Anne Frank and the Children of the Holocaust

As most people know, Anne Frank was a young Jewish girl who was in hiding from the Nazi's, betrayed and sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where she died of typhus. What set Anne apart from so many other persecuted Jewish people was she put her thoughts in writing in her Diary. After the war, the diary was retrieved by Frank's father, Otto Frank.

The Diary was first published in Amsterdam in 1947 and was translated into English in 1952. Since then, more than 25 million copies of the book have been sold and it has been translated into more than 50 languages.

Anne Frank began to keep a diary on her thirteenth birthday about three weeks before she went into hiding with her mother, father, sister and four other people in the secret annex of her father's office building. With the assistance of a group of Otto Frank's trusted friends they remained hidden for two years and one month, until their betrayal in August 1944, which resulted in their deportation to Nazi concentration camps. Of the group of eight, only Otto Frank survived the war.

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This webquest will allow students to get to know Anne and others that were victims of the Holocaust.

Anne Frank Webquest

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I would use this webquest in the Social Studies 20 unit on Defining Human Rights

While it is designed for English, I think the tasks would be a good introduction to the horrors of the Nazi regime and their abuses of human rights.

Anne Frank inspired many people including some of the most powerful and influential people in the 20th Century who spoke of her.

"Of the multitudes who throughout human history have spoken for human dignity in times of great suffering and loss, no voice is more compelling than that of Anne Frank."

- President John F. Kennedy

"Some of us read Anne Frank's diary on Robben Island and derived much encouragement from it."

- Nelson Mandella

Both quotes are applicable for any discussion on Human Rights and Anne Frank personifies human Rights abuses by people in power.

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I would get the students doing Anne's webquest and use selected passages from her Diary before introducing the Human Rights so that the students would have in their minds what happens when someone has no regard for other people based simply on their religious beliefs.

I think this type of exercise would help students learn in a fun way (everyone likes to surf the web) while letting them do the research and learning on their own with the teacher as a guide.

Further self-learning could possibly take place as well with a link to Anne Frank House which offers virtual tours, plenty of information and pictures.