The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

[Janet]

The Diary of a Young Girl

 

 

The ‘blurb’

Since its publication in 1947, Anne Frank’s diary has been read by tens of millions of people. This Definitive Edition restores substantial material omitted from the original edition, giving us a deeper insight into Anne Frank’s world. Her curiosity about her emerging sexuality, the conflicts with her mother, her passion for Peter, a boy whose family hid with hers, and her acute portraits of her fellow prisoners reveal Anne as more human, more vulnerable and more vital than ever

 

For her 13th birthday in June 1942, Anne Frank is given a diary and she starts recording her day-to-day life in it on a fairly regular basis. It is a time of great unrest in Holland which under a state of German occupation. Jews are forbidden to do many things - they are not allowed to attend non-Jewish schools, they are not allowed to use public transport... They are required to wear a yellow star to show they are Jewish.

 

The family decide they must take desperate measures - they must go into hiding for the duration of the war. Plans are well afoot when in July of the same year, Anne’s elder sister receives call-up papers from the SS to go to a ‘work camp’ so the family bring forward their plans and go into hiding 10 days earlier than intended.

 

They go to the offices of Anne’s father - and hide out in the Achterhuis, a Dutch word denoting the rear part of a house, translated as the "Secret Annexe". Together with another family, the Van Pels (Anne refers to them in her diary as the Van Daans), and later joined by Fritz Pfeffer (referred to as Albert Dussel) and they remain incarcerated until they are betrayed in August 1944...

 

I can’t begin to imagine how it feels to be shut up in a house for two years - and the family didn’t know that it would be two years - it could have been a lot longer for all they knew.

 

Anne’s diary is full of her observations about the inhabitants’ daily lives - their highs and lows, their squabbles, her first crush and feelings towards Peter, her fellow captive, her feelings towards her mother, to whom she seems cool towards and is even unkind to at times.

 

I did feel that it was rather repetitive, but that only mirrors the life that Anne lived. For her age (13-15) the diaries show remarkable language skills and that Anne was a highly intelligent girl.

 

The thing I found most amazing was the story of bravery. Not just that of the 8 people who lived in such appalling conditions with very little (and very poor quality food) for two years without ever setting foot outside, but also of the people on the outside who risked their lives to help these people hide from the terrible atrocities taking place in the outside world.

 

The occupants died in various concentration camps - with the exception of Otto Frank (Anne's father) who survived Auschwitz .

 

It is not known to this day who betrayed Anne and the others - I can’t help wondering how this person felt about that betrayal in later years.

 

The paperback is 339 pages long and is published by Penguin Classics. The ISBN number is 978-0141182759.

 

7½/10

(Read January 2008)

[purple95]

Janet,

 

Thank you for a nice review of an important classic. A "must read" for everyone.

 

As I read your review, I remember having much the same feelings as you reported. Maybe that's why I said this was a "nice" review.

 

You seemed to enjoy the book and were spot on in your review. But the 7 1/2 / 10 rating confused me. Did the subject matter itself lower your rating or.......?

 

Just wondering.

 

dan

[Janet]

I ought to chop off the rating things really - I copy/paste my reviews from my Live Journal - I tend to base them on other books I've read. So for example, I gave The Kite Runner a 10/10. I also gave Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris a 10/10 because I couldn't put either book down.

 

I did enjoy this, but I found it rather a plodding read because the diary was repetative and I'm reading it as an adult whereas Anne was a teenager (and from a different generation to boot).

 

I wondered whether perhaps I should score out of 5 rather than 10 to keep things a bit tighter and anyway, I feel that ratings are rather subjective.

 

I just felt that for me, I wouldn't say "oh wow - you must read this book" and yet I was glad I had.

 

Does that make any sort of sense?!

[purple95]

I just felt that for me, I wouldn't say "oh wow - you must read this book" and yet I was glad I had.

 

Does that make any sort of sense?!

 

Janet,

 

Indeed, it does make sense.

 

Perhaps I was expecting a higher number because of the importance that I place on the book.

 

I do feel that everyone should read the STORY, but you're right, the BOOK does bog down at times. Try being a GUY reading the diary of a young, teenage girl. Maybe we could get Tom Clancy to do a re-write.

 

Anyway.........I think we agree that we're both a little better for the experience.

 

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

dan

[tbain]

It is definitley one of those book sthat evrybody should read. My 13 year old son is currently reading my copy of it.

