AMERICAN FORK — Irene Katz didn't know Anne Frank, but she has a lot in common with the young woman famous for her memoirs of hiding in an attic before being deported to a Nazi concentration camp.

Like Frank, Katz was a young Jewish girl in Germany when Adolf Hitler became chancellor. And she was a mere teenager when her family was sent to a concentration camp.

Unlike Frank, however, Katz managed to survive and share her horrific experiences with others. On Monday, Katz told her tale to American Fork Junior High School students anxious to learn what happened after Frank's journal ended.

"You have no imagination what (the Nazis) can do to you," Katz told students while standing on a stage decorated for an upcoming production of "The Diary of Anne Frank."

"They can hit you and you die and they don't care."

Nevertheless, Katz explained, concentration camp victims took risks to survive. By doing so, Katz said she managed to move from one menial job to the next.

"I think that was their idea — to make us crazy, to make us starve," Katz said. "Because then they could say they did nothing to us. They could say, 'They died because they were crazy.' "

But Katz didn't go mad, even though she existed on a daily ration of coffee, watered-down soup and bread. She even managed to meet her husband, Josef Katz, with whom she immigrated to the United States in 1946.

However, realizing that she was being targeted because of her religion took its toll.

"Imagine if this happened to you," Katz told students. "It doesn't make you feel very good to always be knocked down."

Drama teacher Kris Jennings, who found Katz through the Holocaust Memorial Museum, said learning about the tragedy has helped students put Frank's diary in context.

"It's a really hard show to do at the junior high level, but I felt like there is someone who needs to see it," Jennings said. "I think it really has made them think."

For Eliza Garlick, who will play Frank in the school's production, which starts Wednesday, Katz's experience is a reminder to keep history from repeating itself.

"It really happened," Garlick said of the Holocaust. "It's sad."

When invited to ask Katz questions, however, many students expressed a morbid fascination with her experience, asking, "Did you ever meet Hitler?" and "How many people got beat up each day?"

One even asked, "Are you still a Jew?"

A passionate Katz responded, "I was born a Jew. I will die a Jew."

But Katz's daughter, Jeanne Olson, said her mother isn't offended by youthful curiosity because she realizes today's teenagers can't fully comprehend the Holocaust.

That's why Katz is bringing a personal voice to something students have only read about in history books.

"I think people need to hear about this because there are so many people who don't believe (the Holocaust) happened," Olson said. "It was so real and so devastating."

Growing up an only child with two Holocaust survivors as parents, Olson said she became paranoid at a young age and still finds it hard to trust people. And Katz, now a widow living in Los Angeles, still looks over her shoulder to see if someone is following.

"I am happy I am in America," Katz said. "But you can't get away from the memories. There are always marks left."

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E-mail: lwarner@desnews.com