For the children in the Secret Annex, it was important to ensure that they could return to school after the expected end of the war and the restoration of normality. Anne writes frequently about how she hoped and expected to be able to continue her education. In July '44, a few weeks after D-Day, she expected to be back in school in October.^[1] Margot, Anne and Peter were regularly updating their school knowledge. Some of the adults were also engaged in self-study. The plan drawn up by Hermann van Pels and quoted by Anne Prospectus and leitmotif for the Secret Annex stated that the people there would help and correct each other when making mistakes in the Dutch language.^[2]

Anne

Anne attended the Sixth Montessori School on Niersstraat in Amsterdam's Rivierenbuurt neighbourhood. It was initially planned that she would stay there for an extra year after the summer of 1941, but because of educational segregation she had to go to the Jewish Lyceum.^[3] In August '42, once in hiding, she received tutoring from her father. Her school knowledge was draining away.^[4] Her father tried to help her with sums, but because they were also beyond him, Margot had to step in.^[5] She studied French, especially irregular verbs, and read the book La belle Nivernaise by Alphonse Daudet.^[6] German reading progressed.^[7] She also learned the words for 'brothel' and 'cocotte', which must not have been part of the regular curriculum.^[8]

On 27 April 1944, Anne describes what she learned one day. About Brazil, she quotes passages from her land and ethnography book. The comparison between the Mississippi River and the Missouri River is from the same book.^[9] The passages about monkeys and hippos she also derived from a textbook.^[10] She additionally mentions a large number of historical figures, but it is not known which book she used for them. She loved history, but had an aversion to algebra, geometry and arithmetic.^[11] Algebra she learned only under pressure from her father.^[12] Other subjects she studied included art, mythology, Dutch literature and biblical history.^[13] For her last birthday, 12 June 1944, she received, among other things, the booklet Principles of Botany.^[14] In the front she wrote, "Anne Frank 12 June 1944 Secret Annex."^[15] Since Anne had never shown a particular interest in plants, this gift must also have been a result of the hope of returning to school.

Together with Margot and her father, Anne took the shorthand course of the institute Cursus Zelfontwikkeling.^[16] This Amsterdam-West institute had been offering correspondence courses for years. In early 1940 this stenography course cost 65 cents per month.^[17] In September 1943 it was 85 cents per month.^[18] Even before the end of that year the price increased to a guilder a month.^[19] Progress is discussed regularly in the diary, sometimes quite appropriately in shorthand form. Anne wanted to go from 75 syllables per minute to 140.^[20] According to the B version, Anne, Margot and Peter took the course,^[21] and finished it in March '43.^[22] However, Anne was still working on it in July of that year as well.^[23]

Margot

Margot had to leave the Municipal Lyceum for Girls in the autumn of 1941,^[24] to attend the newly founded Jewish Lyceum.^[25] In the Secret Annex, Margot kept up with regular school subjects, and, like Anne and her father, took the stenography course. She considered taking a course in calligraphy at the same institute.^[26] However, Anne does not return to this in her diary.

In the autumn of 1943, Margot did enroll at Leidse Onderwijsinstellingen (LOI) for a course in Elementary Latin.^[27] She chose a pace of one lesson per week, with payment one month in advance, and she wanted to keep the material upon completion. She submitted her lessons under the name Elly Voskuijl.^[28] It was therefore Bep who took care of sending in the assignments she made.^[29] Teacher A.C. Nielson corrected Margot's work, very regularly adding compliments.^[30] Otto Frank, former grammar school student, helped Margot, and in the B version Anne describes them as "the Latinists".^[31]

During the hiding period, Margot studied English, French, shorthand (English, German and Dutch), mechanics, trigonometry, stereometry, physics, chemistry, algebra, geometry, English, French and German literature, bookkeeping, geography, modern history, biology and economics, in addition to the Latin course.^[32]

After the arrest, Bep wrote to LOI that she wanted to discontinue the course.^[33] It was not until June ' 45 that she wrote to this institute how things really were.^[34] In 1947, Nielson received a copy of The Secret Annex by Otto Frank, and wrote in his letter of thanks: "During the war, hundreds of people in hiding [...] attended our classes. [...] Hundreds of letters from this time I keep as a precious memory of the many lonely and anxious people in hiding, to whom my lessons brought comfort and culture [...].'^[35]

In correspondence about the post-war Entschädigung, Otto Frank's lawyer wrote on his authority that Margot would have liked to study medicine. The Latin course was intended as preparation for this.^[36] Anne writes that Margot wanted to go to Palestine as a maternity nurse.^[37] This played out around the time that Palestina op de tweesprong (Palestine at the Crossroads) was being read in the Secret Annex, which discussed professional child care in detail.^[38] Otto Frank believed that this change of direction was a result of the increasing hopelessness caused by the ongoing occupation.^[37]

Otto and Edith Frank

Anne was tutored by her father, but she helped him with Dutch. She made fun of his mistakes, for example when he mixed up the Dutch 'klotsen' and the German 'glotzen'.^[39] She was rather negative about her mother's Dutch.^[40] To what extent Edith Frank mastered the Dutch language is unclear. According to her husband, she was also taught English for some time by Rosey Pool, a later teacher at the Jewish Lyceum.^[41] In the Secret Annex, according to Anne, Edith was still learning English, but in writing.^[42] Improvement in English proficiency was basically done with a view to the intended emigration to England or America.

Peter

Before going into hiding, Peter attended vocational training. In a well-known photo of him, he is working on the upholstery and springs of a chair or sofa.^[43] According to Anne, he was still learning woodworking in the Secret Annex.^[13] She was probably referring to the theory of this course.

Peter was working on English in the autumn of '42, and French in early '44.^[44] He got help with French from Anne, who incidentally writes that he was good at English and geography.^[45] In 1963, Otto Frank recounted that on 4 August 1944, he was helping Peter with English at the moment when the Sicherheitsdienst raided the Secret Annex.^[46]

Hermann and Auguste van Pels

The Prospectus and leitmotif for the Secret Annex, according to Anne created by Hermann van Pels,^[2] was written in fairly good Dutch. Anne suggests elsewhere that his Dutch left much to be desired,^[47] which might indicate that he had help writing it. Auguste van Pels, according to Anne, was studying a language book while stirring in a pan.^[48] The museum collection of the Anne Frank Foundation contains a Kleine Niederländische Sprachlehre for school and self-study.^[49] Despite her efforts, Anne said she spoke 'outrageous' Dutch.^[50] If this is true, the good intention mentioned in the "Prospectus" to help each other learn the language did not come to pass.

Fritz Pfeffer

In connection with his intended emigration to South America, Pfeffer taught himself Spanish. Among other things, he translated the Spanish-language travel guide Holande. Mi viaje a travès de los Paises Bajos by W. Fernandez Flores into Dutch.^[51] Anne writes repeatedly about Pfeffer working relentlessly on his 'pensum'.^[52]

In improving his correspondence, he received help from Margot; Anne condescendingly called it "education for children who get no further".^[53] Considering that in 1920 Pfeffer had graduated as "Dr. med. dent.",^[54] his cognitive abilities will not have been so poor in reality.

The people in the Secret Annex were much occupied with learning and reading, because there was not much to do besides household chores and support work for the businesses. The children in particular were trying to keep their knowledge up to date in the context of an expected return to school.