Flight+From+Evil-+The+Annex

__A Secret Place- The Annex__
 * “Now our Secret Annex has truly become secret… Mr. Kugler thought it would be better to have a bookcase built in front of the entrance to our hiding place. It swings out on its hinges and opens like a door." - Anne Frank**



By the beginning of the summer of 1942, Otto and Edith Frank started thinking about hiding their kids from the Nazis. They slowly began to move some of their belongings to non-Jewish friends' houses. Anne soon learned on July 5th that they might need to go into hiding. Otto Frank found a place, above the building he managed, that was used for storage. He had a friend named Miep Gies, a Dutch women, that would help them stay hidden. Along with the Frank family hiding in the Annex, they would be joined by Mr. van Daan and his wife and son. Otto worked with Mr. van Daan. The family began to move into the Annex. Margot was first, because she was in the most immediate danger, and then Anne and her parents came. The van Daans came last. Anne kept her spirits high and thought of the situation as a "vacation" but Otto thought it as their family was "disappearing." Later, it was called an "adventure." Miep Gies saw it as "they had simply closed the door of their lives and vanished from Amsterdam." The Annex was not their home or much like one, but it would have to do. Mr. Kugler, one of the families' friends, put a bookcase in front of the entry way to keep it hidden. The Annex was comprised of two small rooms on the second floor used by Anne and Margot. The large room on the third floor was used as a living room. Anne made the Annex seem more like home by putting pictures on the wall in her bedroom. In November, the Franks took in another occupant, Dr. Albert Dussel. He was a dentist that they had known. The Annex soon became very crowded. They would have to be very quiet during the day while people worked below. Anne became very honest in the Annex. She would often let people known how she felt. Anne started to become quite fond of Peter van Daan, one of the occupants of the Annex. The people of the Annex started to become restless. With no fresh air and no sunlight, everyone become on everyone's nerves. Sometimes after the people in the offices below would leave, the people of the Annex would go down stairs. Miep Gies would go out and by food for the people of the Annex, but the people they got the food coupons for were arrested. That meant that there was a shortage of food. By the summer of 1943, the people in the Annex started to get hopeful. Anne's belief in the goodness of people was tested on August 4th, 1944. Miep was working in the offices below when she saw a hefty man standing above her with a gun. Miep could hear several people running up the stairs to the Annex. The Dutch Nazis policemen barreled up the stairs and arrested the eight Jews. The Jews were taken to Westerbork. Later, Miep and the some others went upstairs and collected Anne's diary. That was the beginning of their journey...