Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl - The Definitive Edition
Author:
Genres: Biographies & Memoirs, History, Teen & Young Adult
Book Type: Hardcover
Author:
Genres: Biographies & Memoirs, History, Teen & Young Adult
Book Type: Hardcover
"Just imagine how interesting it would be if I were to publish a novel about the Secret Annex. The title alone would make people think it was a detective story. Seriously, though, ten years after the war, people would find it very amusing to read how we lived, what we ate and what we talked about as Jews in hiding."
And with those words, it came to pass. This diary, rather than a novel, is one of the most important works of the 20th century. That said, I have to confess that it is not a pleasant or pleasurable book to read; at least, it never has been for me. It's just important to bear witness, and to keep close in mind that perhaps ten million people were murdered in about a five-year period by the Nazi regime-each person had a story; this is but one of them. I read this book in high school, of course, but there is a fair bit of additional content in this edition. I understand, however, why some of the content was omitted from the original version, which was compiled and edited by the only survivor of the Annex, Anne's father Otto. It's far more complete and revealing however, but, back to the unpleasant bit, I feel excessively voyeuristic in reading it, despite its significance. These are the writings of a teenage girl, which include her deepest thoughts and secrets, which I don't think she would have revealed to the world even if she had published a book in time.
Ideally, everyone has their own takeaway messages from this remarkable testimony, but there are several themes I think are more prominent in this edition than in the others. First, which often surprises first-time readers, there is not all that much content about the war. Much of the text centers on conflicts between the eight members of the household: Anne and her sister Margot, two years her senior, her parents, the van Dann (Pels) family, and an elderly dentist, Mr. Dussel. Anne vacillates between gratitude for being relatively safe in hiding, when so many others were being slaughtered outside the walls which concealed her family, and abject misery, to the degree that death sometimes seemed a welcome release: at one point, she states, "I've reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, and I can't do anything to change events anyway. I'll just let matters take their course and concentrate on studying and hope that everything will be all right in the end."
Much centers on the great interpersonal conflict, arising from talk about everything, from politics to the work load, to whose turn it is for the bathroom or a particular area of the house, and from practicalities of their meager existence, particularly the hording of precious food items. Anne is constantly at odds with her mother, and some of the material she wrote was harsh sufficient to be left out of the initial edition. They clearly don't have a close relationship, with Anne preferring the company of her father to that of her sister or particularly her mother. It's curious to consider whether they felt the same way when they were separated. The passages which are highly critical of even close family members, indicative of the level of strain the assemblage is subjected to on a daily basis, are particularly difficult to get through, as readers know how the account ends.
Much of the conflict is certainly understandable, if not expected. The confinement is not unlike prison, and Anne frequently laments the inability to go outside, or even to open a window. Detection would mean certain death. Some of my favorite passages articulate this longing: for example, she writes that "the best remedy for those who are frightened, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere they can be alone, alone with he sky, nature and God. For then and only then can you feel that everything is as it should be and that God wants people to be happy amid nature's beauty and simplicity. As longs as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles." Confinement for nearly two years took a heavy toll on the occupants, but Anne was able to find small measure of happiness in her blossoming relationship with the quiet Peter van Pels.
Indeed, perhaps the most striking addition to this volume is the overt sexuality expressed within the pages of her diary, an intimate account which I still felt uncomfortable reading, as I know that Anne wouldn't have wanted people to read some of this content. It seems more than the musings and innocent discoveries of a sheltered teenage girl: for example, Anne writes: "once when I was spending the night at Jacque's [a friend's house], I could no longer restrain my curiosity about her body, which she'd always hidden from me and which I'd never seen... I also had a terrible desire to kiss her, which I did. Every time I see a female nude, such as the Venus in my art history book, I go into eustasy. Sometimes I find hem so exquisite I have to struggle to hold back my tears. If only I had a girlfriend!" The normalcy of exploring one's emerging sexuality and identity was, of course, stunted significantly by the severe isolation, and how her feelings would have developed in time is anyone's guess.
