Anne Frank is a name that I think none of us need to be introduced to. And yet after reading her diary I feel obliged to introduce her. But how do you introduce someone after having just read their deepest thoughts? For me, she was a girl who had to face reality far more dreaded and much too soon than any of us could ever imagine. Anne Frank was a 13-year-old girl who was forced to go into hiding with her family during Nazi Germany just because she was a Jew. She documented her experiences and feelings in her diary. She was a troubled teenager in the most terrible times in human history. And stuck in a place with people who she felt didn’t understand her. So she befriended her diary and called it Kitty. She poured her heart out in it. Now what fascinated me most is the contrasting side of this book. On one hand, there is relatable teenage stuff which I m sure every teenager here would agree with. But on the other side, hiding to survive while massacre and genocide are looming overhead is something none of us could’ve ever imagined in our worst nightmares.
I know we’ve all read this book when we were 15 but I don’t think we understood the subject enough at that time. I mean at least I didn’t. Wasn’t it just a means of passing our exams for us? But I think now it’s time to revisit this ever beautiful book written at a terrible time. I understand things differently now than I did at that time. And so much to my chagrin I know I’ve underestimated this phenomenal book. The level of simplicity this book possesses is remarkable. This heart-wrenching and captivating diary of a young girl is one the most translated books in the world. Every reader will find something in it that would affect him personally.
Anne was a popular girl at school. Everyone liked her. From teachers to boys Anne had it all. But deep down she wanted emotional intimacy. She wanted to share her deepest thoughts with any other soul. But she never found a person who could understand her the way she wanted. The closeness is what she craved. It was not about boys, a dear friend is all she asked for. And then she received a diary as her 13th birthday present. So she confided in her diary. Then waves of reality hit the shore. She was a Jew which was the worst thing to be in times of Hitler. Her sister Margot received a letter ordering her to report to a work camp in Germany. So she and her family were forced to go into hiding in an attic apartment behind her father’s office on July 6, 1942. This diary is what she took with her into the secret annex and continued to write in it in both times of merry and misery. There was one more family with them in the annex – Mr. and Mrs. Van Daan and their son Peter. They got supplies and food through the black market and with the help of good Christians like Miep, Bep, Mr. Kugler, and Mr. Kleiman. Now, this annex was going to be their safe haven for another two years.
The surreptitious life in the annex bought many struggles too. They had to compromise on everything. The food was scarce after a year. They had fewer clothes left and the family belongings were becoming obsolete. While the relationships between the residents of the secret annex had their ups and downs, there were good days too. Many of them fought all the time but they still managed. Because comparatively, they were living in paradise to the Jews who were stuffed like animals into vans and transported to the concentration camps. They heard frequent news from the outside world and it was horrifying. They heard gunfire and bombing outside their house many times and it was terrifying to Anne. She slept in her father’s bed for comfort. It may seem childish to some of you but as rightly said by Anne, “wait till it happens to you”. I wish this happens to no one ever in the world. Facing all these things at such an age is tragic.
After some time the residents of the secret annex welcomed Mr. Dussel who was a dentist into their confinement. After he arrived, Anne wrote about the news he brought from the outside world that they had missed. And it was anything but good. Countless innocent people and friends were taken by the Germans and beaten until they were unconscious. Some were even doomed to suffer the worst fate as if something could be worse than this. And Anne despite feeling fortunate also felt wicked to sleep in a warm bed while so many of her friends were being knocked to the ground. And that’s the other side of the coin of survival. Of course, you feel lucky to be alive but you can never shake the feeling of not being able to save others and that’s the guilt you have to carry with yourself every day. As they were doomed to die, you were doomed to survive without them. Because nothing will remind you more of the dead than your own damn breath.
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.
Anne Frank
Most of the things she wrote were her feelings. Because she couldn’t be herself in front of everyone else. The diary was a source of liberation for Anne. It was the most genuine and natural part of her. Many times Anne mentions the lack of understanding between everyone else and her. Her mother, her sister, and sometimes even her beloved father disappointed her. Her relationship with her mother was the worst. Her brusque remarks and comments had made Anne grow distant. And then she felt sad because she realized that there was no love left between them. She was not that attached to her mother and sister but her father was the one she cared most about. Even though her parents were partial to her and always took her sister’s side, she still adhered to her father as he was the last ounce of sense of family left in her. Mr. Dussel and Mrs. Van Daan were the enemies of her peace. Anne was the subject of everyone’s chastisement because she was not as perfect as her sister Margot so everyone kept giving her lessons and kept on commenting on how childish and stubborn she was. Which infuriated her because all she wanted was people to take her seriously.
