Anne Frank: A History for Today on display at MMFA

This is an undated file photo of Anne Frank, the young Jewish girl who, with her family, hid from the Nazis in Amsterdam, Netherlands, during World War II. (AP Photo)

The story of Anne Frank and her diary is an enduring one that's been read by millions of people around the world.

Every day people line up to visit the Amsterdam house, now a biographical museum, where Anne and her family hid from the Nazis for two years -- until they were betrayed and sent to concentration camps.

Now a new exhibition about Anne and her life is on display at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

The project is a partnership between the Anne Frank House, the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre and Theatre du Nouveau Monde.

As a teenager, Anne wanted to be a journalist and a famous writer.

She never lived to see her own work published, but her death turned Anne into what she dreamed of becoming.

Jean-Luc Murray, director of education at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. said despite the tragic circumstances, Anne Frank's Diary is the first example of modern teenage life.

"I think it's first the story of a young girl that is really like the young girl of today. She had the will to live, she was happy, she was living with her family," said Murray.

Of course Anne's life was anything but ordinary, having been trapped in Amsterdam in 1940 by Germany's occupation of the Netherlands, and then going into hiding in 1942.

"The context of her life was brutal and unusual and I think through this exhibition you discover the greatness of this young girl who was so strong and decided to write about her experience," said Murray.

The exhibition includes 30 illustrated panels that document Anne's life in hiding, and the horrors of the Holocaust.

It also includes 12 black-and white photographs of the notorious Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp taken by Montreal artist Laszlo Mezei.

"I think it's the role of a museum not only to show art, but to make people think and hopefully as they go out of the museum, they'll have the will to do something to make the world better," said Murray.

2015 marks 70 years since the end of the Second World War, and also 70 years since Anne Frank's death. She died in March 1945 at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after contracting typhus.

The exhibit is on display until Jan. 28, 2015.