Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68547 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-08-10
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 50 minutes

Amazon.com
No other 13-year-old girl in modern history has had as a profound effect on readers as Anne Frank. Born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt, Germany, Anne, her elder sister, and her parents fled Germany in 1933 for the Netherlands to escape Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime. This installment of A&E's award-winning Biography series, Anne Frank: The Life of a Young Girl, takes viewers back to her 13th birthday when she received the red-and-white-checkered diary she named Kitty. Just a few weeks later, Anne's Jewish family was forced into 25 months of hiding in the secret annex behind a bookshelf in her father's office. Her diary not only documents the life of a young girl, but the extraordinary circumstances she endured; Anne Frank has become "a symbol, a cause, an institution." Excerpts from Kitty were originally published in 1947 as Het Achterhuis (The Secret Annex) and the acclaim was so widespread that an American edition, The Diary of a Young Girl, was published in 1952. Three years later it won the Pulitzer Prize. There have been Broadway plays and a 1959 Hollywood film based on the diary. A&E does an excellent job telling the story of Anne's life, and presents historical context with limited black-and-white photographs of Anne and her family, as well as footage from World War II. But most significant are the interviews with Anne's father, the only survivor of the 11 people who hid in the annex; Anne's childhood friends and Holocaust survivors; "Hello" Silverberg, the object of her school-girl crush; and her father's loyal assistant Miep Gies, who ultimately saved Anne's diary after Anne and her family were discovered and taken away to concentration camps. Anne Frank: The Life of a Young Girl describes why the young girl's gifted writing in a checkered diary has survived as a formidable force against prejudice and discrimination. --Cristina Del Sesto

Customer Reviews

Good for Beginners
This is a nice video overview of the life of Anne Frank produced by A&E's Biography. The people at Biography almost always do a nice job and this episode is no exception. There's not a lot of detail but there are some nice interviews with people like Otto Frank and Miep Gies. Hearing their voices adds something for those who have only read of them. This is what I think is the true power of videos like this--it allows readers to put faces and voices to names.

I think this video is also nice because is fills in the spaces around the period covered by Anne in her diary, particularly what happened after the Franks were arrested and Anne could no longer write. It is important for people who have only read the diary itself to become aware of these other events.

On the other hand, no video (even the best of them--Anne Frank Remembered) can presently compete with the quality of written material out there. There are so many excellent books covering every segment of Anne's life that it would be a shame for someone who is truly interested in Anne to limit themselves to this video.

Courageous Acknowledgement of Man's Inhumanity to Man!
Anne Frank lives-in spirit. One of the strongest and certainly youngest chronicler of the holocaust. She is such a heroine role model for today's confused youth. A "must see" VHS and please don't forget a book or other readers/media by the same title. Great for discussion beginning with 10 years olds through middle school. (Not just for girls as Elie Wiesel is not just for boys). "Live life", is the message I get and if you must suffer it than do it with class and even with a sense of curiosity and adventure. And, when you die there will be a definite sense of history waiting for you. Or, should I say an infinite sense of having been and is that not the same as immortality?

A must for admirers of the diary
This is a must for readers and admirers of the diary of Anne Frank. In effect, the DVD completes the story--what was life like before the Frank family went into hiding, and what became of the family members after the family was discovered. All that is missing is the name and motive of the person who reported the family to the Gestapo.

There are many photos of the participants, photos I'd never seen. There is also a too-brief tour of the Annex where Anne wrote her diary--and photos of the diary itself.

Among those interviewed on camera are Otto Frank, Anne's father, Miep Gies who risked her life to help the people hiding in the Annex, girlhood friends of Anne, and a girl who saw Anne in her last days at Bergen Belsen concentration camp.

But beware: this is all but certain to clear out the tear ducts. As any reader of the diary knows, this is a great tragedy, the story of a great loss.