Perhaps most profoundly, the diary speaks to the juxtaposition of the human condition: the great humanity in the face of terrible risk and adversity, in the persons of Bep, Miep, Jan, and the others who concealed this family, at great personal risk, but also the inhumanity inflicted by those around them, both the Nazis and the collaborators, who were encouraged to report any Jews in hiding for a reward. No doubt someone actually did. It's also clear that even as of about 1943, people were well aware that Jews and others were being rounded up and shipped to their deaths; the occupants of the Annex were aware that people were being gassed, and say so. I have no doubt that Anne would have been an accomplished writer, had she survived the war, but the diary in its present form would not have come down to us intact. This remarkable account is, as I stated above, the story of just one person who tragically lost their life during this unprecedented period of history, which constituted some of the darkest days in the history of human civilization.
------------NOTABLE PASSAGES-----------
Margot and I started packing our most important belongings into a schoolbag. The first thing I stuck in was the diary... and some old letters. Preoccupied by the thought of going into hiding, I stuck the craziest things in the bag, but I'm not sorry. Memories mean more to me than dresses.
Fine specimens of humanity, those Germans, and to think I'm actually one of them! No, that's not true; Hitler took away our nationality long ago. And besides, there are no greater enemies on earth than the Germans and the Jews.
We're so fortunate here, away from the turmoil. We wouldn't have to give a moment's thought to all this suffering if it weren't for the fact that we're so worried about those we hold dear, whom we can no longer help. I feel wicked sleeping in a warm bed, while somewhere out there my dearest friends are dropping from exhaustion and being knocked to the ground. I get frightened myself when I think of close friends who are now at the mercy of the cruelest monsters ever to stalk the earth. And all because they're Jews.
When I think about our lives here, I usually come to the conclusion that we live in a paradise compared to Jews who aren't in hiding. All the same, later on, when everything has returned to normal, I'll probably wonder how we, who always lived in such comfortable circumstances, could have "sunk" so low.
I'd like to scream at Mother, Margot, the van Daans, Dussel and Father, too: "Leave me alone; let me have at least one night when I don't cry myself to sleep with my eyes burning and my head pounding. Let me get away, away from everything, away from this world!"
The atmosphere is stifling, sluggish, leaden. Outside, you don't hear a single bird, and a deathly, oppressive silence hangs over the house and clings to me as if it were going to drag me into the deepest regions of the underworld... I wander from room to room, climb up and down the stairs and feel like a songbird whose wings have been ripped off and who keeps hurling itself against the bars of its dark cage. "Let me out, where there's fresh air and laughter!" a voice within me cries.
I see the eight of us in the Annex as if we were a patch of blue sky surrounded by menacing black clouds. The perfectly round spot on which we're standing is still safe, but the clouds are moving in on us, and the ring between us and the approaching danger is being pulled tighter and tighter. We're surrounded by darkness and anger, and in our desperate search for a way out, we keep bumping into each other. We look at the fighting down below and the peace and beauty up above. In the meantime, we've been cut off by the dark mass of clouds, so that we can go neither up nor down. It looms before us like an impenetrable wall, trying to crush us, but not yet able to. I can only cry out and implore, "Oh, ring, ring, open wide and let us out!"
Why do I always think and dream the most awful things and want to scream in terror? Because, in spite of everything, I still don't have enough faith in God He's given me so much, which I don't deserve, and yet each day I make so many mistakes! Thinking about the suffering of those you hold dear can reduce you to tears: in fact, you could spend the whole day crying. The most you can do pray for God to perform a miracle and save at least some of them. And I hope I'm doing enough of that!
Whenever you're feeling lonely or sad, try going to the loft on a beautiful day and looking outside. Not at the houses and the rooftops, but at the sky. As long as you can look fearlessly at the sky, you'll know that you're pure within and will find happiness once more.
When I write I can shake off all my cares. My sorrow disappears, my spirits are revived! But, and that's a big question, will I ever be able to write something great; will I ever become a journalist or a writer? I hope so, oh, I shop so very much, because writing allows me to record everything, all my thoughts, ideals and fantasies.
