Anne recieves a diary for her 13th birthday on June 12, 1942.

She begins writing in her diary, not knowing that only in a month she will be in hiding. In her diary Anne Frank wrote down her thoughts, comments, and pasted a bit of everything into it. In the diary Anne writes letters to imaginary friends because it would have been too dangerous to correspond with somebody in the outside world. In stead of just writing private thoughts in her diary, Anne also writes about daily life in hiding and news about the outside world. Anne criticizes others and herself.

During hiding Anne rewrites some diary entries into stories. She also writes some fantasy stories. All of her stories are now published.

After hearing a radio broadcast for a call-up of ordinary citizens to provides their diaries after the war for historical purposes, Anne rewrites her diary into a real book thinking it could be of interest to others. Anne rewrites a large portion of her diary, 321 pages, before the hiders are arrested. She changes the names of the hiders and helpers for the rewrite: (Hiders:) Mr. Pfeffer to Albert Dussel, Mr. and Mrs. van Pels to Mr. and Mrs. van Daan, and Peter van Pels to Peter van Daan. (Helpers:) Miep Gies to Miep van Santen, Bep Voskjuil to Elli Vossen, Johannes Kleiman to Mr. Koophuis and Victor Kugler to Mr. Kraler.

Otto Frank returns to the annex after the war. He finds out his daughter Anne has died. Miep Gies gives Otto Frank what is left of Anne, her diary. Otto Frank learns about Anne's deep inner thoughts.

Several friends urge Otto to publish Anne's diary. He finally fulfills Anne's dream by publishing the already chosen title The Secret Annex in June of 1947 in the Netherlands. This book includes Anne's rewritten version and parts of the original diary, but about 30 percent of the diary was removed. Otto Frank did not want parts of the diary that talked about Anne's negative feeling about her mother and others to be published. With the publication of the diary Otto Frank gives the Van Pels family and Fritz Pfeffer the names that Anne created for them.

After the release of 1,500 copies the diary is published in more than 55 languages because of the large demand. Anne Frank's diary is one of the most read books in the world, more then 24 million copies have been sold.

The stage version of The Diary of Anne Frank was in 1955. The film version premiered in 1959.

The words of Anne Frank was published in 1986 titled The Diary of Anne Frank by the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation. This book proved that it was written by Anne Frank in 1942-1944 while she was in hiding. This edition included tests verifying the authencity of the diary. Finally the accusations that it must have been written after the war by someone else stoped.

In 1995 Double Day published another version of the diary on the 50th anniversary of Anne Frank's death. This edition includes parts of the diary that Otto Frank took out.