Anne Frank was Jewish.
Annelies Marie `` Anne '' Frank ( [ ʔanəliːs maˈʁiː ˈʔanə ˈfʁaŋk ] ; [ ʔɑnəˈlis maˈri ˈʔɑnə ˈfrɑŋk ] ; 12 June 1929 -- February or March 1945 ) was a German-born diarist . One of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust , she gained fame posthumously following the publication of The Diary of a Young Girl ( originally Het Achterhuis ; The Secret Annex ) , in which she documents her life in hiding from 1942 to 1944 , during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II . As persecutions of the Jewish population increased in July 1942 , the family went into hiding in some concealed rooms behind a bookcase in the building where Anne 's father worked .