With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Researchers Uncover Two Hidden Pages in Anne Frank’s Diary

Anne Frank tried to cover up two pages of writing in her diary that contained dirty jokes and a description of what she referred to as “sexual matters,” pasting brown paper over the pages in her red-and-white plaid notebook.

But researchers here have revealed the hidden text using new digital technologies, the Anne Frank House and two other Dutch cultural institutions announced on Tuesday.

Frank, the teenage diarist who wrote about coming-of-age in a secret attic annex while in hiding from the Nazis during World War II, may have camouflaged the two pages because they contained prurient content that she didn’t want her father or someone else in the cramped quarters to discover.

Read entire article at NYT