The Books: Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

Daily Book Excerpt: Memoirs:

Next book on the Memoir/Letters/Journals shelf is Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank

I was 11 when I first read The Diary of Anne Frank. The book shattered my illusions about fairness and justice, re-worked how I thought about the universe, fate, free will, and I realized, for the first time in my innocent life, how much God had to answer for. I was a religious girl, I believed in God and I could not understand how he could let something like this happen, what did Anne Frank ever do to anyone, and the awareness of the unfairness of it all was searingly hot to me, and I remember kneeling by my bed in my room and screaming at God so loudly that I was scared I would be struck by lightning. I would never be quite so complacent again. We had had history lessons by then, and I also grew up with parents who knew a lot about the world, and so we were provided with context for things. I didn’t first learn about WWII in high school history class. But something about the diary, its first-hand experience, and also the mundane nature of so much of it – the fights, the adolescent craziness – all things I hadn’t even experienced yet but I knew were coming (I had read Judy Blume) – made a historical event palpably real. I was too young to handle it, probably, and I am forever grateful for the things I encountered in life that I was too young to handle. Growth spurts are never fun. But you look back on them and think, “Wow, so that had to happen at some point…”

We all read The Diary in grade school. I don’t remember it being assigned, I just remember it being something everyone read, at one point.

The diary was originally published in 1947 in the Netherlands. It wouldn’t be published in the States until 1952 (and it was that version that was still in print when I read it) – that’s the version everyone read. The diary had been edited by Otto Frank, her father, the only survivor of the Annex group. He had made understandable edits to protect his wife (Anne could be very critical of her mother in the diary’s pages), as well as leaving out her feelings about her blossoming sexuality. Not knowing that these passages were there did not at all impact the version of the diary everyone read (although there have always been controversies surrounding the diary’s legitimacy): You can still feel Anne becoming curious about sex, her conversations with “Peter”, their first kiss – all of that is in the diary, as well as her frustrations regarding her relationship with her mother. But finally, in later editions of the diary, these edited passages were returned and a “definitive edition” was published in 1995 (I think. It has a very confusing publishing history). To Diary of Anne Frank fans, it was fascinating to go back and read what her father had left out, especially, for me, the sexual passages which are quite frank and very humorous at times. She’s knowledgeable about the mechanics of sex and her own body, but so curious about it, in the way any teenager is. In one entry, she examines her vagina and describes all of the different parts to her diary, marveling at how it is all put together, wondering how a man could ever fit in that tiny hole, and laughing at her mother for pretending not to know what a “clitoris” was when Anne asked her about it. The larger context of the horror of Anne Frank’s short life, being imprisoned, living under fear of arrest day and night, never going outside … all of that makes these everyday adolescent passages even more extraordinary, and is one of the reasons why the Diary is so unique (and was so shattering to me when I was 11 years old). She is so alive, so normal (although unusually intelligent, and a helluva writer). It is difficult, even as an adult when I know so much about the world, to understand WHY she was locked up and HOW this all happened. There’s a reason why I have three shelves of books devoted to the Nazi regime. If you think you’ve gotten to the bottom of it, you’re wrong. Or, you can tell me WHY, but that doesn’t eradicate how much it SUCKS.

The Diary of Anne Frank stands as a testament to the humans crushed under that monstrous virus of Nazism, and also a testament to how life goes on, even under horrifying conditions. There’s no way around it. The only way to silence a voice like Anne Frank’s is to, well, silence her forever. But the diary remains: a loud screaming voice of humanity, a little girl insisting on still living her life – all of it – even when imprisoned.

She reads, she bitches and moans, she talks about movie stars, she fumes about being told what to do, she fights with people, she turns to her diary to unload her feelings … all exactly the same as I was doing, at 11 years old … but hers is distinct for being written while she is under lock and key.

She plans for the future. She wants to be a writer. She already IS a writer. And she seems to have known that. She even had plans to publish the diary herself after the war, or at least a book based on her diary. She edited her diary. She went back to earlier entries and cleaned things up, rewrote, managed her prose, shuffled things around – as any professional writer does with her own material.

