Anne Frank born / Djuna Barnes born - June 12

On this day in 1929, Anne Frank was born in Germany. / On this day in 1892, writer and illustrator Djuna Barnes was born.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, y'all, we're rerunning two episodes today. Enjoy the show
Welcome back to this day in History class, where we
reveal a new piece of history every day. The day

(00:21):
was June twelfth, nineteen nine. A Jewish girl named Anna
Lisa Marie Frank, better known as Anne Frank, was born
in Frankfurt on Mine, Germany, to Edith and Otto Frank.
An Frank is well known for her story of persecution
during the Holocaust, and and her family went into hiding

(00:43):
in nineteen forty two during the German occupation of the
Netherlands in World War Two. The family was soon discovered
and sent to concentration camps. Ann's father, Otto, was the
only one in the family to survive the Holocaust, but
Anne Frank had kept a diary during her time in hiding,
which Otto worked hard to get published. The diary has

(01:07):
now been translated into many languages, sold millions of copies,
and has been adapted for other mediums. Ann Frank was
born into a family of modest wealth and prominence. Otto
was a well to do businessman, but after the Nazis
came to power in Germany, AND's parents decided to move
to Amsterdam, away from so much anti Semitism and a

(01:31):
suffering economy. In Amsterdam, Otto established a company that dealt
in pecton, which is a substance used as a setting
agent in jams and jellies. As father, mother, and older
sister Margot emigrated first, and Anne joined them in Amsterdam
in February of nineteen thirty four, but beginning in May

(01:53):
of nineteen forty, Nazi Germany occupied Amsterdam. After Anne and
her family had settled into life in Amsterdam. Living in
the Netherlands became dangerous as the Nazis began to persecute
Jewish people, and was forced to transfer from a public
school to a Jewish school in September of nineteen forty one.

(02:13):
In nineteen forty two, on her thirteenth birthday, and got
a plaid diary. But as the Nazis began to send
Jewish people to concentration camps and Marcott got a letter
of saying she needed to report for work at a
labor camp, the Frank family went into hiding. On July six.
They began living in an attic above Auto's office at

(02:35):
Princeton krot To sixty three in her diary and called
their hiding spot the secret annex. The entrance to the
hiding spot was behind a movable bookcase. Some of Otto's
friends and colleagues, including meat Peace, smuggled food, clothes, supplies,
and information to the Franks. Not long after the family

(02:57):
began hiding there, they were joined four Dutch Jewish people.
The space was cramped and Anne was often scared. They
had to stay quiet so the people working below could
not hear them and they could not go outside. Anne
wrote in her diary about the war, her fears, her
daily life, her hopes for the future, and her personal

(03:20):
issues and experiences. She even wrote short stories in the diary.
On August four, nine, just three days after Anne wrote
her last diary entry, the Gestapo or German secret State police,
discovered the Franks and the people in hiding with them.

(03:40):
It's not clear how the Gestapo found the hiding place,
but a Gestapo official and two Dutch police officers arrested
the people in hiding and two of the people who
had been helping them. The Frank family was sent to
Westernborg transit camp on August eight. In early September, the
frank were put on a train headed to the auschwitz

(04:02):
Bergnal concentration and extermination camp, and her sister Margot and
her mother Edith were chosen to do heavy forced labor.
Otto went to a camp for men. Hundreds of other
people who were on their train were immediately murdered. In
October and in Margot were transferred to the bergen Belsen

(04:24):
concentration camp in northern Germany, while their mother and father
stayed at Auschwitz. Edith died in Auschwitz in January of
nineteen forty five, just before its evacuation. Otta was found
at Auschwitz when Soviet troops liberated the camp on January.
Contagious diseases were rampant at concentration camps, and Anne and

(04:48):
Margot got typhus while at bergen Belson. They died in
February of nineteen forty five of the infectious disease, weeks
before the camp was liberated. The other people who hid
with the Franks at Princeton Cross to sixty three also
died in the Holocaust. Nazi Germany officially surrendered to the

(05:10):
Allies on May seventh, ninety. Otto soon found out that
his wife and children had died, but friends who searched
the Frank's hiding place after the family was arrested returned
to Otto papers that the Gestapo had left behind. Meet
Peace had preserved Ann's diary and gave it to Otto,

(05:32):
and Otto helped turn Ann's writings into a manuscript. Anne's
account of life in hiding during the Holocaust has since
kept the Frank legacy alive. I'm Eve Steffcote and hopefully
you know a little more about history today than you
did yesterday. But if you want to hear even more history,
you can listen to a new podcast I host called Unpopular.

