The set of provisions and rules introduced by the German authorities to identify, isolate, deport and eventually kill the Jewish population group forms the subject of the anti-Jewish measures in this article. The Frank family and their peers also faced these measures, of course, which eventually forced them to go into hiding. Anne Frank describes several of them in her diary.

Life in Germany and the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, the occupying power took measures stemming from the persecution of Jews in Germany. There, Jews had been targeted by National Socialist racial politics since Hitler's rise to power in 1933. The nationwide boycott of April 1933 had been waged strongly in the banking city of Frankfurt against Jews active in the banking sector. The Frank family's bank may have already gone under, but they were among the group targeted. Initially, many decrees in Germany were regional or local. The Frank family already emigrated to the Netherlands in the course of 1933, even before a centralised approach was established. As to the reason for this departure, Otto Frank stated in 1946: 'Since I was a Jew, I went to the Netherlands after Hitler came to power in 1933.'^[1] In the summer of 1937, the Van Pels family came to Amsterdam and, after Kristallnacht, so did Fritz Pfeffer. Some 33,000 Jewish refugees fled to the Netherlands between 1933 and 1939.^[2]

In the first part of her diary, Anne lists a series of measures taken by the German authorities from the point they started to exercise power in the Netherlands.^[3] She mistakenly mentions food distribution, as it had been instituted by the Dutch government eight months before the German invasion. Furthermore, she mainly mentions things that restricted her immediate freedom of movement: staying indoors from eight to six, not playing sports, not going to the cinema or theatre, going to a separate school. In the later diary entries, some of this comes up retrospectively. These notes sometimes distort the picture; the measures that barred her from public transport dated from 30 June 1942 - just one week before she went into hiding. School segregation, the sports ban and wearing a "yellow badge" were things she did have to deal with for a longer period of time.

Among the Jewish population in the Netherlands, the initial reaction to the German invasion was wide-ranging. Although there were attempts to flee to England and there were also a large number of suicides, the majority took a wait-and-see approach. Discriminatory measures were introduced very gradually. For German Jews (or rather Jews from Germany, like the Van Pels family who did have Dutch nationality), the situation was difficult. By their speech and mannerisms, they were recognisable, and less able to keep a low profile.

The banning of Jews from air raid shelters on 15 July 1940 is considered the first anti-Jewish measure in the Netherlands. From 5 August there was a ban on ritual slaughter.^[3] Although it was not presented as an anti-Jewish measure, in practice it amounted to one. An important follow-up step was the Aryan declaration. All Dutch officials were summoned in October 1940 to testify to their racial origin. In effect, Jewish officials were asked to identify themselves.^[4] Dismissal soon followed. The measure did meanwhile require the German occupying forces to define 'the Jew'. On 22 October, Ordinance VO 189/1940 was brought in for this purpose.^[5] This regulation listed the following criteria for being a Jew:

1. A Jew is anyone who descends from at least three racially full-Jewish grandparents.
2. Also classified as a Jew is anyone descended from two full-Jewish grandparents and:
   Either belonged to the Jewish-church congregation on May 9, 1940, or was included in it after that date.
   Or was married to a Jew on May 9, 1940, or married a Jew after that moment.
3. A grandparent is considered full-Jewish if he or she belonged to the Jewish-church congregation.

This was followed by steps to exclude Jews and deprive them of their property. VO 189/1940 required Jewish businesses to register with the Wirtschaftsprufstelle. This institution decided on the further confiscation or liquidation of these enterprises. Otto Frank suffered the consequences of this with Opekta and Pectacon. From 10 January 1941, pursuant to VO 6/1941, all persons of 'wholly or partly Jewish blood' had to register as such with the Population Register of their place of residence.^[6] The measure was barely evaded, including by the Frank family. This was later evidenced, among other things, by the fact that Margot Frank received a call up to report for labour.^[7] In June 1941, a decision was taken that Jews would have a 'J' stamped on their identity cards as a mark.^[8]

Building on these registrations, a variety of regulations were issued in 1941, which further isolated the Jewish population. With the establishment of the Jewish Council for Amsterdam in February, the occupying forces created a body to impose discriminatory provisions on the Jewish population.^[9] In the summer of that year, Anne and Margot Frank were directly affected when they both had to attend Jewish education. There, they were taught exclusively by Jewish teachers. In Amsterdam, the municipality's Education Department implemented this segregation, and not the Jewish Council as often thought.^[10] In September 1941, when Jews were excluded from many areas of social life, including sports, Margot also had to leave her rowing club.^[11]

The ban on using public swimming pools was announced in June 1941.^[12] Anne writes to her grandmother in late June: 'I don't have much chance to get a tan because we are not allowed in the pool (...).' ^[13] On 25 November 1941, all German Jews living outside Germany were stripped of their German nationality. This general measure thus affected the Franks and Pfeffer.^[14] Unlike the Van Pels family, who remained Dutch, they continued to go through life stateless. Anne mentions this status: 'Nice people, those Germans, and actually I am one of them too! But no, Hitler made us stateless a long time ago (...).' ^[15]

The compulsory "yellow badge" followed on 3 May 1942.^[16] On 21 May 1942, the measure was brought in that Jews had to turn in all their property and assets above the value of two hundred and fifty guilders to Lippmann-Rosenthal bank by 30 June. Other valuables also had to be handed in. Among other things, Otto Frank handed in a considerable amount of cash and silverware.

