Anne Frank: The Whole Story
Encyclopedia
Anne Frank: The Whole Story (also known as Anne Frank) is a mini-series based on the book Anne Frank: The Biography
by Melissa Müller
. The mini-series aired on ABC
on May 20 and 21, 2001. The series starred :Ben Kingsley, :Brenda Blethyn, :Hannah Taylor-Gordon, and :Lili Taylor. Controversially, but in keeping with the claim made by Melissa Müller, the series asserts that the anonymous betrayer of the Frank family was the office cleaner, when in fact the betrayer's identity has never been established. A disagreement between the producers of the mini-series and the Anne Frank Foundation
about validity of this and other details led to the withdrawal of their endorsement of the dramatization, which prevented the use of any quotations from the writings of Anne Frank
appearing within the production. Hannah Taylor-Gordon
received both Golden Globe and Emmy Award
nominations for her performance as Anne Frank, while Ben Kingsley
won a Screen Actor's Guild Award for his performance as Otto Frank
, Anne's father.
. Anne (:Hannah Taylor-Gordon) gets increasingly distressed as her rights are taken away, as well as her family ominously being forced to register as Jews with the government and to wear yellow stars. She is then forced to leave her school and attend a Jewish Lyceum, where she meets her new best friend, :Jacqueline van Maarsen (Victoria Anne Brown), who is only half-Jewish. She also meets Hello Silberberg (Nicky Cantor), on whom she develops a crush (it is implied Hello likes her too). On her 13th birthday, she receives the famous checkered-patterned diary and she immediately goes to her room to write her first entry.
A few weeks later, on a normal Sunday in July 1942, Margot (:Jessica Manley), Anne's sister, receives a call-up from the :Germans to be deported to a "labor camp" in the :East. :Otto Frank (:Ben Kingsley) moves his family into the now-renowned "Secret Annex", followed soon by Hermann and Auguste van Pels (:Joachim Krol and :Brenda Blethyn) and their son Peter (:Nicholas Audsley) , and Fritz Pfeffer
(:Jan Niklas), the Frank family's :dentist. During their stay in the annex, the Van Pels family members are noted for their constant bickering, Fritz becomes Anne's antagonist, and Anne has her first serious relationship with Peter, and receives her first kiss from him. All the while she wishes for an end to the war. Anne also gets her first period while in the annex - an occasion for which she'd been anxiously waiting . One night a thief breaks into the building below the annex, leaving the eight refugees in terror.
Eventually, on August 4, 1944, the Franks are betrayed by the cleaning lady, Lena Hartog (Veronica Nowag-Jones), of the :business in which the annex resides. The eight people in hiding are arrested and Anne's diary is dumped onto the floor while the Germans search for money. Two of the helpers (of those in the Secret Annex) are also arrested. Otto reveals his history as a German veteran of World War I.
Afterwards, the Franks are sent on a train to Westerbork
, a transit camp, where Anne and her family and friends are held in the criminal "S Barracks". There, Anne meets a man named Farabi Musahan(chert) (:Klara Issova) and her sister Lientje (Zdenka Volencova), who are later seen with Anne in Bergen-Belsen
. Anne also befriends the camp's schoolteacher (Jaroslava Siktancova
), who often invites Anne to the camp school to tell the students stories (One of them is Mrs. Quackerbush from when Anne was a child).
Anne and her family are soon transported to Auschwitz
, where the women are stripped of their clothing and their hair is shorn. She is sadly separated from her father and the other men. During a selection for women in the camp to go to a safer place to work in a munitions factory, Anne's mother and sister are chosen, but Anne is not. Therefore, Edith and Margot choose to remain behind. Anne and Margot are sent to a scabies barracks and later deported to Bergen-Belsen, which is no more than many large tents on a muddy ground surrounded by an electric fence. Mrs. van Pels eventually arrives at the camp to find Anne very thin and Margot sick with typhus
. One night Anne sees her old friend, Hannah (Jade Williams), through the fence. Hannah is a privileged prisoner and tells Anne that her father is dying but her sister is alive. She throws a package with bread and socks over to Anne.
