Oxford new pathways coursebook Characters

Anne Frank

The diary's author and its whole heart: a chatty, self-critical, wildly alive teenager who wants to be a writer and a good person. Two years in hiding forge her from a schoolgirl into a clear-eyed observer of others and herself—then the war takes her, and leaves the voice.

Appears in:

Part 1: A Thirteenth Birthday and a Choice

Part 2: Behind the Bookcase

Part 3: The Girl Inside the Writer

Part 4: The Silence After

Themes:

The witness

Hatred in small print

Growing up under glass

Hope against evidence

The power of a private voice

Otto Frank

Anne's father, the calm centre of the annex and the person she loves most. He is the only resident to survive the camps, and the one who finally reads, edits and publishes her diary.

Margot Frank

Anne's older sister: quiet, dutiful, the 'good' daughter Anne measures herself against. Her call-up notice is what forces the family into hiding; she dies in Bergen-Belsen with Anne.

Appears in:

Part 1: A Thirteenth Birthday and a Choice

Part 4: The Silence After

Themes:

Hatred in small print

Peter van Daan

The shy teenage boy in the attic who becomes Anne's first almost-love. Their quiet evenings together give her one of her few moments of pure happiness in hiding.

Appears in:

Part 2: Behind the Bookcase

Part 3: The Girl Inside the Writer

Themes:

Growing up under glass

Miep Gies

One of the office helpers who keeps the annex fed and hidden for two years. She gathers Anne's scattered diary pages after the arrest and keeps them until Otto returns.

Appears in:

Part 2: Behind the Bookcase

Part 4: The Silence After