1. The Holocaust
The Nazi tyranny wished to eradicate God from society and deny our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live. Many good people opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life in the twenty first century can lead to a society where freedoms are lost, people are persecuted for their beliefs and those who are the poorest in our society are treated as second class citizens

2. Over one million children under the age of sixteen died in the Holocaust.
                             
Anne Frank was one of them.

3. Anne Frank is born on June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany
Anne Frank is born on June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany. She is the second daughter of Otto and Edith Frank, who are German Jews.
Anneliese (Anne) Frank, at the hospital with her mother a day after she was born

4. Adolf Hitler's Nazi party comes to power in Germany in 1933
Adolf Hitler's Nazi party comes to power in Germany in Hitler begins his campaign against the Jews and the Frank family starts to fear for their future in Germany. In the summer of 1933, Otto Frank leaves Frankfurt for Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, to set up a new business called the Dutch Opekta Company. Less than a year later, Edith, Margot, and Anne (four years old) join Otto in Amsterdam.
Anne and Margot posing for a photographer in Aachen, before their move to Amsterdam
The Dutch Opekta Company sells pectin, a powder made from fruit extract and used to make jelly.

5.                                                                                 
Unfortunately, the Frank's belief that Amsterdam is a safe haven from Nazism is shattered when, in May, 1940, the Germans invade the Netherlands, and the Franks are once again forced to live under Nazi rule.
At first, Anne and Margot continue to socialize with their friends and attend school.
Anne Frank attends the local Montesori school, but after summer recess in 1941, she is not allowed to attend school with non-Jews.
                                    

6.                                                                              
                                                                           
By 1942, Jews are being arrested just for being Jews. Many are forced to go to German labor camps. Fearful for their lives, the Frank family begins to prepare to go into hiding. This is one of the last photographs taken of Anne and her sister Margot before they go into hiding.

7.                                                                                     
At approximately 10 am, August 4, 1944, the Frank family's greatest fear comes true. A Nazi policeman and several Dutch collaborators appear at 263 Prinsengracht, having received an anonymous phone call informing them that Jews are hiding there. The police head straight for the bookcase that leads to the Secret Annex. Karl Joseph Silberbauer, an Austrian Nazi, forces the residents to turn over all their valuables. When he finds out that Otto Frank had been a lieutenant in the German Army during World War I, he is a little less hostile.
                                             
A hinged bookcase at the rear of the office wall is all that separates the Secret Annex from the outside world.
The residents are taken from the house, forced into a covered truck, taken to the Central Office for Jewish Emigration, and then sent to Weteringschans Prison. Miep Gies gathers and saves Anne's scattered diary pages. Two of the helpers, Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman, are imprisoned for their role in hiding the family. Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl are not arrested, although Miep is brought in for questioning by the police.

8. On August 8, 1944, after a brief stay in Weteringschans Prison, the residents of the Secret Annex are moved to Westerbork transit camp. They remain there for nearly a month, until, on September 3, they are transported to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland. It is the last Auschwitz-bound transport to leave Westerbork.
                                                          
The selection process divides the transported Jews into two groups: those who would work--and those who would die (the group on the right).
                                                                       

9.                                                                        
In October, 1944, Anne and Margot are transported from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Thousands die from planned starvation and epidemics at Bergen-Belsen, which is without food, heat, medicine, or elementary sanitary conditions. Anne and Margot, already weakened from living in the concentration camps, become ill with typhus. The camp is liberated by allied troops in 1945, one month after the death of Anne Frank.
                                                 
Bergen-Belsen becomes overcrowded with prisoners as the Nazis retreat from the Eastern Front. At Bergen-Belsen prisoners have no food, heat, or medicine. They also do not have any clean toilets or showers. Due to these conditions, thousands of people die from disease and starvation.

10.                                                  
Otto Frank is the only one, out of those hiding in the secret annex, who survives what became know as the Holocaust. He is given Anne's diary pages by Miep Gies, and he publishes them in her memory, and in memory of all those who have died. He and his second wife, Elfried Geiringer, also an Auschwitz survivor, move to Basel, Switzerland, in Otto Frank dies on August 19, 1980, at the age of ninety-one.
Otto Frank (center) with his Opekta staff, the Helpers of the Secret Annex.

11. Sing a simple song unto the Lord, sing a simple song unto the Lord,
sing it with your heart,
sing it with your soul,
sing a simple song unto the Lord.
O Lord, I love you,
O Lord, I see.
I see that you love me.
Say a simple prayer unto the Lord,
say a simple prayer unto the Lord,
say it with your heart,
say it with your soul,
say a simple prayer unto the Lord.