Photos of Anne Frank are seen at the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam. Photo: Reuters/Eva Plevier

A social media initiative launched on Friday aims to make Holocaust education more accessible to younger generations on what would have been the 97th birthday of Holocaust victim and Jewish teenage diarist Anne Frank.

The Anne Frank Center USA, a nonprofit organization based in New York dedicated to promoting education that honors Frank’s legacy, launched on TikTok and Instagram the account @AnneFrankLifeStory. The account will publish short-form animated videos inspired by Frank’s diary that she kept during the Holocaust, moderated Q&As, and interactive educational content. The account hopes to be a trusted resource for Holocaust education online, encourage dialogue and an understanding of the Holocaust, and also combat hate and misinformation online.

“Anne Frank’s diary continues to challenge each generation to confront hatred with moral courage, empathy, and resilience. Today, that challenge is unfolding on the digital platforms where young people are learning and interacting,” said Dr. Lauren Bairnsfather, CEO of Anne Frank Center USA. “With @AnneFrankLifeStory, we are creating a credible and accessible destination for audiences to explore Anne Frank’s legacy and turn awareness into action against intolerance.”

Anne Frank Center USA is raising funds to support the project, which was developed in partnership with French-Jewish video game creator and director Luc Bernard. He created the virtual Holocaust museum “Voices of the Forgotten” that is showcased inside the popular video game “Fortnite.”

“Social media has become one of the most influential spaces for education and conversation, and it’s critical that Holocaust education exists on these platforms,” said Bernard. “As fewer survivors are able to tell their stories firsthand, accounts like @AnneFrankLifeStory help ensure young people can continue engaging with history in a meaningful way, while actively countering rising antisemitism online. Anne Frank Center USA has played an important role in evolving how Anne Frank’s story is shared and experienced today, and I’m proud to partner with the organization to bring this initiative to life.”

Frank was born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt, Germany. On her 13th birthday in 1942, she received the diary that would later become one of the most popular and educational first-person accounts of the Holocaust. Frank’s memoir was first published in 1947 and titled “The Diary of a Young Girl.” The diary has been translated into more than 70 languages with over 30 million copies sold.

Frank and her family, along with four others, hid during the Holocaust in an annex of rooms in Amsterdam, which has since been converted into the Anne Frank House museum. They hid for over two years, but the Nazis ultimately discovered them. They were all arrested and deported to Nazi concentration camps.

Seven months after she was arrested, Frank died of typhus at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945 at the age of 15. The only person who hid in the annex and survived the Holocaust was Frank’s father, Otto.

Otto made efforts in the 1950s to raise funds to support the restoration of the Anne Frank House in The Netherlands. He established the Anne Frank Foundation in New York as a fundraising organization, and it evolved into the Anne Frank Center USA, which secured nonprofit status in New York in 1977.