944 , Anne kept a diary she had received as a birthday present , and wrote in it regularly . Following their arrest , the Franks were transported to concentration camps . In October or November 1944 , Anne and her sister , Margot , were transferred to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp from Auschwitz , where they died -LRB- probably of typhus -RRB- a few months later . They were originally estimated by the Red Cross to have died in March , with Dutch authorities setting 31 March as their official date of death , but research by the Anne Frank House in 2015 suggests they more likely died in February .   Frank 's father , Otto , the only survivor of the family , returned to Amsterdam after the war to find that her diary had been saved by one of the helpers , Miep Gies , and his efforts led to its publication in 1947 . It was translated from its original Dutch version and first published in English in 1952 as The Diary of a Young Girl , and has since been translated into over 60 languages .