[Weave]

What a great review Janet, I have read 'The Diary of Anne Frank' a few times and it is a book that has always stayed with me, it is hard to imagine being hidden away from the world for so long, I doubt I would have coped.

 

[Icecream]

My sister's boyfriend said today that he has never heard of Anne Frank! I recommended her diary, but I don't think he is a big reader.

[Janet]

Don't you think she was like it because of the time she lived? I don't mean the war - I mean the 1930s.

[Tiger]

This is a book I'd love to try. We've briefly studied it a few times at school, but only a couple of extracts and several different film versions. I'd love to read the whole thing on my own:)

[Spooncat]

I have this book but havent managed to finish it -

[Spooncat]

I read it when I was about six or seven. I remember thinking it did plod along a bit, but I felt increasingly menaced as the book progressed because I knew what happened to her.

 

That said, a lot of the time I thought, "Oh for goodness' sake, stop being so bl00dy pious." If I'd known Anne Frank in real life - even at the age at which I read her diary - I would have been bored rigid, I expect.

 

I dont think she was intending to write a best seller!

[literarisch]

I read this book when I was about 14 or 15.. I remember mainly reading it because I felt a sense of moral duty to do so rather than actually wanting to read it the way I do the books on my TBR list..

 

I do understand the significance of this book, but I think its important to separate the book, which can these days be considered a historical document, and the person, Anne Frank. Of course one wouldn't have existed without the other. But so many people died in the Holocaust, obviously, and celebrating her as a sort of "hero" because she had the luxury of being able to even write a diary seems a bit odd to me.. because SO MANY other people shared her same fate. I don't know.. I hope someone understands what I am trying to say..

[Suzanne123]

I remember reading a few sections of the diary at school several years back, but I can't really remember it. I definatly want to buy it now to read the book the whole way through, and also because i'm older, so it may have more emotional significance to me now than it did previously.

[donatello]

I read it as a child and was very much moved by it.

 

Anne Frank famously said, "I still believe that most people are good at heart." Astounding faith in humanity. Maybe someday I will have such faith, but I'm not so sure.

 

I live in Poland, and have had to drive past Auschwitz many times. The place just looks sinister, with its spooky iron gate still bearing the lie "Arbeit Macht Frei".

 

When I speak with the locals about their time under the Nazis, my blood runs cold. It's eye-opening to be able to speak the local language with the people who live around Auschwitz.

 

I once picked up an old man hitchhiking on the road outside of Auschwitz, and he told me stories that brought tears to my eyes. Scenes he personally witnessed. His father had tried to save some potatoes for his family to eat, the Nazis found the potatoes, and the terrified children gasped as they watched a Nazi officer beat their struggling father nearly to death. The man I picked up hitchhiking was one of those children.

 

My father-in-law actually worked for the Wermacht in the kitchen as a young boy. They had him peeling potatoes. Luckily for him he was blonde haired and blue-eyed, so he did not get sent to Aushwitz. He was a "Nordic Type" for them, and so he lived. Still, they called the Polish kids in the kitchen "Kindershwein" (swine-kids).

 

To this day, he cannot stand the sound of the German language.

 

Ironically enough, we just found out that he is actually ethnically a German, thanks to some genetic testing my wife did as a result of her cancer.

[Janet]

Wow - that's really interesting Donatello - thanks.

 

What does Arbeit Macht Frei mean? I imagine the last word is 'free'?

 

My friend has been to Auschwitz, but I can't imagine going myself. I was upset enough looking at the top floor of the Imperial War Museum in London where their Holocaust exhibition is housed. It's a totally humbling experience of events so wicked that we should never be allowed to forget.

Edited October 13, 2008 by Janet

[Lindsay]

Janet it means "Work Makes Free" - a particularly cruel irony at Auschwitz which ultimately became primarily a death camp. Although a minority of those who were sent there were put into the camp to work the conditions were so bad that their life expectancy was very short. Primo Levi's "If this is a Man" is the best account of this.

[Chimera]

Definitely a book that everyone should read...

 

I do understand the significance of this book, but I think its important to separate the book, which can these days be considered a historical document, and the person, Anne Frank. Of course one wouldn't have existed without the other. But so many people died in the Holocaust, obviously, and celebrating her as a sort of "hero" because she had the luxury of being able to even write a diary seems a bit odd to me.. because SO MANY other people shared her same fate. I don't know.. I hope someone understands what I am trying to say..

