I wasn’t sure how I was going
to like this book, but my mom told me it’s been one of her favorites since she
read it in middle school, so I thought I’d give it a try. I can honestly say
that I loved this book and didn’t put it down until I finished it. It’s such an
inspirational story that makes you feel so grateful to live such an innocent
and peaceful life. I especially was able to connect to the story and message of
the book because of how close I am in age to when Anne wrote in this diary.
It’s amazing to me how much courage she had; the entire time I was reading the
book I couldn’t believe this was actually her experience and that she was able
to have such a positive attitude while living with so much pain.
Her diary begins on her
thirteenth birthday, June 12, 1942, and ends shortly after her fifteenth. At
the start of her diary, Anne describes fairly normal young girl experiences,
writing about her friendships with other girls, her crushes on boys, and her
education..
The Franks had moved to the
Netherlands in the years leading up to World War II to escape persecution in
Germany. After the Germans invaded the Netherlands in 1940, the Franks were
forced into hiding. With another family, the van Daans, and an acquaintance,
Mr. Dussel, they moved into a small secret annex above Otto Frank’s office
where they had stockpiled food and supplies. The employees from Otto’s firm
helped hide the Franks and kept them supplied with food, medicine, and
information about the outside world.
Although Anne keeps an incredibly
positive attitude, she still often writes about her feelings of isolation and
loneliness. She has a forced and difficult relationship with her mother,
because she doesn’t show a lot of love or kindness towards Anne. On the other
hand, she has a fantastic relationship with her father. Anne also has a sister
whom she is close to. Her writing goes from having
a tone of innocence and youth to deeper and more mature. She finds it hard to
understand why the Jews are being singled out and persecuted. During the two
years recorded in her diary, Anne deals with confinement and deprivation, as
well as the complicated and difficult issues of growing up in the brutal
circumstances of the Holocaust.
The end of Anne’s diary (August 1, 1944) is devastating. It ends on a seemingly normal day that leaves us with
the expectation of seeing another entry on the next page, but we never get to
hear more from her. The Frank family is betrayed to the Nazis and arrested on
August 4, 1944.
Otto Frank is the family’s sole survivor, and he recovers Anne’s diary
from Miep. He decides to fulfill Anne’s wishes by publishing the diary. Anne’s
diary becomes a condemnation of the unimaginable horror of the Holocaust, and
one of the few accounts that describe it from a young person’s perspective.
