According to her diary, Anne Frank lived in Frankfurt, Germany and then moved to Holland with her family in 1933, when she was four years old. She is explicit that the family's reason for leaving Germany for Holland had to do with their being Jewish.
Anne expresses worry in her diary for family members who stayed behind in Germany and explains that two uncles were able to escape Germany for North America. Her grandmother came to Holland to live with the Franks, and she died in 1942 after an illness.
Even though the Franks had left Germany with the hopes of leaving Hitler's oppression, the anti-Jewish sentiments followed them to Holland. Despite Holland's claim to neutrality, the Germans invaded and forced the Jews living in Holland to live with Hitler's laws and conditions, limiting the freedoms of Jews.
The Franks were Jewish. When Adolph Hitler took power in January of 1933, he immediately began persecuting the Jews. Otto Frank, Anne's father, was unhappy to leave Germany yet knew the family had little choice but to find a new country of residence. Otto had business ties in Holland (also called the Netherlands). Otto was able to find work there as the director of a Dutch jam making company. He moved to Holland from Frankfurt in August 1933, and by 1934, the young Anne Frank and the rest of the family had followed.
Otto Frank thought the family would be safe from Nazi persecution in the Netherlands, and they were until 1940. In 1940, the Germans invaded and took over the country, and life became very hard for the Franks. They were forced into hiding, and, while in hiding, Anne wrote her famous diary.
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