The life of Anne Frank and her family from 1939 to 1945: pre-war fears, invasion of Netherlands by German troops, hiding in Amsterdam, deportation to the camps, return of Anne's father.
Anne Frank: The Whole Story is a film based on the life of Anne Frank, a Jewish girl growing up in Nazi occupied Holland.When war breaks out Anne & her family, Otto her father, Edith her mother & Margot her sister move from Germany to Holland where they are sure they will be safe.However when the Nazi's invade Holland, the family are forced into hiding.They hid in a few rooms above Otto's old work offices, Opekta works.Here they hid 4 other Jews, Herman van Pels, his wife Auguste & their son Peter, they also helped a dentist named Fritz Pfeifer.The story follows Anne through her time in hiding, by her accounts written to her diary.It shows how the family bonds together & how Anne grows from being a girl to a young woman, it also sees her & the shy Peter falling in love.But however hard they tried, they were arrested on the 4th August 1944.The group were taken to Westerbock transit camp.But on the 3rd September they were taken to Auschwitz concentration camp where they were split up into male & female never to see eachother again.On October 28th Anne, Margot & Auguste were transported to Bergen-Belsen leaving behind Edith.However Margot soon fell ill & Anne had to care for her even though Anne too became very sick.Margot lay in her bunk all day to weak to walk, but one day she fell out of her bunk & was killed by the shock aged 19.A few days later Anne died of Typhus after an outbreak had swept across the camp, Anne was estimated to have died a few weeks before the camp was liberated in March 1945 aged just 15.After Edith was left at the camp she was chosen for the gas chambers but escaped with a friend to another part of the camp where in January 1945 she died of exhaustion & malnutrition aged 45.On February 6 1945, Auguste was selected to become a slave labourer to the Raguhn labour unit, run from the Buchenwald camp near Halle in eastern Germany. The unit was then liquidated on April 8 & the prisoners were marched to Theresienstadt in Czechoslovakia. The red cross investicated the deaths of all the dutch victims of the Holocaust and it was estimated that Auguste died during the march or shortly after arriving aged 45.After being deported to Auchwitz in September 1944, Hermann van Pels was assigned hard labour, but following an injury to his hand, he was transferred to a group in another section of the camp, which was subseqently selected for the gas chambers where Hermann was killed in October aged 46.Fritz Pfeffer was taken to Auchwitz on September 3 1944, but was seperated from everyone else, on September 6 he was reunited with Otto Frank in the mens barracks. On October 29 he was transferred with 59 other medics to Sachsenhausen & from there to Neungamme on an unknown date, where he died of starvation & exhaustion & also according to the camp's records, enterocolitis (An inflammation of the large & small intestine) in the sick barracks on December 20 1944 aged 55.After Hermann's death Otto looked after Peter during their time of imprisonment together, but evacuations of their camp started shortly before the red cross arrived to liberate it on January 27 1945, Peter was amoung the many removed. Although Otto had urged Peter to hide & stay behind with him rather than go off onto a forced march, Peter thought he stood a better chance of survival. He joined a death march out of Auchwitz & was registered in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp on January 25 & according to camp records was placed under quarantine until January 29, afterwards he was sent to an outdoor labour camp until April 11 where he was sent to the sick barracks. Here he died just 3 days before the camp was liberated at the age of 18.Otto was the only member of the group to survive & after the war got Anne's diary published, the film portrays the families struggle to survive the war & holocaust in a real & emotional way.