I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met. I want to go on living even after my death! And that's why I'm so grateful to God for having given me this gift, which I can use to develop myself and to express all that's inside me!
And with those words, it came to pass. This diary, rather than a novel, is one of the most important works of the 20th century. That said, I have to confess that it is not a pleasant or pleasurable book to read; at least, it never has been for me. It's just important to bear witness, and to keep close in mind that perhaps ten million people were murdered in about a five-year period by the Nazi regime-each person had a story; this is but one of them. I read this book in high school, of course, but there is a fair bit of additional content in this edition. I understand, however, why some of the content was omitted from the original version, which was compiled and edited by the only survivor of the Annex, Anne's father Otto. It's far more complete and revealing however, but, back to the unpleasant bit, I feel excessively voyeuristic in reading it, despite its significance. These are the writings of a teenage girl, which include her deepest thoughts and secrets, which I don't think she would have revealed to the world even if she had published a book in time.
Ideally, everyone has their own takeaway messages from this remarkable testimony, but there are several themes I think are more prominent in this edition than in the others. First, which often surprises first-time readers, there is not all that much content about the war. Much of the text centers on conflicts between the eight members of the household: Anne and her sister Margot, two years her senior, her parents, the van Dann (Pels) family, and an elderly dentist, Mr. Dussel. Anne vacillates between gratitude for being relatively safe in hiding, when so many others were being slaughtered outside the walls which concealed her family, and abject misery, to the degree that death sometimes seemed a welcome release: at one point, she states, "I've reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, and I can't do anything to change events anyway. I'll just let matters take their course and concentrate on studying and hope that everything will be all right in the end."
Much centers on the great interpersonal conflict, arising from talk about everything, from politics to the work load, to whose turn it is for the bathroom or a particular area of the house, and from practicalities of their meager existence, particularly the hording of precious food items. Anne is constantly at odds with her mother, and some of the material she wrote was harsh sufficient to be left out of the initial edition. They clearly don't have a close relationship, with Anne preferring the company of her father to that of her sister or particularly her mother. It's curious to consider whether they felt the same way when they were separated. The passages which are highly critical of even close family members, indicative of the level of strain the assemblage is subjected to on a daily basis, are particularly difficult to get through, as readers know how the account ends.
Much of the conflict is certainly understandable, if not expected. The confinement is not unlike prison, and Anne frequently laments the inability to go outside, or even to open a window. Detection would mean certain death. Some of my favorite passages articulate this longing: for example, she writes that "the best remedy for those who are frightened, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere they can be alone, alone with he sky, nature and God. For then and only then can you feel that everything is as it should be and that God wants people to be happy amid nature's beauty and simplicity. As longs as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles." Confinement for nearly two years took a heavy toll on the occupants, but Anne was able to find small measure of happiness in her blossoming relationship with the quiet Peter van Pels.
Indeed, perhaps the most striking addition to this volume is the overt sexuality expressed within the pages of her diary, an intimate account which I still felt uncomfortable reading, as I know that Anne wouldn't have wanted people to read some of this content. It seems more than the musings and innocent discoveries of a sheltered teenage girl: for example, Anne writes: "once when I was spending the night at Jacque's [a friend's house], I could no longer restrain my curiosity about her body, which she'd always hidden from me and which I'd never seen... I also had a terrible desire to kiss her, which I did. Every time I see a female nude, such as the Venus in my art history book, I go into eustasy. Sometimes I find hem so exquisite I have to struggle to hold back my tears. If only I had a girlfriend!" The normalcy of exploring one's emerging sexuality and identity was, of course, stunted significantly by the severe isolation, and how her feelings would have developed in time is anyone's guess.