 

I do understand what you are saying literarisch: why would Anne Frank be honored and all the other victims forgotten? But she has become a symbol. By leaving us this authentic testimony, not a book written later for readers but a day to day account of her experience which wasnt meant to be read by anybody, she gives us the opportunity to better understand how life was for the victims at that time: not just her, but all those who faced similar situations

 

The thing I found most amazing was the story of bravery. Not just that of the 8 people who lived in such appalling conditions with very little (and very poor quality food) for two years without ever setting foot outside, but also of the people on the outside who risked their lives to help these people hide from the terrible atrocities taking place in the outside world.

 

Actually I read this book when I was a kid and loved it but I was even more fascinated by the autobiography of Miep Gies, one of the persons who risked their lives to help the Franks when they were hidden: she was the one who did their shopping for them and visited them every day, bringing food, news and a breath of fresh air from the outside. She was also the one who went back after they were arrested, found Anne's diary and kept it until her father came back and Anne was declared dead.

 

Her account, Anne Frank remembered, is really interesting and complimentary to the diary because it shows the same story under her point of view, as an adult and as someone from the outside. Also, it tells about Miep's life, which is incredible in itself: she grew up during WW1, in germany I think, and after that was sent, like many other german kids between the two wars, to live with a host family in the netherlands because her own was too poor to take care of her. She never returned home. She then lived through WW2, and Otto Frank's (Anne's father) desperate search for the rest of his family after the war had ended and he was the only one to return.

 

Unfortunately it isnt an easy book to find, as it is old and didnt have the success Anne's diary did. But you might find it second hand or in your local library. I am looking for it right now and will post a proper review once I get it.

[Lindsay]

Totally agree Chimera - the Miep Gies book (although shadow written) was just excellent too. And easier to relate to as an adult - though having read Anne's diary when I was about her age it will always be very special to me.

[Suzanne123]

I saw an advert recently on the BBC for a dramatisation of the book (I think!)

[jewell]

That said, a lot of the time I thought, "Oh for goodness' sake, stop being so bl00dy pious." If I'd known Anne Frank in real life - even at the age at which I read her diary - I would have been bored rigid, I expect.

 

I do know what you mean. Some of the comments she makes about others living with her in the 'secret Annexe' drove me a little crazy. Sometimes she seems to paint the world she sees around her as black and white and seems to be to sure she knows exactly what shes talking about. Especially when see passes comments about everone else around her. But i had to keep reminding myself she was only a child of 13 to 15 and it helped me to realize that i sometimes had the same ideas about the world as myself. At times i thought i knew what everyone was thinking and that i had sussed out everyones relationships, etc. It reminded me of the expression 'teenages think they know it all' and 'you can't tell them anything.'

 

What i loved about this book, is it took me back to when i was that age, and that made me repect Anne all the more. She lived in difficult times, at a difficult stage in her development. We have to remember that to isolate yourself and become emotionally charged, as Anne Frank was, is normal at that age. What is brilliant about her that when things were toughest she proved to be a strong, courageous, and an unusually humble woman. I think she would have delighted and been loved by a lot of people had she survived and had a complete life.

[Suzanne123]

I think she would have delighted and been loved by a lot of people had she survived and had a complete life.

 

Agree!

[Janet]

Is anyone in the UK watching the new BBC adaptation of this? Part two is on BBC1 tonight at 7pm - it's on the same time each day until Friday.

 

Part 1 was pretty good, I thought.

[Nici]

Yep I watched it and thought it was very good. Looking forward to tonights episode.

[BrainFreeze]

 

Actually I read this book when I was a kid and loved it but I was even more fascinated by the autobiography of Miep Gies, one of the persons who risked their lives to help the Franks when they were hidden: she was the one who did their shopping for them and visited them every day, bringing food, news and a breath of fresh air from the outside. She was also the one who went back after they were arrested, found Anne's diary and kept it until her father came back and Anne was declared dead.

 

 

I've never heard of this book but will hunt it down. It sounds fascinating!

 

I first read The Diary of Anne Frank when I was 11 and have read it many times since. It touched me when I first read it and everytime since.

 

I can see why some people think the way they do (reading through some of the replies) but for me, it was one persons - one childs - account of life in a horrific time. It gave a first hand account that the vast majority of people will never understand. It was touching, moving and in places, yes, I do agree she could seem a little self-indulgent but I doubt anyone would hold that against her considering how hard it must of been to live like that, with the constant fear, dread and wondering.

[Chimera]

I've never heard of this book but will hunt it down. It sounds fascinating!

 

In fact it's readily available in paperback on amazon. It's in france that it is difficult to find. Let me know what you think!