Anne Frank's "One True Love" Revealed

"Peter was the ideal boy: tall, slim and good-looking, with a serious, quiet and intelligent face," is what Anne Frank wrote about her true love a year and a half after entering into hiding. She goes on to talk about how she'd met him when she was only 11 and how much she loved him. Anne and Peter never saw one another again. She would die in the Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp in 1945, and Peter died in the well known Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

Peter's former childhood friend Ernst Michaelis was the one who came forward recently and donated the photo of Peter to the Anne Frank Museum (located in Amsterdam, The Netherlands). He had recently re-read the Diary and realized there were no photos of Peter. So he contacted the museum and offered them the only photo he had of Peter. We can now see what Anne Frank was talking about when she described Peter in her diary.

"He had dark hair, beautiful brown eyes, ruddy cheeks and a nicely pointed nose. I was crazy about his smile, which made him look so boyish and mischievous." she wrote after dreaming about him over a year after she went into hiding with her family. She hadn't seen Peter since just before she entered the annex with her family. Yet she remembered so vividly what he looked like and why it was she fell in love with him in the first place.

"I've never had such a clear mental image of him. I don't need a photograph, I can see him oh so well," she said. Anne's love for Peter was very clear, and it is with great joy that we look upon Peter's face for the first time. I remember reading the book when I was ten years old and I always wondered about who Peter was. The way she spoke of him introduced me to the idea of romance and I never forgot the feeling it gave me to read her passionate words.

To see a photo of Peter and to know his story from his childhood friend brings me great joy. It is my great hope to travel to Europe one day and make a trip to the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam.