Goslar is a historic town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the district of Goslar and located on the northwestern slopes of the Harz mountain range. The Old Town of Goslar and the Mines of Rammelsberg are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Goslar is situated at the northwestern foot of the Lower Saxon Hills: the Harz mountains. The Kahlerberg/Schalke is the highest elevation within the municipal boundaries at 762 m (2,503 ft). The lowest point of 175 m (574 ft) is near the Oker river. Geographically, Goslar forms the boundary between the Hildesheim Börde which is part of the Northern German Plain, and the Harz range, which is the highest, northern-most extension of Germany's Central Uplands. The Hildesheim Börde is characterised by plains with rich clay soils – used agriculturally for sugar beet farming – interlaced with several hill ranges commonly known as the Hildesheim Forest and Salzgitter Hills. Immediately to the south, the Harz mountains rise above the historic borough at a height of 636 m (2,087 ft) (Rammelsberg). Forestry dominates the landscape. Three rivers cross the municipal boundary: the Oker, the Abzucht and the Gose. The Gose river begins approximately 9 km (5.6 mi) south-west of Goslar at the Auerhahn pass (638 m; 2,093 ft) in the Harz mountains. At the northern foot of the Herz Hill (632 m; 2,074 ft) the smaller Abzucht river meets the Gose before it flows into the Oker. The Dörpke and Gelmke streams also flow from the Harz foothills to the south into Goslar where they discharge into the Abzucht.

Annelies "Anne" Marie Frank ( pronunciation (help·info); 12 June 1929 – early March 1945) was one of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Her diary, has been the basis for several plays and films. Born in the city of Frankfurt am Main in Weimar Germany, she lived most of her life in or near Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. Born a German national, Frank lost her citizenship in 1941 when Nazi Germany passed the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws. She gained international fame posthumously after her diary was published. It documents her experiences hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.

The Frank family moved from Germany to Amsterdam in 1933, the year the Nazis gained control over Germany. By the beginning of 1940, they were trapped in Amsterdam by the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. As persecutions of the Jewish population increased in July 1942, the family went into hiding in the hidden rooms of Anne's father, Otto Frank's, office building. After two years, the group was betrayed and transported to concentration camps. Anne Frank and her sister, Margot, were eventually transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they both died of typhus in March 1945.