June 25, 1947: It's been said that the Holocaust began with one book, Mein Kampf (My Struggle) by Adolf Hitler; and ended with another, Het Achterhuis. Dagboekbrieven (The Annex: Diary Notes), a.k.a. The Diary of Anne Frank.
Annelies Marie Frank was born on June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1934, following the Nazi takeover, her family moved to Amsterdam, the Netherlands. But in 1940, the Nazis took over that country, too. Being Jewish, she and her family were stripped of their German citizenship.
On June 12, 1942, her 13th birthday, she received a diary as a gift. She begans it with these words: "I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support."
Just a month later, on July 6, her family -- also including her father, Otto; her mother, Edith; and her sister, Margot -- went into hiding in concealed rooms, behind a bookcase in the building where Otto, a bank employee, worked. They were soon joined by the van Pels family. For 2 years, they stayed there, hoping they wouldn't be found by the Nazis, and she kept up her diary.
On August 4, 1944, the Gestapo found them, and sent them to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. On November 1, Anne and Margot were sent to the Bergen-Belsen camp, in Germany. Both died of typhus, probably in February of 1945. Anne was only 15 years old.
Otto was the only person living in the concealed rooms to have survived the Holocaust. When he returned to Amsterdam, he found that his secretary and contact to the outside world, Miep Gies, had saved Anne's diary. Anne had told her father that she wanted to be a writer, and Otto had the diary published. It was published in Dutch in 1947, and in English in 1952, as The Diary of a Young Girl.
In 1955, a play titled The Diary of Anne Frank premiered at the Cort Theatre on New York's Broadway, starring Susan Strasberg as Anne. The play changed the name of the van Pels family to Van Daan. It was filmed in 1959, starring Millie Perkins; for ABC in 1967, starring Diana Davila; for NBC in 1980, starring Melissa Gilbert; for the BBC in 1987, starring Katharine Schlesinger; for CBS in 1988, starring Lisa Jacobs; for ABC in 2001, starring Hannah Taylor-Gordon; and for the BBC in 2009, starring Ellie Kendrick.
There is an urban legend about a production of the play where the actress playing Anne was so bad, when the actor playing the Gestapo officer was looking around, a woman in the audience yelled, "She's upstairs!"
Otto Frank lived until 1980. Miep Gies lived until 2010, age 100.
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June 25, 1947 was a Wednesday. These baseball games were played:
* The New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians, 3-0 at Yankee Stadium. Frank "Spec" Shea pitched a 3-hit shutout. Joe DiMaggio went 1-for-4 with an RBI.
* The New York Giants beat the Chicago Cubs, 9-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.
* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-2 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Jackie Robinson went 1-for-3 with a walk. Hank Greenberg went 1-for-3 with a walk. Ralph Kiner went 1-for-4.
* A doubleheader was split at Fenway Park in Boston. The Detroit Tigers won the opener, 4-2. The Boston Red Sox won the nightcap, 4-3. Over the 2 games, Ted Williams went 2-for-6 with 2 walks.
* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the St. Louis Browns, 4-2 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-8 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati.
* And the Chicago White Sox, the Washington Senators, the Boston Braves and the St. Louis Cardinals were not scheduled.
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