In the last scene with Anne, Margot and Anne talk about past times, but Margot then falls out of bed and dies of shock. Anne, whose will to live is finally gone, looks up to the sky, defeated.
After the war in 1945, it is revealed that Otto is, in fact, alive. He looks for information about his daughters, but has no luck in doing so until he is directed to find Janny Brandes who survived the camp. Otto is told that Anne died a few days after Margot. Miep (:Lili Taylor), who helped the Franks to hide, gives Anne's preserved diary to Otto. Otto reads it all. He then goes up to the now empty annex and collapses in a crying heap in front of "Anne's wall", still plastered with movie star photos. The film ends as it tells what happened to everyone mentioned in the story.
.
for the Best Miniseries.
Anne Frank: The Biography
Anne Frank: The Biography is the first full biography of Holocaust diarist Anne Frank. Written by Melissa Müller it was initially published in 1998 in Germany...
by Melissa Müller
Melissa Müller
Melissa Müller is an Austrian journalist and author.After working as an au pair for some time in London, Müller decided first for a study of the management economics and German Studies, afterwards she worked for different restaurant editorships and magazines.In the mid-1990s she decided to write...
. The mini-series aired on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
on May 20 and 21, 2001. The series starred :Ben Kingsley, :Brenda Blethyn, :Hannah Taylor-Gordon, and :Lili Taylor. Controversially, but in keeping with the claim made by Melissa Müller, the series asserts that the anonymous betrayer of the Frank family was the office cleaner, when in fact the betrayer's identity has never been established. A disagreement between the producers of the mini-series and the Anne Frank Foundation
Anne Frank Foundation
The Anne Frank Foundation or Anne Frank Stichting is a foundation in The Netherlands originally established to maintain the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam...
about validity of this and other details led to the withdrawal of their endorsement of the dramatization, which prevented the use of any quotations from the writings of Anne Frank
Anne Frank
Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank is one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films.Born in the city of Frankfurt...
appearing within the production. Hannah Taylor-Gordon
Hannah Taylor-Gordon
Hannah Taylor-Gordon is an English actress. She made her film debut in the 1993 movie The House of the Spirits. She is known for her role as Anne Frank in the TV miniseries Anne Frank: The Whole Story for which she received both an Emmy and a Golden Globe nomination...
received both Golden Globe and Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
nominations for her performance as Anne Frank, while Ben Kingsley
Ben Kingsley
Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE is a British actor. He has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
won a Screen Actor's Guild Award for his performance as Otto Frank
Otto Frank
Otto Heinrich "Pim" Frank was a German-born businessman and the father of Anne Frank and Margot Frank...
, Anne's father.
Cast
- Ben KingsleyBen KingsleySir Ben Kingsley, CBE is a British actor. He has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
... Otto FrankOtto FrankOtto Heinrich "Pim" Frank was a German-born businessman and the father of Anne Frank and Margot Frank... - Brenda BlethynBrenda BlethynBrenda Anne Blethyn, OBE is an English actress who has worked in theatre, television and film. Blethyn has received two Academy Award nominations, two SAG Award nominations, two Emmy Award nominations and three Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
... Auguste van Pels - Lili TaylorLili TaylorLili Anne Taylor is an American actress notable for her appearances in such award-winning indie films as Mystic Pizza, Say Anything..., Short Cuts and I Shot Andy Warhol, and the acclaimed TV show Six Feet Under....
... Miep GiesMiep GiesMiep Gies was one of the Dutch citizens who hid Anne Frank, her family and several family friends in an attic annex above Anne's father's place of business from the Nazis during World War II... - Hannah Taylor-GordonHannah Taylor-GordonHannah Taylor-Gordon is an English actress. She made her film debut in the 1993 movie The House of the Spirits. She is known for her role as Anne Frank in the TV miniseries Anne Frank: The Whole Story for which she received both an Emmy and a Golden Globe nomination...
