The Major Themes in The Diary of Anne Frank

One of the most the horrific term in history that still terrors into mind of people is “Holocaust”. A term used by Nazis to point human beings whose lives were not important. It was one of the Brutal and horrible period in man’s history. During the second world war Nazis killed millions of Jews. Many people were killed for no reasons, many were sent to concentration camps where they treated human beings especially Jews like rats and torchured and humiliated them with no reason. The Nazis wanted Jews to be expelled from Germany. Jews became the victims of discrimination, violence and exclusion. “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank, a popular diary throughout the world where Anne Frank describes about the despairs and sufferings of her family during the hiding period of two years in the Secret Annex.

This story was originally in Dutch, but was translated into English. This story, ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ is about how a young girl, Anne Frank, was hiding in the attic from the Nazis during the Holocaust. Anne Frank was one of over one million Jewish children that died during the Holocaust. The Holocaust is simply defined as the systematic destruction of over six million European Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators, before and during World War 2. For the first five years in her life, she has been living with her parents and older sister, Margot. Then by the year 1933 when the Nazis have power, Anne Frank and the rest of her family followed Otto Frank to the Netherlands due to his business connections.

There are a lot of major themes in this story of Anne Frank. One of them is that Anne Frank wrote this diary in her adolescence years, which is an important part in this diary. Being a teenage girl, she will struggle with a lot of teenage problems. This made the Diary of Anne Frank one of the coming-of-age novels. Another major theme is Anne Frank’s identity. In this whole story Anne still can’t discover her real self. She often ask herself what type of person she is. Her coming-of-age themes are very significant to this book. Virtue is also a major theme. Anne’s parents want her to be more like her older sister who is quiet and self-effacing. Her father, Otto Frank, is a person full of principles and sticks to it. War is another major theme. This book took place during World War 2 and the Holocaust was one of the causes that led to this World War. The Holocaust was a war between the Jews and the German Nazis. But as the result turned out, the Nazis have won this war. But later on, the Holocaust has ended after the killing of approximately six million Jews. Duty is the responsibility and loyalty to one’s country, friends, or family. In this book, Anne Frank struggles to be a dutiful child to her parents and tries to get along with everyone. Life in the annex has a lot of little quarrels and many of them have to do with the conflicting feelings of duty towards one another.

The very major theme in Anne Frank’s diary is suffering. Throughout the story there has been a lot of suffering. It was for Anne Frank, her family and friends, and all the Jews being hunted. The Holocaust was a really big time period where the most people suffer. Jews were being killed group by group by the Nazis. They hid in places that no one would want to be, they have to suffer and sacrifice a lot of things. Some have to kill their own babies in order not to be found. Another kind of suffering that happened was that everyone in the annex felt guilty that they left some Jews behind for them to be tortured. But they feared that they would be captured by the Germans. These are some major themes in the diary of Anne Frank.

In the end, which was not included in the part where Anne Frank wrote, she and her older sister, Margot died of typhus in the year 1945. Everyone in the family died except for Anne’s father, who survived the war and was able to find her diary and decided to edit it and publish it to the world. “In memory of Anne Frank, her family, and the people who was killed during the Holocaust.