Perhaps most profoundly, the diary speaks to the juxtaposition of the human condition: the great humanity in the face of terrible risk and adversity, in the persons of Bep, Miep, Jan, and the others who concealed this family, at great personal risk, but also the inhumanity inflicted by those around them, both the Nazis and the collaborators, who were encouraged to report any Jews in hiding for a reward. No doubt someone actually did. It's also clear that even as of about 1943, people were well aware that Jews and others were being rounded up and shipped to their deaths; the occupants of the Annex were aware that people were being gassed, and say so. I have no doubt that Anne would have been an accomplished writer, had she survived the war, but the diary in its present form would not have come down to us intact. This remarkable account is, as I stated above, the story of just one person who tragically lost their life during this unprecedented period of history, which constituted some of the darkest days in the history of human civilization.
------------NOTABLE PASSAGES-----------
Margot and I started packing our most important belongings into a schoolbag. The first thing I stuck in was the diary... and some old letters. Preoccupied by the thought of going into hiding, I stuck the craziest things in the bag, but I'm not sorry. Memories mean more to me than dresses.
Fine specimens of humanity, those Germans, and to think I'm actually one of them! No, that's not true; Hitler took away our nationality long ago. And besides, there are no greater enemies on earth than the Germans and the Jews.
We're so fortunate here, away from the turmoil. We wouldn't have to give a moment's thought to all this suffering if it weren't for the fact that we're so worried about those we hold dear, whom we can no longer help. I feel wicked sleeping in a warm bed, while somewhere out there my dearest friends are dropping from exhaustion and being knocked to the ground. I get frightened myself when I think of close friends who are now at the mercy of the cruelest monsters ever to stalk the earth. And all because they're Jews.
When I think about our lives here, I usually come to the conclusion that we live in a paradise compared to Jews who aren't in hiding. All the same, later on, when everything has returned to normal, I'll probably wonder how we, who always lived in such comfortable circumstances, could have "sunk" so low.
I'd like to scream at Mother, Margot, the van Daans, Dussel and Father, too: "Leave me alone; let me have at least one night when I don't cry myself to sleep with my eyes burning and my head pounding. Let me get away, away from everything, away from this world!"
The atmosphere is stifling, sluggish, leaden. Outside, you don't hear a single bird, and a deathly, oppressive silence hangs over the house and clings to me as if it were going to drag me into the deepest regions of the underworld... I wander from room to room, climb up and down the stairs and feel like a songbird whose wings have been ripped off and who keeps hurling itself against the bars of its dark cage. "Let me out, where there's fresh air and laughter!" a voice within me cries.
I see the eight of us in the Annex as if we were a patch of blue sky surrounded by menacing black clouds. The perfectly round spot on which we're standing is still safe, but the clouds are moving in on us, and the ring between us and the approaching danger is being pulled tighter and tighter. We're surrounded by darkness and anger, and in our desperate search for a way out, we keep bumping into each other. We look at the fighting down below and the peace and beauty up above. In the meantime, we've been cut off by the dark mass of clouds, so that we can go neither up nor down. It looms before us like an impenetrable wall, trying to crush us, but not yet able to. I can only cry out and implore, "Oh, ring, ring, open wide and let us out!"
Why do I always think and dream the most awful things and want to scream in terror? Because, in spite of everything, I still don't have enough faith in God He's given me so much, which I don't deserve, and yet each day I make so many mistakes! Thinking about the suffering of those you hold dear can reduce you to tears: in fact, you could spend the whole day crying. The most you can do pray for God to perform a miracle and save at least some of them. And I hope I'm doing enough of that!
Whenever you're feeling lonely or sad, try going to the loft on a beautiful day and looking outside. Not at the houses and the rooftops, but at the sky. As long as you can look fearlessly at the sky, you'll know that you're pure within and will find happiness once more.
When I write I can shake off all my cares. My sorrow disappears, my spirits are revived! But, and that's a big question, will I ever be able to write something great; will I ever become a journalist or a writer? I hope so, oh, I shop so very much, because writing allows me to record everything, all my thoughts, ideals and fantasies.
I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met. I want to go on living even after my death! And that's why I'm so grateful to God for having given me this gift, which I can use to develop myself and to express all that's inside me!
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