... Anne FrankAnne FrankAnnelies Marie "Anne" Frank is one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films.Born in the city of Frankfurt... - Tatjana BlacherTatjana BlacherTatjana Blacher is a German actress. She is the daughter of composer Boris Blacher and Pianist Gerty Blacher-Herzog. Blacher studied at the Max Reinhardt seminar and at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. She is mostly known for her role as Edith Frank in Anne Frank: The Whole Story....
... Edith Frank - Jessica ManleyJessica ManleyJessica Manley is a British actress who has had appearances in a number of movies and numerous plays and TV series.-Life and career:...
... Margot FrankMargot FrankMargot Betti Frank was the older sister of Anne Frank, whose deportation order from the Gestapo hastened the Frank family into hiding, and who subsequently perished in Bergen-Belsen... - Joachim KrólJoachim KrólJoachim Król is a German actor, known for his appearances in the films Run Lola Run, Maybe, Maybe Not and Anne Frank: The Whole Story.-Life and work:...
... Hermann van Pels - Nicholas AudsleyNicholas AudsleyNicholas 'Nick' Robert Audsley is an actor of English descent, best known for his portrayal of Peter van Pels in Anne Frank: The Whole Story....
... Peter van Pels - Jan NiklasJan NiklasJan Niklas is a German actor. He is best known for playing in TV films such as Peter The Great, Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna and Anne Frank: The Whole Story. He also played in the Hungarian film Colonel Redl which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.-Early life:Jan...
... Fritz PfefferFritz PfefferFriedrich "Fritz" Pfeffer was a German dentist and Jewish refugee who hid with Anne Frank during the Nazi Occupation of the Netherlands, and who perished in the Neuengamme concentration camp in Northern Germany... - Rob DasRob DasRob Das is a Dutch film and television actor, director and writer. His movie appearances include in The Damned , Baby Blue , and De Zwarte Meteoor . His TV appearances include in the miniseries Anne Frank: The Whole Story , Fort Alpha and Vuurzee...
... Jan Gies - Johannes SilberschneiderJohannes SilberschneiderJohannes Silberschneider , is an Austrian actor. He has appeared in many movies and TV movies and serials...
... Johannes KleimanJohannes KleimanJohannes Kleiman was one of the Dutch citizens who helped hide Anne Frank and her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. In the published version of Anne's diary, The Diary of a Young Girl, he is given the pseudonym Mr. Koophuis... - Peter BolhuisPeter BolhuisPeter Bolhuis is a Dutch actor, with appearances in countless movies and TV serials. He is most notable for playing Vader Sofie in the Winky's Horse films, and Victor Kugler in the television miniseries Anne Frank: The Whole Story.-Selected filmography:*Whitefish as Joustra*Where Is Winky's...
... Victor KuglerVictor KuglerVictor Kugler was one of the people who helped hide Anne Frank and her family and friends during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. In Anne Frank's posthumously published diary, The Diary of a Young Girl, he was referred to under the name Mr... - Ela LehotskaEla LehotskaEla Lehotská is a Czech actress. She has appeared in a Czech film Puritptýz and played Bep Voskuijl in the 2001 ABC miniseries Anne Frank: The Whole Story. In 2008, she starred in the film František je děvkař...
... Bep VoskuijlBep VoskuijlElisabeth "Bep" Voskuijl helped conceal Anne Frank and her family from Nazi persecution during the occupation of the Netherlands.Bep was born in :Amsterdam... - Jade Williams ... Hannah "Hanneli" GoslarHanneli GoslarHannah 'Hanneli' Elisabeth Goslar is best known for her friendship with diarist Anne Frank. Both Hannah and Anne attended the Sixth Public Montessori School in Amsterdam and then the Jewish Lyceum....
- Victoria Anne Brown ... Jacqueline van MaarsenJacqueline van MaarsenJacqueline Yvonne Meta van Maarsen , simply known as "Jacque van Maarsen" is a Dutch bookbinder and writer. She is best known for her friendship with diarist Anne Frank...
