Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation

The Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation became central to the diary’s postwar history when Otto Frank bequeathed Anne’s manuscripts to it in 1980. After the diary’s authenticity had been challenged since publication, the Institute ordered a thorough investigation; once the diary was confirmed as genuine, it was published in full alongside the investigation’s findings and documentary studies.## Manuscripts and Verification Otto Frank willed Anne’s manuscripts to the Institute in 1980. The authenticity of the diary had been contested since its publication, so the Institute commissioned a comprehensive examination rather than treating the manuscripts as self-authenticating. The resulting study established the diary’s genuineness beyond doubt and accompanied publication of the complete text.

The Critical Edition brought together Anne’s original diary, her later edited version, and Otto Frank’s published selection, alongside articles on the Frank family’s background, the circumstances of the family’s arrest and deportation, Anne’s handwriting, and the document and materials used. The Institute’s contribution thus extended beyond a verdict on authenticity: it supplied a documentary context for reading the text and its different versions.## The Diary as Testimony The manuscripts record the experience of a Jewish family living under occupation, but their perspective is necessarily situated. Anne’s diary recounts her own circumstances and also conveys information learned from others. When Fritz Pfeffer tells the hidden residents about events outside, Anne records reports of families being taken away, people being sought through lists, and civilians being deported. She contrasts that news with the relative safety of the hiding place and the distress of being unable to help friends. Such passages make the diary evidence of both persecution and the circulation of news among people in hiding, while preserving the distinction between Anne’s direct experience and what she heard.

That distinction matters especially in the diary’s descriptions of mass deportation. Anne writes about people being removed from homes and families separated, but the text presents those events from the limited position of a young diarist concealed in Amsterdam, receiving news rather than witnessing the deportations herself. The Institute’s accompanying investigation and historical material offered readers a way to situate this testimony without confusing personal record with a complete account of the events it describes.## From Private Record to Public Document Anne began keeping the diary for herself in June 1942. In 1944, after hearing Gerrit Bolkestein of the Dutch government in exile call for letters and diaries documenting life under German occupation, she decided to prepare a book for publication. She rewrote and edited the diary as version b while continuing the original, version a; the two versions therefore preserve different stages of her own work on the record.

After the arrest of the Secret Annex residents, Miep Gies found the diaries on the floor and put them away unread. Following the war, she gave them to Otto Frank once he learned that Anne had died. He assembled a shorter version, version c, selecting material from Anne’s two versions. The first publication in 1947 also reflected its period: it was shortened to fit the publisher’s series, omitted passages about sexuality, and left out some unflattering descriptions of family members and other residents.

The Institute’s complete edition made these layers visible rather than presenting the familiar published text as an untouched original. A later expanded edition, commissioned by the Anne Frank-Fonds and prepared by Mirjam Pressler, supplemented Otto Frank’s selection with passages from versions a and b and contained approximately 30 percent more material. These successive editions show how the diary moved from private writing, through Anne’s intended revision and her father’s postwar choices, into a scholarly and public archive.## Historical Scope and Significance The Institute’s role connects close textual examination with the history recorded in the diary. Anne describes the restrictions imposed on Jews in the Netherlands, including the requirement to wear a yellow star and limits on movement and public life. She also recounts the hurried decision to enter hiding after Margot received a call-up notice, and explains that the hiding place was in her father’s office building. Those details make occupation policy legible through the disruptions it produced in one family’s life.

The historical record also has an ending that the diary itself could not provide. After their arrest, the eight residents were taken first to a prison in Amsterdam and then to Westerbork; on September 3, 1944, they were deported on the camp’s last transport, arriving at Auschwitz three days later. The Institute’s publication of the manuscripts with research on arrest, deportation, handwriting, and materials joined Anne’s individual account to evidence about its production and the fate of its subjects. Its significance lies in safeguarding that distinction: the diary remains a young writer’s limited, revised testimony, while the accompanying investigation helps readers assess its authenticity and historical setting.