(05:55):
Unpopular is about people in history who defied conventions of
their time and we're sometimes persecuted for it. You can
listen wherever you listen to This Day in History Class,
and if you're so inclined, you can follow us at
T D i h C podcast on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

(06:17):
Thanks again, and we'll see you tomorrow. A quick content
warning before we start the show today. This episode contains
mention of sexual abuse. Hey y'all, I'm Eves and welcome
to This Day in History Class, a podcast that brings
a little bit of the past to the present. Every day.

(06:46):
The day was June. Writer and illustrator Juna Barnes was
born in cornwall On Hudson, New York. Barnes is best
known for writing the modernist novel night Wood Barnes. His grandmother, Zaddle,
had a big influence on her. Saddle was also a writer,
and she advocated causes like spiritualism and the philosophy of

(07:08):
free love. There is some indication that Barnes may have
faced sexual abuse and incests through her family relationships, and
these themes show up in her work, but Junah never
confirmed this. However, her family did encourage her to marry
Percy Faulkner, a fifty two year old, when she was
around eighteen. They only stayed together for a few months.

(07:31):
Barnes began writing at an early age to support her
mother and brothers. She studied at Pratt Institute and the
Art Students League of New York for a while, and
she worked as a freelancer, writing for magazines and newspapers
like the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the New York Press, New
York World Magazine, and New York Morning Telegraph. A lot
of her work was so called stunt journalism that was subjective.

(07:55):
For instance, in nineteen fourteen, she opted to be forced
fit to experience what suffrages when hunger strikes were going through.
In addition to her journalism, Barnes was also writing poems,
short stories in one act plays, as well as creating
drawings that were being published in small press magazines. In
nineteen fifteen, her chat book called the Book of Repulsive Women,

(08:17):
Eight Rhythms and Five Drawings was published. The chat book
contained lesbian imagery at a time when writing was being
censored for sexual content, but the collection avoided censorship as
censors and some readers did not always understand the references
in the work. Barnes got some recognition for three one
act plays that were produced by a collective called the

(08:39):
Province Town Players in nineteen nineteen and nineteen twenty. Barnes
moved to Paris in the nineteen twenties, joining artists and
writer circles in the city's Left Bank. In nineteen twenty two,
she interviewed writer James Joyce for Vanity Fair, and in
nineteen twenty three she published a collection of poetry, plays
and stories called A Book Writer. Barnes's first novel was

(09:04):
published in The chapters in the book are written in
different styles, and it's believed to be somewhat autobiographical. It
contained themes of sexuality and polygamy, and it was censored
when it was published. When Barnes and her editor were
told to get rid of some of the texts and
drawings in the book, Barnes called for asterisk to replace

(09:24):
the censored parts so that there was quote matter for
no speculation were since continuity and beauty have been damaged,
as she put it in the foreword to the book.
Her second novel, Nightwood, was published in nineteen thirty six.
It's considered one of the most influential novels of the
modernist period. It follows the love affairs of a woman

(09:46):
named Robin Vote in Paris, and it was noted for
explicitly portraying lesbian relationships. It contained moments of humor and
moments of tragedy, and it too had to be edited
because of concerns about censorship. The book got good reviews,
but it didn't sell that well. After Nightwood was published,
Barnes dealt with depression, alcoholism, and illness. She stopped writing

(10:10):
and returned to New York City. For the rest of
her life. She lived in an apartment in Greenwich Village.
During these years, Barnes became somewhat reclusive. Her verse play
The Antiphon was first published in ninety eight, and it
drew on her own family relationships, and her collection of poetry,
Creatures in an Alphabet, was published in nineteen eighty two.

(10:32):
Barnes wrote mostly poetry in the last two decades of
her life, but she didn't publish as much as she
did previously. She died in nineteen eighty two. Some of
her early works were reprinted after her death, and her
writing has received renewed interest. I'm Eve Chef Cooke and
hopefully you know a little more about history today than

(10:53):
you did yesterday, and you can hit us up on
social media where at t d i h C Podcast
on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can also send us
an email at this day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks
again for listening to the show and we'll see you tomorrow.

(11:19):
For more podcasts from I Heeart Radio, visit the iHeart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.