--- title: Anne Frank Diary: Researchers Uncover Hidden Pages description: Researchers have uncovered two hidden pages from Anne Frank's diary containing "dirty" jokes and her perspective on sex canonical: https://time.com/5278593/anne-frank-diary-hidden-pages/ author: Mahita Gajanan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-05-15T22:47:55.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T20:17:07.454Z article:section: History og:title: Researchers Reveal Anne Frank's 'Dirty' Jokes In Hidden Diary Pages og:description: "Anne, with all her gifts, was above all also an ordinary girl.” og:url: https://time.com/5278593/anne-frank-diary-hidden-pages/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt32f6e87ee2a8d86f/6988afadab6d778d5f6ac11c/gettyimages-541037509.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4980 og:image:height: 2801 og:image:alt: Anne Frank, German Jew who emigrated with her family to the Netherlands during the Nazi era. Separated from the rest of her family, she and her sister died of typhoid fever in the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen - As a 12-year old doing her homewo og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Researchers Reveal Anne Frank's 'Dirty' Jokes In Hidden Diary Pages twitter:description: "Anne, with all her gifts, was above all also an ordinary girl.” twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt32f6e87ee2a8d86f/6988afadab6d778d5f6ac11c/gettyimages-541037509.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Researchers Reveal Anne Frank's 'Dirty' Jokes In Hidden Diary Pages > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. May 15, 2018 10:47 PM UTC  Anne Frank. Anne Frank.Bildarchiv Ullstein Bild — Getty Images by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. May 15, 2018 10:47 PM UTC Researchers have uncovered two pages of [Anne Frank’s diary](http://time.com/4803406/anne-frank-diary-anniversary/) masked over with brown paper that contain jokes and musings about sex, prostitution and contraception. Frank, who, along with her family, hid in a secret annex to avoid Nazi capture during World War II, became famous for chronicling her time in hiding in a diary. She wrote the recently discovered pages on Sept. 28, 1942 at the age of 13, about three months after the Frank family went into hiding, and later covered them up with brown paper, the [Associated Press reports](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/15/anne-franks-dirty-jokes-found-diary-pages-covered-brown-paper). Now, through digital technology, researchers from the Anne Frank House museum and two other Dutch organizations have found that [Frank hid four “dirty” jokes](https://www.realsimple.com/work-life/entertainment/anne-frank-diary-hidden-pages-dirty-jokes) about sex and her perspective on sexual development, contraception, sex and prostitution. Frank Van Vree, director of the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, said the jokes are of the sort that are “classics among growing children.” “Anyone who reads the passages that have now been discovered will be unable to suppress a smile,” he said. “They make it clear that Anne, with all her gifts, was above all also an ordinary girl.” Regarding sex, Frank talked about how when a young woman gets her period around the age of 14, it is a “sign that she is ripe to have relations with a man but one doesn’t do that of course before one is married.” On prostitution, Frank noted that “in Paris they have big houses for that.” Imagining that someone might ask her about “sexual matters,” Frank tries to provide answers to an imaginary friend. Ronald Leopold, the executive director of the Anne Frank House, said the recent discoveries “bring us even closer” to Frank’s development as a writer. The passages show how she “creates a fictional situation that makes it easier for her to address the sensitive topics that she writes about,” he said. “It’s a very cautious start to her becoming a writer,” Leopold told [the New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/books/anne-frank-diary-new-pages.html). “It’s still very early stages.” In 1944, the Frank family was discovered, arrested and sent to separate concentration camps. 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