The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Started: 1.7.2012
Finished: 1.10.2012
Format: ebook
Price: $5.99

Is there anything new to say about “The Diary of a Young Girl?” Not much probably, since everyone on the planet seems to have read it already. And yet, I'll endeavor to do so.

I was supposed to read it in seventh or eighth grade but never finished it (sorry, Miss Barber!), because I don’t like reading diaries. (Which is somewhat strange considering that my strongest reading affinity is for biography. Go figure). That's not to say that I was unfamiliar with the story. Far from it. When in Amsterdam a number of years ago, the Secret Annex was my first stop.

At any rate, I’m glad that I waited this long to read Anne Frank’s famous diary. I would guess – and actually, hope – that I have a different perspective on it now than I would have at 13 or 14. Of course, it’s not insignificant that Anne’s diary tends to be assigned reading for students who are about the same age as she was when she and her family slipped into hiding. Reading it as an adult provides a different perspective.

I could tell that my perspective had changed because I found myself feeling sorry for Mr. Dussel, the dentist who joined the other seven residents of the Secret Annex a few months into their ordeal. What middle-aged man is going to welcome being cooped up with a moody, mouthy teenager who lives to make fun of the amount of time he spends in the bathroom?

At 13, I’m sure I related easily to the difficulties that Anne had with her mother. But at 53, this is one of the most poignant parts for me to read. I can’t help but wonder if Anne would have grown to treasure her mother once adolescent angst was behind her. And Anne’s belief that her mother really didn’t love her was belied by something that she never knew – that Edith Frank hastened her own death by saving her meager food for her beloved daughters, not being able to grasp that they had been taken away from her forever.

The hardest parts of the diary for me to read are the pages toward the end. Anne and the other Annex residents were aware that the end of the war nearing and it seems that she could almost taste the freedom she longed for so desperately. At the same time, she is clearly wary that something could go horribly, tragically wrong, as of course it did. In the end, the Franks and the other residents of the Secret Annex were on the last transport out of Holland to the concentration camps, where all but Anne’s beloved Pim met their deaths. One of the things that make this book so difficult to read is knowing the whole while that this lively voice is going to be snuffed out. But not silenced, and we have Otto Frank to thank for keeping his daughter’s memory, and words, alive.

I read once that when Mr. Frank was questioned about the diary – Did he know that his daughter was engaging in such profundities during their time in the Secret Annex? – he said no, that he hadn’t known that Anne was capable of writing what she wrote. Margot, maybe, but Anne? No. How sad that he was able to get to know his own daughter through her writings, but only after her death, in a world gone horribly wrong. And how brave and kind of him to share her story with the world entire.