In July 1945, Otto Frank met with sisters Janny and Lientje Brilleslijper. They had been imprisoned at Bergen-Belsen with Anne and Margot. They told him about the miserable last months of his daughters and how they had died of typhus.
Miep, too, heard the terrible news. She had kept Anne’s diaries for her. Now that Anne was not coming back, she handed them to Otto.
For some time, Otto could not summon the courage to read them, but once he started reading, he was gripped by her writing. ‘I had no idea of the depths of her thoughts and feelings.’
Otto copied passages from the diaries and asked relatives and friends to read them. Some of them felt that he should publish the diary. Others were set against it. Otto eventually decided to go ahead and compiled a manuscript for publishers to read.