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Reading
The
Diary of a Young girl
by Anne Frank
Saturday, 20 June, 1942
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 anymore
else will be interested in the unbosoming 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. I want this diary itself
to be my friend Kitty. I will start by giving a brief story
of my life.
My father was thirty-six
when he married my mother, who was then twenty-five. My sister
Margot was born in 1926 in Frank fort-on-Main, I followed
on June 12, 1929, and, as we are Jewish, we emigrated to Holland
in 1933.
Because of Hitler's anti-Jewish
Laws, our life was filled with anxiety. In 1938, my two uncles
(my mother's brothers) escaped to the U.S.A. My old grandmother
came to us； she was then seventy-three. After May 1940 good
times rapidly fled: first the war, then the arrival of the
Germans, which is when the sufferings of us Jews really began.
Anti-Jewish decrees followed each other very quickly. Jews
must wear a yellow star. Jews must hand in their bicycles.
Jews are banned from trams and are forbidden to drive. Jews
are only allowed to do their shopping between three and five
o'clock and then only in shops which bear the sign "Jewish
shop." Jews must be indoors by eight o'clock and cannot
even sit in their own gardens after that hour. Jews are forbidden
to visit theaters, cinemas, and other places of entertainment.
Jews may not take part in public sports. Jews must go to Jewish
schools, and many more restrictions of a similar kind.
So we could not do this
and were forbidden to do this. But life went on in spite of
it all....Our freedom was strictly limited. Yet things were
still bearable.
Granny died in January
1942； no one will ever know how much she is in my thoughts
and how much I love her still.
Yours Anne
Sunday morning, 5 July，1942
Dear Kitty,
When we walked across
our little square together a few days ago, Daddy began to
talk of us going into hiding. I asked him why on earth he
was beginning to talk of that already. "Yes, Anne,"
he said, "you know that we have been taking food, clothes,
furniture to other people for more than a year now. We don't
want our belongings to be seized by the Germans, but we certainly
don't want to fall into their hands ourselves, so we shall
disappear of our own accord and not wait until they come and
fetch us."
"But, Daddy, when
would it be?" He spoke so seriously that I grew extremely
anxious.
"Don't you worry about
it, we shall arrange everything. Make the most of your young
life while you can."
That was all. Oh, how I
wish the time will not come too soon when we have to go into
hiding.
Wednesday, 8 July, 1942
Dear Kitty,
Years seem to have passed
between Sunday and now. So much has happened, it is just as
if the whole world had turned upside down. But I am still
alive, Kitty, and that is the main thing, Daddy says.
Yes, I'm still alive,
indeed, but don't ask where or how. You wouldn't understand
a word, so I will begin by telling you what happened on Sunday
afternoon.
At three o'clock, someone
rang the front doorbell, I was lying lazily reading a book
in the porch in the sunshine, so I didn't hear it. A bit later,
Margot appeared at the kitchen door looking very excited.
"The S.S. have sent a call-up notice for Daddy,"
she whispered. "Mummy has gone to see Mr. Van Daan already."
(Van Daan is a friend who works with Daddy in the business.)
It was a great shock to me, a call-up； everyone knows what
that means. I picture concentration camps and lonely cells
- should we allow him to be taken away from us? "Of course
he won't go," Margot said firmly while we waited together.
"Mummy has gone to the Van Daans to discuss whether we
should move into our hiding place tomorrow. The Van Daans
are going with us, so we shall be seven in all." Silence.
We couldn't talk anymore, thinking about Daddy, who
was visiting some old people in the Jewish Hospital； waiting
for Mummy, the heat and anxiety, all made us very afraid and
silent.
Suddenly the bell rang
again. We heard Mummy and Mr. Van Daan downstairs, talking；then
they came in and closed the door behind them. Each time the
bell went, Margot or I had to creep softly down to see if
it was Daddy, not opening the door to anyone else.
Margot and I were sent
out of the room. Van Daan wanted to talk to Mummy alone. When
we were alone together in our bedroom, Margot told me that
the call-up was not for Daddy, but for her. I was more frightened
than ever and began to cry. Margot is sixteen； would they
really take girls of that age away alone? But thank goodness
she won't go, Mummy said so herself. That must be what Daddy
meant when he talked about us going into hiding - where would
we go, in a town or the country, in a house or a cottage,
when, how, were…?
These were questions I
was not allowed to ask, but I couldn't get them out of my
mind. Margot and I began to pack some of our most vital belongings
into a school bag. The first thing I put in was this diary.
At five o'clock Daddy
finally arrived. Then silence fell on the house； not one of
us felt like eating anything, it was still hot and everything
was very strange. At eleven o'clock our friends Miep and Henk
Van Santen arrived. Shoes, stockings, books, and underclothes
disappeared into Miep's bag and Henk's deep pockets, and at
eleven-thirty they too disappeared. I was exhausted and although
I knew that it would be my last night in my own bed, I fell
asleep immediately and didn't wake up until Mummy called me
at five-thirty the next morning. Luckily it was not so hot
as Sunday； warm rain fell steadily all day.
Margot filled her bag
with school-books, fetched her bicycle, and rode off behind
Miep into the unknown, as far as I was concerned. You see
I still didn't know where our secret hiding place was to be.
At seven-thirty the door closed behind us.
Continued tomorrow.
Yours, Anne
Thursday, 9 July, 1942
The Secret Hiding Place
Dear Kitty,
We walked in the pouring
rain, Daddy, Mummy, and I, each with our bags filled to the
brim. We got sympathetic looks from people on their way to
work.
Only when we were on the
road did Mummy and Daddy begin to tell me bits and pieces
about the plan. For months many of our goods and necessities
of life had been sent away, and they were nearly ready for
us to have gone into hiding of our own accord on July 16.
The plan had had to be speeded up ten days because of the
call-up, so it would not be so well organized, but we had
to make the best of it. The hiding place itself would be in
the building where Daddy had his office.
There is a large warehouse
on the ground level. The company offices are on the next floor
above the warehouse. On the second floor, the front of the
building is all storerooms. The right-hand door off the landing
leads to our secret place. No one would ever guess that there
would be so many rooms hidden behind that plain gray door.
There's a little step in front of the door and then you are
inside.
There is a steep staircase
immediately opposite the entrance. On the left a tiny passage
brings you into our family's bed-sitting room. Next door is
a smaller room, study and bedroom for the two young ladies
of the family. On the right is a little room without windows,
containing the washbasin and a small W.C. compartment, with
another door leading to Margot's and my room.
If you go up the next
flight of stairs and open the door, you are simply amazed
that there could be such a big, light room in such an old
house by the canal. There is a gas stove in this room (thanks
to the fact that it was used as a laboratory) and a sink.
This is now the kitchen for the Van Daan couple, besides being
general living room, dining room, and scullery.
A tiny little corridor
room will become Peter Van Daan's apartment. Then, just as
on the lower landing, there is a large attic. So there you
are, I've introduced you to the whole of our beautiful secret
hiding place.
Yours, Anne
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