- Jeff CasterJeff CasterJeff Caster is an American film and television actor. He has had appearances in many films and television series of both Europe and Australia...
... Lammert Hartog - Cees GeelCees GeelCees Geel is a Dutch television and film actor. His notable credits include in the TV miniseries :Anne Frank: The Whole Story and in the film :Simon .-Filmography:...
... Wilhelm van MaarenWilhelm van MaarenWilhelm Gerardus van Maaren was the person who was the most suspected for being the betrayer of Anne Frank. During the arrest of Anne Frank and the people who hid with her took place, van Maaren worked as the manager of the warehouse of Opekta and Gies & Co, of whose buildings the Secret Annex was... - :Branka Katic ... Charlotte KalettaPeople associated with Anne FrankAnnelies Marie “Anne” Frank was a Jewish girl who, along with her family and four other people, hid in rooms at the back of her father's Amsterdam company during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands...
- Dominique HorwitzDominique HorwitzDominique Horwitz is a German film and television actor and singer.-Life:Dominique Horwitz grew up in Paris where his parents ran a delicatessen shop. In 1971 the family moved to Berlin. He attended a Franco-German grammar-school. He has a sister and a brother. About twenty years Horwitz was...
... Hans Goslar - Klára IssováKlára IssováKlára Issová , sometimes known as Klára Issa, is a Czech film, stage and television actress. She is daughter of Syrian director Michel Issa, she is cousin of actress Martha Issová. Klára studied Conservatory...
... Janny Brandes-BrilleslijperJanny Brandes-BrilleslijperJanny Brandes-Brilleslijper was the person who informed Otto Frank about the deaths of Anne Frank and Margot Frank. Janny and her sister Lientje were in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp with Anne and Margot.-Life:... - Robert RussellRobert Russell-Politics:*Bob Russell , British Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester*Bob Russell , former leader of the Liberal Party of Alberta and municipal councillor in St. Albert, Alberta*Robert B...
... Mr. Keesing - :Michaela Horakova ... :Susanne Sanne Ledermann
- Suzanne FriedlineSuzanne Friedline (actress)Suzanne Friedline is an American actress and voice artist. She has appeared in numerous movies and TV series, as well as in theater dramas.-Early life:...
... Bep VoskuijlBep VoskuijlElisabeth "Bep" Voskuijl helped conceal Anne Frank and her family from Nazi persecution during the occupation of the Netherlands.Bep was born in :Amsterdam...
(voice)
Plot overview
The year is 1939 the year she realizes her world is beginning to change around her. Eventually, the Nazis invade the NetherlandsNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. Anne (:Hannah Taylor-Gordon) gets increasingly distressed as her rights are taken away, as well as her family ominously being forced to register as Jews with the government and to wear yellow stars. She is then forced to leave her school and attend a Jewish Lyceum, where she meets her new best friend, :Jacqueline van Maarsen (Victoria Anne Brown), who is only half-Jewish. She also meets Hello Silberberg (Nicky Cantor), on whom she develops a crush (it is implied Hello likes her too). On her 13th birthday, she receives the famous checkered-patterned diary and she immediately goes to her room to write her first entry.
A few weeks later, on a normal Sunday in July 1942, Margot (:Jessica Manley), Anne's sister, receives a call-up from the :Germans to be deported to a "labor camp" in the :East. :Otto Frank (:Ben Kingsley) moves his family into the now-renowned "Secret Annex", followed soon by Hermann and Auguste van Pels (:Joachim Krol and :Brenda Blethyn) and their son Peter (:Nicholas Audsley) , and Fritz Pfeffer
Fritz Pfeffer
Friedrich "Fritz" Pfeffer was a German dentist and Jewish refugee who hid with Anne Frank during the Nazi Occupation of the Netherlands, and who perished in the Neuengamme concentration camp in Northern Germany...
