Just finished reading the diary of Anne Frank, true diary of a jewish girl that lived hidden in a secret apartment with his family from the Nazis, writing all her days on the diary that was gifted on her 13th (?) birthday. It is painful for many reasons:
1. Anne Frank, even after all the things she went trough, still believed that everything will be fine
2. she really dreamed to get togheter with the boy she loves, publish a book (which, thank goodness, it happened and it changed the world) and being a journalist.
3. her relation with her parents is kinda bad. The father is severe but good, but the mother is just severe and less caring for Anne than her sister
4. Anne had to act rudely and strongly in the real world because she was scared of getting insulted and offended by everyone. The only place where she shows herself as she really is, it’s on her diary. She really wants to be her, sweet and nice, but the fear of others making fun of her tormented her.
This story really interested me in every page, making me empathize a lot with the lil’ girl, hoping for her to get the most joyful moments before “that day” comes.
Rest in peace, Dear Anne. Thanks for your empathy.
by blanktubeita
30 Comments
What really gets to me is knowing her fate. The fact that she died in a camp from typhus fever. Its really sad.
I’m 40 and I read it back in February in preparation for a trip to Amsterdam. I can’t remember if I ever read it as a kid in school, I don’t think I did although I know I was aware of it. I ended up really liking it a lot and I agree with your comments. I found it interesting that she also maybe had some feelings and affections for her female friend too. There’s also this eerie ominous feeling that I got, knowing what her fate was going to be leading up to the end of the book, and the abruptness with which it ends because they had been found out and taken.
I went to the house in May when I was in Amsterdam and went on the walk through it. It ended up being one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. Even though it was extremely crowded, I found being in the house and especially in Anne’s bedroom really moving and emotional. I’m not Jewish and I didn’t have any family die in the Holocaust so I didn’t have that personal connection but it just kind of unexpectedly overwhelmed me being there. I just had this heavy feeling knowing something big and very historical happened there. Ending the tour with seeing the original diary and pages that Anne wrote was really impactful.
I also visited the Nationaal Holocaust Namenmonument as well when I was there. It wasn’t as emotional for me as Anne’s house but still pretty heavy. It’s like this little sunken parkette area along the street. The shapes of the walls inside it spell out “in memory of” in Hebrew and they are lined with name plates of the 102,000 people that were killed from The Netherlands, the name, the year they were born, and the age they were when they were taken. There were many that had ages 3, 4, 5 years old. There are then mirrored panels that sit on top of the walls reflecting the sky.
I also wanted to go to the Verzetsmuseum of WWII Resistance, but I didn’t get the chance to. It’s about what daily life was like during the worst of the war and how everyday people were resisting and fighting back like the ways they hid weapons or smuggled food rations.
I read the book as a girl. I visited the attic as a young adult in Amsterdam and really felt her spirit there. Maybe I will reread it as an older adult.
I found the short stories in A Scrap of Time by Ida Fink helpful
She thought her mother was weak, but before she died, she discovered that her mother had been hiding her own food to give to her daughters, starving herself in the process. Her view on her mother changed in the camp. Her mother showed a lot of strenght in there.
Don’t remember exactly where I read about it.
It’s a very painful read, but imo one book that should be required reading in school. It’s a much better choice than The Boy in the Striped Pajamas which most Holocaust survivors say is not a good choice as it is very inaccurate and leads to sympathizing with the Nazis, which no one should be doing.
Just as an FYI for someone who is Jewish the more accepted phrase is “May her/his memory be a blessing” rather than rest in peace.
Hannah Pick-Goslar was good friends with Anne
Frank. Hannah’s memoir of her time in the concentration camps affected
me much more strongly than Anne’s diary. I still cry when I think about
it. Below are my comments on the memoir and the horrors it described. I
learned the Holocaust was somehow worse than I had understood.
comments on the horrors of the camps :
>!When the Frank family went into hiding, Hannah thought they had escaped the country. <!
>!Hannah went to the concentration camps not long after her mother died in
child birth. The baby also died. It was a blessing. Hannah, about age
fourteen, went with her father, a grandmother and grandfather. They were
in different barracks so it was up to Hannah to keep her two year old
sister, Gabi, alive. Gabi quit crying because she learned that there was
never going to be enough water, or enough food, or enough warmth. <!
>!Gabi didn’t have a childhood. No hopscotch, no jump rope. No school. She
and Hannah picked lice off each other. No bedtime stories. Huddling
under their one thin blanket, with only the stomachs measuring time,
Hannah wrote. <!
>!Persevering was difficult. Hannah’s family had some diplomatic status or
connections. This led them to believe that they might be traded for
Nazi prisoners of war. At one time they were told that there would be a
train the next day so this would happen. It didn’t. No one knew how long
they had to last. Hannah might have kept the thought that she might be <!
re-united with Anne someday.
>!Hannah wrote about the times she had to be naked in front of a male, Nazi guard. Humiliation was intentional. <!
>!Where is your dignity if you are not clean ? The same clothes were worn
every day. The latrines were filthy. There was no toilet paper. Water
for drinking was limited. One time the prisoners were being transported
by railroad car. A prisoner was emptying whatever was being used as a
chamber pot out the car door and the wind blew the shit on Hannah and
Gabi and their blanket. Hannah had been at pains to keep the blanket
clean as it was all they had for bedding. There was no water for
washing.<!
