Famous People from Holland
Anne Frank
Anne Frank was born in 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany.
Her parents, Otto and Edith were Jewish. In 1933 the Nazis, lead by Adolf
Hitler, came to power in Germany. They began to persecute everyone they considered
enemies or opponents. Highest on their list were Jews.
Anne's father, Otto, chose to take his family to the
Netherlands because it had a long history of welcoming foreigners. Amsterdam, the
biggest city, had a large Jewish community and the country had remained neutral, i.e. took
no part in the fighting, during World War I.
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On the 10th of May 1940, Germany invaded
the Netherlands. In 1942 the Frank family went into hiding in a secret annexe.
Two years later they were captured by the Nazis and sent to concentration camps.
Of the eight people who were arrested in the annexe only Otto Frank survived.
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By 1945,when World War II ended, at least 6 million
Jews had been killed - shot, gassed, beaten or worked to death. Anne Frank was one
of the 6 million Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis. During the two years that
she and her family spent in hiding in Amsterdam,
she kept a diary called 'Kitty' in which she recorded all her dreams and fears. This
diary survived the war and was first published in 1947. It has since been translated
into 50 languages and over 20 million copies have been sold. The building where the
Frank family spent two years in hiding, has been turned into a museum attracting visitors
from all over the world. Back to
the top
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Rembrandt
Rembrandt was one of the greatest artist of all time.
He lived and painted in Holland. He was born in 1606 and died in 1669.
Rembrandt painted over a 100 self-portraits, probably more than any other famous
artist. He also painted many scenes from the Bible. He used his family and
relatives as models in many of his works. |
Even though people paid Rembrandt a lot of money for
his paintings, he never seemed to have any money. This is because he bought a big,
expensive house and collected all kinds of things like jewellery, antiques, statues and
fancy clothes, all of which he used in his paintings.
Rembrandt lived to be sixty-three years old and he
painted right up to the end of his life. Maybe the most important thing about
Rembrandt's paintings are the people in them. He made them seem alive, even more
real than in a photograph. For this reason people think he's the greastest painter
who ever lived. His home in Amsterdam is
now a famous museum. Back to the
top
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh was born in Groot-Zundert, Holland on
the 30th of March 1853. As a young boy he showed no particular interest in drawing
or painting. Often he was a lonely child and a difficult one too. It wasn't
until 1880, at the age of twenty-seven, that he decided to become an artist. Once he
had made the decision to become a painter, he worked enormously hard, usually spending ten
or twelve hours a day painting. |
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Often, Vincent went without food in order to pay for
paints and canvas with what little money he had. Van Gogh's life was far from happy.
In 1888, following an argument with fellow artist, Paul Gauguin, he cut off part of
his own ear with a razor. His work received little or no recognition during his
lifetime and on July 29, 1890 aged just thirty-seven, he committed suicide. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam contains some of his
greatest paintings.
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