She wanted what everybody wants and that is affection and being understood. She wanted her family to love her for who she really was and not try to turn her into someone else. She often mentioned that she felt like a stranger with them. But as we move ahead, we can see Anne change. She admits that she was childish and selfish and preoccupied with herself. She tries to look at things from other’s perspective. She realized what went wrong between her and her mother and that brought a radical change into her. She changed and worked on herself. She shaped her views, goals and opinions open-mindedly. She became emotionally independent of her mother and father and emerged from the struggle a stronger person.
While living in the annex came with safety but also with the fear of being caught. The sheer terror of being dragged from there by German soldiers to a horrible place was insurmountable. The residents of the annex lived in constant fear of getting caught. But everyone had their coping mechanisms. Whilst the tensions and stress grew dense among them, Anne struggled. She was depressed. She lay in her bed imagining being surrounded by darkness in a cave, alone. And her dark moods can be seen throughout her diary notes. We all live under the fear of uncertainties. Not knowing what will happen next terrifies us all. No one knows what the future holds for them. But we have hope. Hope that something good awaits us in the future. And hope is what guides people through trying times. Among all the sadness, gloom, and terror Anne still talks multiple times about the “after” which is the time after when the war would be over and lives will eventually go back to normal. Now and then hope dwindles but it still lives. And even when she was depressed she hoped. And that’s what kept her going even in the darkest of times.
And then there was Peter. With time she developed a close friendship with peter which soon turned into a romance. She filled pages after pages on how smitten she was and how much she wanted to be with him. Peter was a quiet, shy and closed person who didn’t express his feelings much. But just like Anne he also struggled. Anne wanted to help him. She made the first move and peter reciprocated. Soon they developed a deep friendship. They used to sit in front of the attic window and look at the chestnut tree and talk about lots of things. Peter also started to confide in her. The friendship turned into love. But then Anne realized that peter could never be the person she wanted him to be. she wanted to make him independent but he started leaning on her. And so she started backing off and soon the love cooled off.
A lot of times we hear Anne say that she’s longing. Longing for blue sky and morning sunshine. She missed her friends, the laughter, the freedom, and the joy of being young. Being isolated makes us miss all those things that we usually didn’t pay much attention to during our everyday lives. And the loneliness that comes with it is inevitable because you can’t go outside. There’s nowhere you can run to. This loneliness is harder for youngsters than adults. Because the adults already have their ideas and opinions and know what they want. But in the age where we are trying to figure out that what is it that we want from life, it becomes particularly hard when the worst side of humanity is ahead and hopes and dreams are constantly being shattered. How is one supposed to discover oneself when morals and ideals are destroyed by the grim reality looming overhead. But amidst all of this Anne still manages to adhere to her ideals and beliefs.
Things were finally going good and then there were even hopes that she could even start going to school in October. Because the invasion by British troops began on June 6, 1944, which is just two months before they were caught on August 4, 1944. The optimism Anne has in the last pages is agonizing to me. And it broke my heart reading the closing pages of her diary. But the dreaded end is unavoidable and we all know it. “A bundle of contradictions” was her last entry on 1st August. These were the last words that Anne Frank ever wrote in her diary.
when everybody starts hovering over me, I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my heart inside out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I’d like to be and what I could be if… if only there were no other people in the world.
Anne Frank
And the diary just ends after this. Someone anonymously tipped off the police and the 8 members of the annex were arrested including two of their helpers and were sent off to prison and then eventually to concentration camps. Anne Frank died of a typhus epidemic in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Only Otto Frank, her father, survived of them all and published her diary on 25 June 1947.
Now lastly if I had anything to say to her then that would be,” your dream of becoming a writer has come true and your diary is one of the most read books in the world. Your story is an inspiration to a lot of people even today. Your thoughts deeply impact every reader. And your diary is a medium of connection to all those Jews who suffered during the holocaust. It acts as an anchor and doesn’t let all those countless names just fade into oblivion. Their memory is preserved through yours.”
Buried beneath the lines 