Annelies Marie (Anne) Frank, a German-born Jew who perished in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, is the author of an internationally best selling diary, and for many the face of the six million Jews who perished during the Holocaust.

Frank was born on June 12 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany, the second daughter of Otto and Edith Frank-Hollander and younger sister to Margot. The story of her time in hiding from the Nazis in occupied Amsterdam during World War II has become one of the most famous stories to emerge from the Holocaust, due to the posthumous publication of her diary.

Facing increasingly anti-Jewish laws in Nazi-conquered Holland, Frank went into hiding with her family on July 6, 1942 until August 4, 1944. From the 'secret annexe' of her father's offices in which they were concealed, Frank documented her experiences in her diary. During this time, the Frank family was joined by four other Jews seeking to escape the Nazis - the van Pels family and dentist Fritz Pfeffer.

Since its initial publication in Dutch in 1947 and then in Germany and France in 1950, Anne Frank's diary has become a symbol of struggle in the face of oppression, unique because of the exceptional writing skills brought forth by a seemingly ordinary young girl. In her diary, Frank explores her developing relationship with her family members and with those of the other family, her relationship with God, her budding sexuality and friendship with the van Pels' son Peter, her desires for the future and the state of the world and the Jews during the war.

On August 4, 1944, the Franks' secret hiding place was raided by German Security Police after an alleged tip-off from an informant who would remain unidentified. The Franks were transported to Auschwitz, where the women were separated from the men. Anne Frank, her mother and sister were used as slave labor.

Anne and her sister were later transported to Bergen-Belsen, while their mother eventually died in Auschwitz. In March 1945, a typhus epidemic ravaged Bergen-Belsen. Margot, who was by then very weak, fell from her bunk and died. Anne Frank died a few days later of typhus, just weeks before the camp was finally liberated by British troops.

Otto Frank, the sole survivor of his family, moved back to Amsterdam following the war.

In a 1952 review of her diary, The New York Times wrote, “Anne Frank's voice becomes the voice of 6 million vanished Jewish souls.” The Times' review of the book's Definitive Edition in 1989 called it “the single most compelling personal account of the Holocaust.”

The Diary of Anne Frank has been translated into 67 languages and more than 31 million copies sold.