Which specific passages did Otto Frank remove from the 1947 edition, and where can the restored text be read?
Executive summary
Otto Frank’s 1947 edition (Version C) omitted passages in which Anne Frank criticized her parents’ marriage, wrote candidly about her emerging sexuality (including jokes and frank body-curiosity), and made harsh, often private observations about other people in the Secret Annex; scholars estimate roughly a quarter to a third of material was absent from that first public edition [1] [2] [3]. Those excised passages were progressively restored in later scholarly publications — most notably the NIOD critical edition (1986/1991) and the Definitive and Revised Critical Editions (1995–2003) — and can now be consulted in annotated editions and in online presentations of the complete works at the Anne Frank House [4] [5] [6].
1. What Otto Frank removed: the categories and one named example
Otto Frank’s edits removed three broad categories of material: blunt criticisms of family members (especially Anne’s negative impressions of her mother and a specific letter harsh about Otto’s marriage to Edith), sexually explicit passages and “dirty” jokes reflecting adolescent curiosity, and severely unflattering or “savage” portrayals of friends, acquaintances and fellow Annex inhabitants — including frank notes about her attraction to Peter van Pels and bodily curiosities typical of puberty [7] [8] [1] [9].
2. How many passages and why those choices were made
The initial publication was shortened both to fit a publisher’s series format and to avoid offending postwar conservative sensibilities; Otto accepted editorial deletions beyond his own choices — the publisher later counted some 26 further passages removed at editorial request — and contemporary readers were presented a version deemed suitable for general audiences in 1947 [2] [1]. Secondary accounts and scholars characterize Version C as a collated, edited selection Otto produced from Anne’s two manuscript versions (A and B) and from material she herself had started to rewrite for possible publication [3] [9].
3. Specific, documented excisions: the letter about Otto’s marriage and sexual references
The Anne Frank House and other authoritative accounts note that Otto withheld a diary letter in which Anne wrote very critically about his marriage to Edith — an omission that became publicly acknowledged in 2000 — and that Otto’s version expurgated passages about sexuality and some of Anne’s most brutal comments about people she knew [6] [8] [1]. Multiple institutional summaries and encyclopedia entries confirm that not all versions included Anne’s criticism of her mother or references to her developing curiosity about sex, which would have been controversial in 1947 [9] [1].
4. Where the restored text can be read today
Passages removed from the 1947 edition were restored in subsequent scholarly editions: the NIOD critical edition (first issued in the 1980s) and later the Definitive Edition/Definitive Translation and the Revised Critical Edition include the recovered material and present Versions A, B and C side by side for comparison [4] [5] [3]. The Anne Frank House publishes a “complete works” presentation showing Anne’s original texts, her rewritten versions, and Otto Frank’s 1947 text on the same page so readers can see what Otto omitted or altered; those resources and the major published critical editions are the primary places to read the restored passages [6] [5].
5. Editions and institutional custodians to consult
For readers seeking authoritative restored text, consult the NIOD/“Critical Edition” and the published Definitive and Revised Critical Editions (1991–2003) available in print and libraries, and the Anne Frank House online “complete works” portal that documents the manuscripts and Otto’s editorial choices; major museum and academic sites such as the USHMM also summarize these editorial histories and point to the restored material in those editions [4] [6] [9] [5].
6. Why these restorations matter — and the limits of available sources
Restorations reframe Anne as both the public symbol of Holocaust testimony and a fully formed, messy adolescent whose candid reflections on family, sex and peers were partially suppressed for mid‑20th‑century sensibilities; the exact line‑by‑line list of every excised sentence is available only by consulting the critical editions or the Anne Frank House’s side‑by‑side presentations rather than in a simple single list in the 1947 volume [3] [6]. Reporting and institutional notes consistently attribute the initial omissions to Otto’s editorial stewardship and contemporary publisher pressures, and scholars recommend the critical editions for full, contextualized access [2] [1].