Her political sense is highly tuned. She follows what is going on. She hopes for the strength of the Allies. She rides that wave. It is of the utmost importance – what Italy does, what France does. She has been the victim of the most unimaginable cruelty (and more was to come), and yet she still could write that breathlessly daunting line of humanity near the end of her diary:

In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.

Daunting because it is a challenge. To those of us reading.

Can you believe that? Could you believe that under her circumstance?

That is what still stops my heart. That is one of the many reasons why the Diary is still so imporant, perhaps the number one reason.

Whatever it was in Anne Frank that allowed her to maintain that belief in humanity’s ultimate goodness could not be killed.

I have so many favorite entries. Her comedic rendering of what it is like to peel potatoes with Mrs. Van Daan and Mr. Dussel is hilarious, and shows her versatility as a writer. The most everyday activity becomes a ridiculous farce in her capable hands. She was able to see other people as ridiculous and silly, even as they bossed her incessantly. As a writer, she knew that her situation was potentially comedic GOLD and the diary is often very funny.

Here is one of her more uncharacteristic yearning entries. She didn’t often let herself “go there” into “I wish I could go outside”, which is understandable. Life would have become even more unlivable if she only focused on that. But here she lets herself go.

Excerpt from Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1943

Dear Kitty,

As I’ve written you many times before, moods have a tendency to affect us quite a bit here, and in my case, it’s been getting worse lately. “Himmelhoch jauchzend, zu Tode betrubt” [A famous line from Goethe: “On top of the world, or in the depths of despair.”] certainly applies to me. I’m “on top of the world” when I think of how fortunate we are and compare myself to other Jewish children, and “in the depths of despair” when, for example, Mrs. Kleiman comes by and talks about Jopie’s hockey club, canoe trips, school plays and afternoon teas with friends.

I don’t think I’m jealous of Jopie, but I long to have a really good time for once and to laugh so hard it hurts. We’re stuck in this house like lepers, especially during winter and the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Actually, I shouldn’t even be writing this, since it makes me seem so ungrateful, but I can’t keep everything to myself, so I’ll repeat what I said at the beginning: “Paper is more patient than people.”

Whenever someone comes in from outside, with the wind in their clothes and the cold on their cheeks, I feel like burying my head under the blankets to keep from thinking, “When will we be allowed to breathe fresh air again?” I can’t do that – on the contrary, I have to hold my head up high and put a bold face on things, but the thoughts keep coming anyway. Not just once, but over and over.

Believe me, if you’ve been shut up for a year and a half, it can get to be too much for you sometimes. But feelings can’t be ignored, no matter how unjust or ungrateful they seem. I long to ride a bike, dance, whistle, look at the world, feel young and know I’m free, and yet I can’t let it show. Just imagine what would happen if all eight of us were to feel sorry for ourselves or walk around with the discontent clearly visible on our faces. Where would that get us? I sometimes wonder if anyone will ever understand what I mean, if anyone will ever overlook my ingratitude and not worry about whether or not I’m Jewish and merely see me as a teenager badly in need of some good plain fun. I don’t know, and I wouldn’t be able to talk about it with anyone, since I’m sure I’d start to cry. Crying can bring relief, as long as you don’t cry alone. Despite all my theories and efforts, I miss – every day and every hour of the day – having a mother who understands me. That’s why with everything I do and write, I imagine the kind of mom I’d like to be to my children later on. The kind of mom who doesn’t take everything people say too seriously, but who does take me seriously. I find it difficult to describe what I mean, but the word “mom” says it all. Do you know what I’ve come up with? In order to give me the feeling of calling my mother something that sounds like “Mom”, I often call her “Momsy”. Sometimes I shorten it to “Moms”: an imperfect “Mom”. I wish I could honor her by removing the “s”. It’s a good thing she doesn’t realize this, since it would only make her unhappy.

Well, that’s enough of that. My writing has raised me somewhat from “the depths of despair”.

Yours, Anne