Diary of Anne Frank (Imprint Books)

“I want to go on living even after my death!” – Anne Frank, April 4, 1944. She has far exceeded her expectations.

It is unnecessary to write a review of a person’s diary, especially when it’s the historical phenomenon of Anne Frank. My words here are perhaps notes more for myself than a review for my fellow LT users. Had she survived, I surmise that she would have been awarded a Nobel Peace prize, carrying on the message of peace and understanding, preventing these atrocities from repeating in the future, which is what Otto Frank did in his remaining years.

About the diary version, mine is “version b” the most common variant, a paperback stocked by the book shop at the Anne Frank House; this contains the editorial passages show more that Anne inserted upon her re-read and wanted her diary to be thorough and to be a reference for her future book, ‘The Secret Annexe’. It also has full content including her blossoming sexuality.

The diary was certainly intriguing. The first half was solid with historical notations, the specifics of living a life in hiding, and the relationships, interactions, frustrations, angst amongst those in hiding. I particularly enjoyed learning about their saintly helpers. The third quarter dragged for this reader as she pined endlessly for Peter van Daan. The last quarter contained her most mature and elaborate thoughts about war, its effects, the destruction.

Despite knowing the aftermath, I cried like a faucet reading the 'Afterword' and 'The Legacy of Anne Frank'.

Let’s close with these words from Anne, on July 15, 1944, shortly before they were taken on August 4, 1944:
“It’s utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too will end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I’ll be able to realize them!” show less

One of the most important documents produced by humankind, the diary of Anne Frank needs no introduction. It is an imperishable and world-famous story, and would be a remarkable one even if Anne hadn't written about it so impressively. But through Anne's gift, we receive a vivid and gripping chronicle of life in 'the Secret Annexe'; the teenager is an excellent writer, clear and focused and perceptive of character and setting. Already wise beyond her years and compelled, by the war and by the persecution of Jews, to grow up even faster, she births a stunning account that any writer in the world would be envious of. She charts with candour and humour her own progression over the two years in hiding: her changing relationships, her show more understanding of things and her developing philosophy of life.

This chart of a maturing young woman would be of literary merit even without the war, and it is heart-warming later in the book to read of her revisions of her previous behaviour, her growing eloquence and inner-peace and her blossoming writing skills. Which makes it all the more cruel that her progress was snatched away. The thought of this incredible young human being on a cattle-truck to Auschwitz, frightened, brutalized, emaciated and separated from family, is abhorrent, and makes you want to scream at the complacent evil that humankind repeatedly defecates onto this planet and which extinguishes the lights given so purely and honestly by the likes of Anne Frank. Though she retains her individuality – something she was fierce about when living amongst the occupants in the Secret Annexe – Anne has become the human face of the Holocaust. She was a person just like us, from a family just like ours, and anyone who reads her diary will find something with which they can identify and lock onto. It is a document that by its sheer benevolence and grace – towards the end she writes that "in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart" (pg. 218) – shames the sheer evil idiocy of reducing individuals to labels and generalizations. How could anyone think this intelligent, inquisitive, unassuming and even-handed girl was a degenerate sub-human, and deserved to die horribly for it?

Beyond her standing as an icon and emblem of goodness against the black malevolence of the Holocaust, Anne's personal, individual, tragedy is that she never got the chance to express herself with more studied composure, to go out into the world (both literally and figuratively) and sample what it had to offer. The last line of her last entry in the diary – a few days before she was denied forever the opportunity to write another – speaks of "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 living in the world" (pg. 222). If it wasn't for those vicious anti-Semites living in the world, it is clear she would have become a writer. As the diary progresses, it is thrilling to witness Anne's growing realization that she has a gift for this sort of thing. She shares her dreams of becoming a journalist and a writer, even of getting her diary published in a modified form. Some of her complete entries – in particular, the one of 23rd February 1944 – read, to me, like excellent short stories. She is clearly thinking about posterity and is composing her thoughts and her voice in readiness for when she will be free. The Allies have started to liberate the continent; she has "the feeling that friends are approaching" (pg. 204). After two years of privation and hiding in fear, she is close to freedom. Yet she is on the last train to Auschwitz. She dies in Belsen just weeks before British liberators arrive with looks of uncomprehending horror on their faces. I have spoken about her diary and the enduring simple beauty of her prose, but her capture and death are also instructive. The line between hope and destruction, between darkness and the light, is a fraction of a hair's-breadth, which makes it all the more important to cherish fragments of humanity like this one.

"I don't think then of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains... Think of all the beauty that's still left in and around you and be happy!" (pg. 146) show less

Sometimes, it seems that everyone except me had to read The Diary of Anne Frank in school. (The fact that I probably got more out of the book because I didn't is a piece for another day.) While I was reading, I learned from a friend of mine that I was reading an edited version. Though it is not indicated anywhere in the copy I have, it was edited by Anne's father before publication. (This despite the declaration "unabridged" on the title page.) I am told Anne's father removed much about Anne that was specifically Jewish or related to her burgeoning sexuality. (The former because he wanted her to be a more religion-neutral hero, the latter presumably because he didn't want people reading that about his daughter.) So I suppose I'll have show more to read the fuller version at some point. Regardless, this one is quite good.

