It is fitting that our inaugural This Day in Liberty is taken from the darkest chapter in human history, at a time when liberty, and therefore all of civilisation, came closest to being extinguished. Into that darkness, light was cast by the forces of freedom, who fought - and won - in North Africa, in the Pacific, in Burma, and in the skies over Europe. However, none was shed on the oppression of the human spirit more than by a single Jewish girl in Amsterdam.

On 12th June 1942, Anne Frank was given a small black and red book as a birthday present from her father. From that moment, she kept it as a diary, adding entries compulsively. At first, she discussed relatively ‘normal’ events, but, as the family was forced into hiding, and the occupation became more intolerable, Anne moved to more moving matters: the role of God, the nature of liberty, and the insurmountability of the human spirit.

On 4th August 1944, Anne and her family were arrested, the SS having been tipped off of their whereabouts by an unknown informant. In a fate to be shared by six million fellow Jews, they were murdered in the Nazi death camps. However, long after her death, her tale, and that of her yearn for freedom, lives on. We owe it to her memory to advance its cause, and never to endanger it allowing ourselves to be ruled by tyranny.