Anne's sister, Margot, died of typhus at the end of February (or the beginning of March), after having been critically ill and in a coma for days. Anne was already sick at the time, and she was not informed about her sister's death. After a few days, however, Anne sensed what had happened, and soon afterward, she herself died, peacefully, feeling that nothing bad was happening to her, shortly before the camp was liberated by the Allies.
In summary, when the Nazis occupied Holland in 1940, Anne was only eleven years old. Like many parents, Mr. and Mrs. Frank tried to protect their children from the edicts issued by the Nazis, and although the girls knew that they had to change schools and wear the "yellow star" (signifying that they were Jews) on their clothes, they did not have any direct contact with Nazis. In general, the Dutch people were sympathetic to the plight of the Jews, and many of them helped them with a kind word or little gifts. The grisly, wholesale murder of Jews in concentration camps did not really get underway until 1942, and in 1940 no one could imagine that the annihilation of an entire people was possible.
By the time Anne and the others went into hiding, in June 1942, they knew that Jews were rounded up, beaten, stripped of their possessions, and sent East. They suspected that the conditions out there were not good, but Nazi propaganda insisted that the "resettlement" was to the Jews' benefit, and there was no clear information to be obtained as to what really went on there. In her diary, Anne writes: "Our many Jewish friends are being taken away by the dozen. These people are treated by the Gestapo without a shred of decency, being loaded into cattle trucks and sent to Westerbork. . . . Most of the people in the camp are branded as inmates by their shaven heads. . . . If it is as bad as this in Holland, whatever will it be like in the distant and barbarous regions they are sent to? We assume that most of them are murdered. The English radio speaks of their being gassed" (October 9, 1942).