Anne Frank was a talented writer. She does a good job of expressing what her life was like during the two years of her family's hiding from the Germans. At times, I did feel that I was an interloper in someone else's thoughts, especially during the time when she was exploring her feelings for Peter, but that lends to the feel of the book. It tells the tale of a young girl thrust into a situation where she has little control over her life and how she manages to live with that.

I'm not sure what I think of the translation. Anne originally wrote in Dutch, which doesn't work well for a sadly monolingual American such as myself. The translation is very much one for a British audience--in addition to things like footnotes translating guilders into shillings and pence, much of Anne's translated language usage involved very British phrases like, "had a jolly good row with so-and-so." For the most part this was relatively unnoticeable, since the phrasing flowed very smoothly through my understanding, but occasionally I was struck by the contrast inherent in a Dutch girl being given a British voice. I understand the reasons for the mode of the translation, but I do wonder what exactly Anne really wrote. (For a real answer, I'd have to learn Dutch, and for a real answer, I'd probably have to grow up in Holland.)

What strikes me most is Anne's generally unflagging optimism throughout the whole book. In one of her final entries, she waxes very introspective, examining her thoughts and behaviors carefully. Near the end of that entry, she writes, "It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet, I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death." show less

This was a hard book to read. It started out light and easy, as you'd expect from a 13-year-old's diary. As the situation gets harder, so do the topics in the diary, though it's not until the end when it gets really hard to read. This is history; the ending is not a surprise. What did surprise me was how much I dreaded reading the final 50 or so pages of the book, because the war starts going well and hopes in the Secret Annex start rising... and yet I know how the story ends for them.

I do not know why I didn't read this in school. In some ways, I wish I had because it is an important book and I would have liked to have read it when I was closer to Anne's age. On the other hand, I'm glad I didn't read it until I was an adult and could show more better connect with the entire situation, and not just Anne's. This is an important book, and one everyone needs to read. It's heartbreaking and uplifting all at once, and it's themes are as relevant now as they were when it was written. show less

This is one of those books that I thought I knew what it would say, before I read it. I was expecting a chronicling of an heroic struggle of a family against the forces of oppression. What I found instead, was so much more human, touching, tragic and beautiful. Anne Frank was, from her own writing, a typical teenage girl: stroppy, irritating, precocious, gobby and loud. The inmates of the secret annexe are portrayed (by Anne) as constantly bickering over trivialities, being petty and finding little in the way of shared warmth. Anne also chronicles her burgeoning sexuality,and the beginnings of her transition into womanhood, like any young girl. And then, one day, it stops just like that, and they are all taken away, and they all die. show more Anne's diary is the most shocking reminder that the victims of the holocaust were just people; ordinary, mundane, people, killed in their millions. As a piece if literature its actually not bad, but as a documentation of the holocaust from the inside its incredible. show less

In a perfect world, no one should have to tell anyone what this book is about. The atrocities committed by the Nazis, including but not limited to the deaths of over 6,000,000 Jews, should be common knowledge to everyone alive today. But we don't live in anything close to a perfect world, certainly not now.

For those who don't know, Anne Frank, her mother, father, and older sister, another mother, father, and son, and a single man, all Jews, went into hiding in a small concealed space in Amsterdam in July 1942. They did so to hopefully avoid the fate of other Jews at the hands of the Nazis then occupying Holland. Anne was 12 years old. She kept an almost daily diary of their life in hiding until it abruptly ended in late summer 1944 when show more all eight were betrayed to the Nazis. All were arrested and sent to various concentration camps. Less than 6 months later Anne, her mother, and sister were dead. The only survivor of the Frank family was the father, Otto.

This book is Anne's diary and if you read it you will vividly picture what her life and that of those with her was like in their hiding space. Two full years without once being outside or without seven others around them at all times. You will have to do as I did and continually remind yourself, this was written by a 12 to 14 year old girl whose writing skill was well beyond that of most people, regardless of age. I can't imagine anyone telling this story as well as did Anne.

A recent poll found that two-thirds of American millennials do not know what Auschwitz is. One in five has never heard of the Holocaust. (http://tinyurl.com/y73agnr5) If you are one of them you need to know. If the world forgets, a time similar or worse may well happen again. It happened to Anne, it could happen to you. show less

At first, it feels like any other book where we get a protagonist's firsthand accounts of life, except it's not really 'a book' or 'a story'. It's hard to remember that while reading... if you were judging it as a story, there are parts that are 'slow', without 'character development', the 'pacing' is all over the place... but it's important to remember, again, this isn't a book.

It's someone's actual diary. It's the medium this person used to document herself, confide her own thoughts to herself. It's an incredibly deep and intimate look at a person's inner life and thoughts, many of which are that of an ordinary 14-year old (who loves writing), being in extraordinary circumstances.

I had to look up historical events to know as well... show more when does the Netherlands get liberated? How far is Germany when she's writing this? The Allies? You know where, when, and how it ends, which is what makes it tragic, but the flashes into her life are anything but. She was optimistic, funny, and, I guess as they'd say back then, "a stand-up gal". What a way to be remembered. show less