A picture of Holocaust victim Anne Frank, aged 80

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A picture of Holocaust victim Anne Frank, aged 80

It is a picture of what might have been, of a "beautiful, kind-looking lady", her face wrinkled by the passage of time over a life never lived: Holocaust victim Anne Frank at the age of 80.

by Ian Johnston
Published: 5:02PM BST 06 Jun 2009


The Anne Frank Trust UK commissioned the age progression photograph
to mark the diarist's 80th birthday on 12th June

The 'age progression' image shows the diarist as she might have appeared today had she not died of typhus and starvation at the age of 15 in Bergen Belsen in March 1945, just a few weeks before the Nazi concentration camp was liberated by British troops.

Created for the Anne Frank Trust UK to mark her birthday on Friday - using the same techniques developed to artificially age missing people such as toddler Madeleine McCann - it is hoped the picture will help inspire Britain's school children to think about the kind of lives they would like to lead, and to remember the loss of six million people in the Holocaust.

The Trust will launch a competition for children to write a letter to their 80-year-old selves, one of a number of projects being run across the world to mark the anniversary and challenge racist attitudes.

Anne's half-sister Eva Schloss, a survivor of Auschwitz who played with her as a child in Amsterdam, saw the aged image for the first time on Thursday.

"I must say I was a bit shocked... I don't really know why," she said.

"It is a beautiful lady, very gentle, very kind-looking with this gentle smile."

The aged image was produced by a Michigan firm called Phojoe which has worked with US police on dozens of missing persons cases.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/netherlands/5462049/A-picture-of-Holocaust-victim-Anne-Frank-aged-80.html

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