THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL, by Anne Frank (written 1942-1944, 283 pages)

Somehow I had spent my first 40 years on this planet without reading Anne Frank’s diary.

As I recently embarked upon my first-ever reading of the book, despite the fact that it is the second most widely-read non-fiction book in the world (the Bible is first), I was stupidly unprepared for what a great piece of literature it is.

At ages 13 to 15, Anne Frank was a brilliant writer. She dreamed of becoming a famous writer, and judging from her diary, she quite possibly could have achieved her dream in life had she been given the chance.

Reading this book caused me to consider the great and permanently unknowable artistic destruction that the world suffered at the hands of the Nazis. How many budding great authors were murdered by the Nazis? How many great composers? Great artists? Great actors? Great comedians? Great novelists?

Here are 15 quotes along with a few notes for context.

1. It's an odd idea for someone like me to keep a diary; not only because I have never done so before, but because it seems to me that neither I--nor for that matter anyone else--will be interested in the unbosomings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. Still, what does that matter? I want to write, but more than that, I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart. (Saturday, 20 June, 1942)

[Notes: Anne received a blank diary as a gift from her parents on June 12^th, 1942, for her 13^th birthday. Anne, her older sister Margot, and their parents went into hiding on July 6^th, 1942.]

2. Margot and I began to pack some of our most vital belongings into a school satchel. The first thing I put in was this diary, then hair curlers, handkerchiefs, schoolbooks, a comb, old letters; I put in the craziest things with the idea that we were going into hiding. But I'm not sorry, memories mean more to me than dresses. (Wednesday, 8 July, 1942)

3. I can't tell you how oppressive it is never to be able to go outdoors, also I'm very afraid that we shall be discovered and be shot. That is not exactly a pleasant prospect. (Saturday, 11 July, 1942)

4. Is it just chance that Daddy and Mummy never rebuke Margot and that they always drop on me for everything? (Saturday, 7 November, 1942)

5. I feel wicked sleeping in a warm bed, while my dearest friends have been knocked down or have fallen into a gutter somewhere out in the cold night. I get frightened when I think of close friends who have now been delivered into the hands of the cruelest brutes that walk the earth. And all because they are Jews! (Thursday, 19 November, 1942)

6. I'm mad on Mythology and especially the Gods of Greece and Rome. They think here that it is just a passing craze, they've never heard of an adolescent kid of my age being interested in Mythology. Well, then, I shall be the first! (Saturday, 27 March, 1943)

7. I wander from one room to another, downstairs and up again, feeling like a songbird whose wings have been clipped and who is hurling himself in utter darkness against the bars of his cage. (Friday, 29 October, 1943)

8. I simply can't imagine that the world will ever be normal for us again. I do talk about "after the war," but then it is only a castle in the air, something that will never really happen. If I think back to our old house, my girl friends, the fun at school, it is just as if another person lived it all, not me. (Monday, 8 November, 1943)

9. Oh, God, that I should have all I could wish for and that [Anne’s friend Lies, now in a concentration camp] should be seized by such a terrible fate. I am not more virtuous than she; she, too, wanted to do what was right, why should I be chosen to live and she probably to die? (Saturday, 27 November, 1943)

10. I have now reached the stage that I don't care much whether I live or die. The world will still keep on turning without me; what is going to happen, will happen, and anyway it's no good trying to resist. (Thursday, 3 February, 1944)

11. I want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to God for giving me this gift, this possibility of developing myself and of writing, of expressing all that is in me…. But…will I ever be able to write anything great, will I ever become a journalist or a writer? I hope so, oh, I hope so very much.... (Tuesday, 4 April, 1944)

12. I am young and I possess many buried qualities; I am young and strong and am living a great adventure; I am still in the midst of it and can't grumble the whole day long. I have been given a lot, a happy nature, a great deal of cheerfulness and strength. Every day I feel that I am developing inwardly, that the liberation is drawing nearer and how beautiful nature is, how good the people are about me, how interesting this adventure is! Why, then, should I be in despair? (Wednesday, 3 May, 1944)

13. We…get nothing but half-cooked spinach (to preserve the vitamins)…spinach and yet again spinach in our hollow stomachs. Perhaps we may yet grow to be as strong as Popeye, although I don't see much sign of it at present! (Monday, 8 May, 1944)

14. Anyone who claims that the older [people] have a more difficult time here [in hiding] doesn’t realize to what extent our problems weigh down on us, problems for which we are probably much too young, but which thrust themselves upon us continually, until, after a long time, we think we’ve found a solution, but the solution doesn’t seem able to resist the facts which reduce it to nothing again. That’s the difficulty in these times: ideals, dreams, and cherished hopes rise within us, only to meet the horrible truth and be shattered. (Saturday, 15 July, 1944)

15. I … keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and what I could be, if … there weren’t any other people in the world. Yours, Anne. (Tuesday, 1 August, 1944, the final words in Anne Frank’s diary)

Endnotes:

On August 4^th, 1944, Anne Frank and her family were discovered in their hiding-place in Amsterdam and arrested.

Upon the Franks’ arrival at Auschwitz, the women were separated from the men, and Anne would never see her father again.

Anne’s mother died of starvation on January 6^th, 1945 at Auschwitz, three weeks before Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians.

Shortly before their mother’s death, Anne and Margot were separated from their mother and transported from Auschwitz to the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. Both sisters died of typhus (Margot first) at Bergen-Belsen in February or March of 1945, just a few weeks before the camp was liberated by British troops.

Otto Frank, Anne’s father, was the only member of Anne’s immediate family to survive the Holocaust.