Anne mentions the mandatory handing in of bicycles: 'Jews must hand in their bicycles.'^[3] It is true that between 20 and 22 July 1942, Amsterdam Jews had to hand in their bicycles. So the Frank family had not been affected by this since they were already in hiding by then. Anne no longer had a bicycle because it had been stolen^[17] and Otto had placed his wife's with acquaintances.^[18] Margot was therefore still able to cycle to Prinsengracht on 6 July, the day she went into hiding. In response to the accumulation of measures in June 1942, Anne quotes her friend Jacqueline van Maarsen, who said: 'I don't dare do anything anymore because I'm afraid it's not allowed.'^[3] Presser also pointed to the opacity of the set of measures. He wrote that there was sometimes more than a week between the imposition of a ban and its publication. Nevertheless, the German authority punished people who violated such bans, of which they were unaware.^[19]

The series of anti-Jewish measures in the period from January 1941 to the summer of 1942 resulted in the isolation of Dutch Jews. In June 1941, there was a raid in Amsterdam-Zuid, following a bombing of a Wehrmacht building. Among the more than 300 men rounded up were acquaintances of the Frank family: a son of the Lewkowitz family and a boarder of the Ledermann family.^[20] They perished in Mauthausen, as did many of their peers.^[21] Given the social contacts with these families, this brought the threat to the Frank family closer.

The call for Margot Frank to report for work in Germany arrived on 5 July 1942. Margot was thus among the first group of Jews to be called up for labour deployment. As in many cases, this personal danger was decisive in the decision to go into hiding immediately. For the first time, they evaded German measures, something that many other Jews were unable to do. This was unusual, as only one in seven Jews in the Netherlands even attempted to go into hiding.^[22]

While in hiding

Particularly in the period in late September 1942 and early October 1942, anti-Jewish politics clearly kept Anne busy, as she wrote about them regularly. In July and August 1942, several large raids took place in Amsterdam. She wondered if her friends Lies and Ilse were still there and wrote on 14 October 1942 about her fear that Peter Schiff had already been killed. She heard from Bep Voskuijl that classmate Betty Bloemendal had been sent to Poland with her family. Van Pels, Pfeffer and Miep told them about the round-ups in her old neighborhood and the scenes that accompanied them. Pharmacist Arthur Lewinsohn, who was regularly in the building to carry out experiments with Kugler, telephoned under the name 'Müller', according to Anne, because he was not allowed to call 'Christian people'.

Fritz Pfeffer's arrival in November was surprising in itself. After all, to the outside world, he was lawfully married to Charlotte Kaletta. That this was not so in reality meant that he lacked the relative protection of a mixed marriage. This was due to the fact that the marriage could not take place in Germany because of the Nuremberg laws and in the Netherlands because of international treaties.^[23] Otto Frank later stated that he only heard about Pfeffer's situation from Miep Gies when he was in the Secret Annex.^[24] In her A-version, Anne did not mention the background of Pfeffer's status at all. The B-version reads: 'He lives with a much younger and nice Christian woman, whom he is probably not married to, but that is a side issue.'^[25] It is plausible that Anne, too, only gradually learned the true facts.

During the first months of hiding, Anne writes several times about Westerbork and the Jewish Council. Both Westerbork and the Jewish Council were important in implementing anti-Jewish policies in the Netherlands. Westerbork had been established in 1939 to receive Jewish refugees from Germany, but on 1 July 1942 it was designated as a Polizeiliches Judendurchgangslager. In October 1942, Anne wrote that conditions in Westerbork were terrible.^[26] She could know this because the Wronker couple, acquaintances of the family, were allowed to return to Amsterdam at that time after staying in the camp.^[27] Miep had visited them and she would have conveyed messages.

Extermination

It was known in the summer of 1942 that hardships awaited Jews after deportation. Anne was afraid and assumed the worst. She wrote: 'If it is already so bad in Holland how will they live in the distant and barbaric regions where they will be sent. We assume that most of them will be murdered. The English radio talks about gassing: perhaps that is the quickest method of death.' The date of this quote is 9 October 1942, but since the note is from the B version, it is certain that Anne did not actually write it before May 1944. Nevertheless, it is true that Anglo-Saxon media were reporting mass killings in June 1942,^[28] including through gas^[29], and this thus became widely known. From that month, remarks about gassing also appeared more than incidentally in diaries of Dutch people.^[30] In February 1944, Anne wrote again that in eastern Europe: 'millions and more millions' were gassed.^[31] Poland as a fearful deportation destination recurred several times in her notes from September 1942 onwards.^[32]

The general liquidation of the last remnants of the Jewish Council followed on 29 September 1943. The only ones left behind were some specific groups, such as the mixed married people.^[33] And the people in hiding, the exact number of which group has been subject to varying estimates. However, they were effectively hunted down and the number of those arrested ran into the thousands.^[34] The hiding attempt in the Secret Annex did not have a happy ending. How it ended is well enough known: the Sicherheitdienst got wind of the matter in a way as yet unknown, and on 4 August 1944 a raid and arrest followed. Seven of the eight people in hiding did not survive deportation.