>!At one time, next to Hannah’s barracks, a temporary camp of prisoners
and tents was established. The fence between could not be seen through.
Prisoners would sneak to the fence to engage in a standard topic of
conversation : what happened to a relative or friend. Hannah was told
there was a girl from Amsterdam there. It was Anne. Hannah had thought
that Anne was safe. But here she was. And it wasn’t her. Not the smart,
happy, talkative Anne that Hannah had known. Anne had not mentally
survived. Her light had gone out. Anne said she had no one. She begged
for food. Hannah went to the barracks and people contributed what scraps
they could. Hannah put the scraps in a sock and threw it over the fence
but someone intercepted it. Hannah, again to the barracks, and again
those with next to nothing were generous. I assume they admired Hannah.
Anne caught the airborne bit of mercy this time; their last together. <!
I had to read it for school (i’m dutch, it’s not officially in the curriculum, but many people i know read it)
It’s such a special book to read, it almost feels wrong to read it because it’s so sincere and personal. Her diary really was like a friend to talk too
It’s so nice (idk what word to use) also that even though with everything going on, anne was also just a developing teenager
Miep Gies, who helped hide the Frank family, wrote a wonderful memoir called Anne Frank Remembered. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in the story of Anne Frank. Miep was a hero, she was the one who saved Anne’s diary.
Just out of curiosity did you read the censored or uncensored version?
When her father initially published it he omitted sections where she talked about her sexuality and came across rather strongly as if she were interested in girls rather than boys (ie she was maybe a lesbian).
I can understand maybe why her father initially did this, but it makes the book less powerful whenever you take out any of the bits that help to make Anne a fully realized person on the page.
I agree with you on everything but this ”(which, thank goodness, it happened and it changed the world)”, the world didn’t change at all the same atrocities are happening right now
For me it was her age. Only being 13 when she begins writing her diary while in the secret annex. She was so much more grown up then when I was 13.
I first read Anne’s diary as a little girl. I dreamed of visiting the Secret Annex.
In November, I will finally go to Amsterdam and fulfill that childhood dream!
In Jewish culture, rather than “sorry for your loss” we say, “May his/her memory be a blessing”.
Anne’s memory is a blessing to us all.
I bought the new edition right after it was released at the DC museum when I was 13.
Try to explain to a flight attendant why you are bawling on your flight home.
I just held up the book and she brought me tissue. And a water.
The album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel is wonderfully weird and heavily influenced by the lead singer’s grief regarding Anne Frank, despite having never met her.
If you’re feeling open to experience and want to listen, just know that the lyrics at times may seem somewhat unrelated, and even dream-like and abstract. Some songs in the track, like Holland 1945, have pretty direct references to her, though.
If you like that one you might like the one written by her childhood friend who grew up with her.
My Friend Anne Frank: The Inspiring and Heartbreaking True Story of Best Friends Torn Apart and Reunited Against All Odds by Hannah Pick-Goslar
I read it when i was 9. It still pops in my brain every few years.
Doesnt it just give you chills when it just ends abruptly like that? I get them everytime
Banning of this book is an indictment of the times
I’m currently rereading the definitive edition. Haven’t read it in over a decade and I’m reading it with older eyes and it hits harder than when I was younger. I saw the diary, or an edition of it, when I went to visit the house. Real somber moment.
We must never forget what fascism did to her and so many innocent people like her. It can happen again and it absolutely WILL happen again if we don’t recognize and address the warning signs.
Might I recommend reading Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Wartime Sarajevo. Diaries like this are fascinating to me.
I am a middle school ELA teacher (grade 8). Last year my students read the play “The Diary of Anne Frank” and watched the drama from 1959. I am so glad that I was able to teach this before it became controversial with possible consequences for teaching it (Florida). They had so many questions. Many of them researched this and related topics on their own time.
There is an excellent series available to stream called “A Small Light” which is actually about Miep Gies, the woman who hid the Franks (along with her husband who was also a resistance worker), but obviously Anne and her diary are central to the story. I loved it. I hope you check it out!
Years ago I visited the house and and room where Anne and her family hid. It was sooo tiny … I just can’t imagine how they coped. Really hit home what a huge tragedy the Holocaust was for everyone and how Anne kept so positive shows how strong she was.
It’s weird, but I read it on my own in 8th grade as we were locked down during hurricane Wilma. Our shudders were up, it was dark, we couldn’t leave the house, and it made reading the diary so much more impactful. Obviously it doesn’t compare, but it truly made me empathize. I wonder if all the COVID pre-teens who read it during lockdown had the same feelings.
Strange aside: That book was my sexual awakening. I also realized Anne Frank had far more game than me. She always had a boyfriend (seemingly, to 13 year old me).
I have to imagine Otto suffered horrible survivor’s guilt. My grandmother’s closest friend lived through Buchenwald and only him and his brother survived. My grandmother got back in touch with him in the 90’s via email and moved him from Pennsylvania and he then lived with us until his death in 2007. The entire time he stayed with us, we couldn’t have onions in the house because that’s all the fucking Nazis fed him for 4 years. RIP Martin Krakowski
Her memory will always be a blessing.
I read “The Diary of Anne Frank” over a decade ago and it’s a book I will never forget. It always saddened me but fascinated me to the point I went to researching everything about Nazi Germany and what happened.. concentration camps. gassing. Survivors. Etc. I then bought “night” by Eli Wiesel