Anne Frank Foundation Threatens to Sue Anyone Who Publishes ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’ Online

Anne Frank Fronds, the non-profit organization founded by Otto Frank, Anne Frank's father, warns that they will not hesitate to take legal action against anyone who publishes "The Diary of a Young Girl" online. Despite the warning, a French MP and a university lecturer have made the original Dutch version of Anne Frank's diary available for free on their own websites.

This action marks the 70^th year of Anne Frank's death, which also means the end of the copyright to her written work, and its entry into public domain. According to a 1993 European copyright law, rights to any written work expire 70 years after its author's death, and the book becomes public property. However, the Anne Frank Fronds foundation contests this, saying it still owns publication rights. According to The Guardian, the foundation informed the AFP news agency that it would sue if the diary was published. The Telegraph reveals that the foundation also informed French publishers back in October that the diary would not be available to the public domain on January 1, 2016. It claims that the definitive version of Anne Frank's diary is the one published by the Dutch State Institute for War Documentation in 1986, with a copyright that ends in 2037.

Yves Kugelmann, member of the foundation's Board of Trustees, says the words were Anne's, but Otto Frank was responsible for merging and compiling two versions of the diary that Anne left behind "into one reader-friendly version". Moreover, for copyright purposes, "he is to be viewed as the 'author' of that version."

"The Diary of a Young Girl" chronicles events in the life of Anne Frank from 1942-1944, during her time hiding from the Nazis with her family in a secret annex of a canal house in Amsterdam. Anne was only 15 when she and older sister, Margot, died of exhaustion and typhus in the Belgen-Belsen concentration camp, sometime in February 1945, a few weeks before the camp was liberated by British soldiers in April. She rose to fame posthumously, upon her father's publication of her diary in 1947. Since then, The Diary of a Young Girl has become an international bestseller, sold more than 30 million copies, translated into 67 languages, and inspired numerous films and plays. It is considered one of the primary sources of wartime literature, and an enduring symbol of the Holocaust.  

French MP Isabella Attard, posted on her website that the whole world can now "use, translate, and interpret these works." She is unmoved by the threat of legal action and says the issue is merely "a question of money."  University of Nantes lecturer, Olivier Ertzscheid, published two French versions of the diary on his website in October, but removed it after receiving a letter informing him that the copyright was still in effect. Ertzscheid recently published the original Dutch version on his website and wrote that the diary now rightfully "belongs to everyone" and that "it is up to each to measure its importance."

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