FOR THE DAY OF REMEMBRANCE OF THE VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST: excerpts from the diary of the Jewish girl Anne Frank

Anne Frank / annefrank.org

January 27 is observed worldwide as the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust. It was on this day in 1945 that prisoners of the largest Nazi death camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, in Oświęcim, were liberated. Annelies Marie (Anne) Frank was a Jewish girl born in Germany who, after Hitler came to power, went into hiding with her family from Nazi terror in the Netherlands. In May 1940, Germany occupied the Netherlands, and the occupation authorities began persecuting Jews. From 1942 to 1944, Anne kept a diary while hiding from the Nazis in a secret annex on the second floor of a house, but in 1944 the entire family was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp following a denunciation. From there, Anne and her sister Margot were transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where Anne died of typhus in 1945.

nne received the diary as a gift from her father, Otto, on her 13th birthday, June 12, 1942, and made her first entry in it on the very same day. Anne kept the diary in the form of letters addressed to an imaginary friend named Kitty. In them, she described everything that was happening to her and to the other inhabitants of the hiding place. In the spring of 1944, she heard a speech on the Dutch Radio Oranje (the station’s editorial office had been evacuated to England, from where it broadcast until the end of the war) by the Dutch Minister of Education, Gerrit Bolkestein.

In his speech, the minister urged citizens to preserve any documents that could serve as evidence of the suffering of the people during the years of German occupation. Diaries were named among the most important such documents. Impressed by this address, Anne decided to write a novel based on her diary. She immediately began rewriting and editing it, while at the same time continuing to add new entries to the original diary. The last entry in the diary is dated August 1, 1944. Three days later, the Gestapo arrested everyone who had been hiding in the annex.

WE PUBLISH EXCERPTS FROM THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK

It seems that keeping a diary is not really my kind of thing. Until now, the idea had never even occurred to me, and besides, who in the future — including myself — would be interested in the life story of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl? But be that as it may, I love writing, and above all, it becomes easier when you put your sorrows and problems down on paper

In May 1940, hard times began: the German attack, capitulation, occupation, and ever more suffering and humiliation for the Jews. Laws restricting our rights were introduced one after another. Jews were required to wear a yellow star, hand over their bicycles, and were forbidden to ride trams or cars, even their own. Jews were allowed to shop only from three to five o’clock and to use the services of Jewish hairdressers only. Jews were not allowed to be out on the streets from eight in the evening until six in the morning.

They were forbidden to go to theaters, cinemas, and similar venues, as well as to swimming pools, gymnasiums, rowing clubs, and, in general, to engage in any kind of sport in public places. From eight in the evening, Jews were not allowed to sit in their own gardens or in the gardens of acquaintances. Visiting Christians was forbidden. Studying was permitted only in Jewish schools. And so we lived, waiting for new prohibitions. Jackie used to say: «I’m afraid to start anything at all — what if that, too, isn’t allowed?»

The Germans ring every doorbell and ask whether Jews live in the house… In the evening, when it is dark, I see columns of people with crying children. They keep walking and walking, showered with blows and kicks that almost knock them off their feet. No one is spared — elderly people, infants, pregnant women, the sick — everyone has set out on this deadly march

With every close, thunderous slam of a door, everyone would flinch. Those blows symbolically seemed to say that the door of someone’s life had just been shut

Like sick and unwanted cattle, people are driven to the place of slaughter. I will not go on — thinking about this brings nothing but nightmares

Who has laid this burden upon us? Who has made us, the Jews, a chosen people? Who has made us suffer? God did — but He will also exalt us. If, after so many torments, the Jews have not vanished, then from outcasts they must become heroes. Who knows — perhaps our faith is the true faith, guiding people onto the righteous path, and for this we suffer. We will never be only Dutch, only English, or members of any other nation; we will always also remain Jews — that is how it must be, and that is what we ourselves want. Let us be strong! We will not stray from our path, and a way out will be found. God will never abandon us. For centuries Jews have suffered, and these sufferings have hardened them. The weak will fall, but the strong will remain and will never surrender!

Anne asked, «Why do they want to turn us into beasts?» To which someone replied, «Because they themselves are wild beasts»

It seems to me that I am a bird whose wings have been torn out, beating in the darkness against the bars of its cage. Everything inside me cries out: I want air, light, and laughter! But I do not answer that voice and lie down on the sofa to sleep for a while, to escape the silence and the constant fear — ah, for we are living people

I am still alive, and that, according to Papa, is the most important thing

It seems that the whole world has been turned upside down. Decent people are sent to concentration camps and prisons, condemned to solitary confinement, while the dregs of society come to power and command the old and the young, the poor and the rich. Constant arrests follow: one person is caught for black-market trading, another for helping Jews. No one, except those in the service of the fascists, knows what tomorrow will bring

After every war, people always say: this must never happen again, war is such a horror that it must be prevented at any cost. And yet people fight each other again, and it is never otherwise. As long as people live and breathe, they are bound to quarrel constantly, and as soon as peace comes, they begin looking for quarrels once more

I could go on for hours about how much sorrow the war has brought, but it only makes me feel even sadder

Wednesday, 29 March 1944

Dear Kitty,

Yesterday, in his address on Dutch radio, Minister Bolkestein said that wartime memories, diaries, and letters would later acquire great value. After that, of course, everyone started talking about my diary.

How interesting it would be to publish a novel about life in the Secret Annex. From the title alone, people would think it was a gripping detective story. But seriously — what if, ten years after the war, one were to tell how we Jews lived here, how we ate and talked?

Although I tell you a great deal, it is only a small part of our lives. For example, you don’t know that our ladies are terribly afraid of air raids, and that on Sunday 350 English planes dropped half a million kilograms of explosives on IJmuiden; the houses trembled then like grass in the wind.

And that an epidemic is raging everywhere. To tell everything, one would have to write all day long. People stand in queues for vegetables and other goods; doctors cannot visit the sick because their cars would be stolen at once. There are so many break-ins and robberies that you can’t help asking yourself, what has happened to the Dutch? Children from eight to eleven years old smash windows in houses and take whatever comes to hand. No one dares to leave their apartment even for five minutes, because in that time everything can be stolen.

Every day the newspapers publish notices asking for stolen typewriters, Persian rugs, electric clocks, and fabrics to be returned for a reward. City carillons are being dismantled piece by piece, and the same is happening to the public telephones in their booths.

But how can there be good spirits among the people when everyone is starving, when a week’s ration barely lasts two days, and only the coffee substitute is plentiful? The Allied landing keeps being postponed.

Meanwhile, men are being taken to Germany, children are undernourished and ill, and everyone’s clothes and shoes are worn out. A new sole costs seven and a half guilders on the black market, and shoemakers either refuse to take shoes at all or promise to repair them only after four months, and in that time the shoes often disappear.

One thing is good: hunger and discrimination strengthen resistance against the occupiers. The food distribution service, the police, and civil servants have split into two groups. Some do everything possible to help their fellow citizens; others betray their compatriots, causing them to end up in prison. Fortunately, there are very few of the latter among the Dutch.

Anne

And yet we — we are doing well, yes, better than millions of others. For now, we are safe and at peace and are «living off our money». We are so selfish that we speak of «after the war», rejoice over new clothes and shoes, when in fact we ought to be saving every cent in order, after the war, to help those other people and to save whatever can still be saved

I am not rich in money or other possessions, I am not beautiful, not clever, and not talented, but I will be happy! I have a good character, I love people, I trust them, and I want them to be happy too!

Who will ever read these letters, besides myself?