(:Jan Niklas), the Frank family's :dentist. During their stay in the annex, the Van Pels family members are noted for their constant bickering, Fritz becomes Anne's antagonist, and Anne has her first serious relationship with Peter, and receives her first kiss from him. All the while she wishes for an end to the war. Anne also gets her first period while in the annex - an occasion for which she'd been anxiously waiting . One night a thief breaks into the building below the annex, leaving the eight refugees in terror.
Eventually, on August 4, 1944, the Franks are betrayed by the cleaning lady, Lena Hartog (Veronica Nowag-Jones), of the :business in which the annex resides. The eight people in hiding are arrested and Anne's diary is dumped onto the floor while the Germans search for money. Two of the helpers (of those in the Secret Annex) are also arrested. Otto reveals his history as a German veteran of World War I.
Afterwards, the Franks are sent on a train to Westerbork
Westerbork (camp)
Westerbork concentration camp was a World War II Nazi refugee, detention and transit camp in Hooghalen, ten kilometres north of Westerbork, in the northeastern Netherlands. Its function during the Second World War was to assemble Roma and Dutch Jews for transport to other Nazi concentration...
, a transit camp, where Anne and her family and friends are held in the criminal "S Barracks". There, Anne meets a man named Farabi Musahan(chert) (:Klara Issova) and her sister Lientje (Zdenka Volencova), who are later seen with Anne in Bergen-Belsen
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle...
. Anne also befriends the camp's schoolteacher (Jaroslava Siktancova
Jaroslava Siktancova
Jaroslava Siktancova is an actress. She is best known for playing Shadout Mapes in Frank Herbert's 2000 sci-fi TV movie Dune.-Selected filmography:*Dune as Shadout Mapes...
), who often invites Anne to the camp school to tell the students stories (One of them is Mrs. Quackerbush from when Anne was a child).
Anne and her family are soon transported to Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
, where the women are stripped of their clothing and their hair is shorn. She is sadly separated from her father and the other men. During a selection for women in the camp to go to a safer place to work in a munitions factory, Anne's mother and sister are chosen, but Anne is not. Therefore, Edith and Margot choose to remain behind. Anne and Margot are sent to a scabies barracks and later deported to Bergen-Belsen, which is no more than many large tents on a muddy ground surrounded by an electric fence. Mrs. van Pels eventually arrives at the camp to find Anne very thin and Margot sick with typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
. One night Anne sees her old friend, Hannah (Jade Williams), through the fence. Hannah is a privileged prisoner and tells Anne that her father is dying but her sister is alive. She throws a package with bread and socks over to Anne.
In the last scene with Anne, Margot and Anne talk about past times, but Margot then falls out of bed and dies of shock. Anne, whose will to live is finally gone, looks up to the sky, defeated.
After the war in 1945, it is revealed that Otto is, in fact, alive. He looks for information about his daughters, but has no luck in doing so until he is directed to find Janny Brandes who survived the camp. Otto is told that Anne died a few days after Margot. Miep (:Lili Taylor), who helped the Franks to hide, gives Anne's preserved diary to Otto. Otto reads it all. He then goes up to the now empty annex and collapses in a crying heap in front of "Anne's wall", still plastered with movie star photos. The film ends as it tells what happened to everyone mentioned in the story.
Home video release
Anne Frank: The Whole Story was released on VHS and DVD on August 28, 2001 by Buena Vista Home Entertainment. There is not much difference between the DVD and VHS version of this movie since the only special feature on the DVD is a trailer of South PacificSouth Pacific (2001 film)
Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific is a made-for-television movie, directed by Richard Pearce in 2001. This ABC production starred Glenn Close, Harry Connick, Jr. and Rade Šerbedžija...
.
Reception
Anne Frank: The Whole Story earned critical acclaim from critics and viewers. The New York Post called the mini-series "Undeniably powerful" whereas others claimed it "a stunning tribute." This adaption has been named as "the best Anne Frank movie or mini-series yet." It was nominated for three Golden Globes, and won the Emmy AwardEmmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for the Best Miniseries.