25 June
‘This apparently inconsequential diary by a child, this “de profundis” stammered out in a child’s voice, embodies all the hideousness of fascism, more so than all the evidence of Nuremberg put together.’
These words of the Dutch historian, Dr Jan Romein, writing in the newspaper Het Parool in 1946, attracted the interest of Contact Publishing in Amsterdam. The company published The Annex: Diary Notes from 12 June 1942-1 August 1944 on this day in 1947. It was the first edition of Anne Frank’s diary, about the experiences of a young Jewish girl living in hiding from the Nazis, which went on to be translated into at least 50 languages and sell more than 50 million copies worldwide. Anne died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after her family’s hiding place was discovered in 1944.
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