Unless you get a chance to visit in person, it is hard to understand exactly what the conditions were like and the size of the space.
Anne Frank did a good job describing, but seeing is believing! Another interesting thing about reading this now is that we are in the middle of the Coronavirus quarantine. But, at the same time, this might be a good time to revisit or read it for the first time because her frustrations with her family and situation may be a bit more understandable for those who have barely left the house in months.
She was an angsty and outspoken teenager which made me wonder what was true and what was just her perspective. For example, the first few chapters are mainly her complaining about her parents, other adults, and people she did not like from school. However, I think this part of the diary is important because it shows her growth throughout the story as the situation becomes more dire and she is forced to mature before her time. I cannot say that this book will be enjoyed by everyone — especially if biographies are not your thing.
But, it is an important document from World War II history and is worth reading no matter who you are. View all 24 comments. Feb 12, KamRun rated it really liked it. They have come to take me to be shot. To hell. Dying at the utmost of victory is a little unfortunate, but what cares? A letter to Anne Frank My Dear Little Girl, Until today, it has never occurred to me that going through a page of a book into the last page was so annoying and distressing.
If I read the book disregarding your story, it is nothing more than the personal notes of a freshly mature girl: description of unimportant stories, the passionate feelings of adolescence and nags about food and living conditions during the Second World War. But now that I know what happened to you, will I can leave easily your wishes, the future you imagined for yourself, your dreams and hopes without grief and tear?
You wished to be devoted to something, you wanted to be useful and make joy for all those who you might never saw. You wanted to live even after your death. Your wish came true. You are a symbol of innocence, hope and depredated childhood for me and thousands of others.
Though you lost your life, your love to the life, to the tree, to the sky has become a power in our heart to fight that part of human nature which took the living chance from you to not portray your fate in other children; To you and Peter be the last children of human being who were drawn to the cross of injustice and discrimination. Yes, we swore and we will stand up to the day that human being is the helper of the other one. View all 35 comments.
Apr 05, Whitney rated it it was amazing Shelves: young-adult , favorite , own. For her 13th birthday Anne Frank received a diary she dubbed Kitty. Shortly after her birthday with the fear that her older sister, Margo may be taken by the Nazis the Franks disappear into the night and go into hiding.
It is through Kitty that Anne records her thoughts and daily life living behind a bookcase in the secret annex. When I was younger I went through a "holocaust" phase before moving on to Harriet Tubman and slavery. Anyway,I soon became fascinated by the Secret Annex and the secluded life she lived for two years. Unfortunately she and the other occupants of the Annex were betrayed and sent to concentration camps with only her father Otto Frank surviving.
The tragic thing not to minimize the inhumanity of it all is that Anne died mere weeks before liberation. Anne's dream was to have her diary published after the war and after liberation her father saw that happen, making Kitty a time capsule to an unfathomable past. View all my reviews on my blog She is too fond of books View all 16 comments. Nov 22, Jason Koivu rated it it was amazing Shelves: history.
Ya gotta hand it to this teen girl who was writing about her life with such clarity and eloquence when her life was hanging by a thread. I've read reviews of The Diary of a Young Girl that complained about how Frank ignored the bigger picture of the war and that her subject matter was trite, whiny and insular.
What else could it be, this diary of a teen secreted away in the compact environs of an attic with the same people for years learning little-to-no outside information? From the standpoint of Ya gotta hand it to this teen girl who was writing about her life with such clarity and eloquence when her life was hanging by a thread. From the standpoint of a detached, pure read, the fact that the diary includes a love interest is a blessing.
But even without it, it's a wonderful and at times intense read. There were numerous times when the family was nearly caught during which my heart would race uncontrollably and my breath would catch. Knowing what happens to all of them after the diary ends packs the kind of punch you get in fiction Dec 03, Alex rated it it was ok Shelves: reading-through-history , , rth-lifetime. The problem with Diary of a Young Girl is that it's the diary of a young girl, and young girls are, like young boys, kindof a pain in the ass.
It's like pages straight of "No one under stands me! Night does that. This depicts the boredom of bein The problem with Diary of a Young Girl is that it's the diary of a young girl, and young girls are, like young boys, kindof a pain in the ass.
This depicts the boredom of being locked in an attic for two years. And Frank is very bright, but not bright enough to make great reading out of a kid's diary. In the pantheon of literature about being locked in an attic, Flowers in the Attic is still the gold standard. View all 34 comments. Blair Jillian very well stated. Feb 17, Monica Edinger rated it it was amazing Shelves: classic. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
I'm the daughter of German Jews. My mother's family came from Berlin and my father's from Frankfurt. Yes, the same Frankfurt as the Franks. They were a very old German family there is still an Edinger Institut at the University begun by my great grandfather, and Edinger Strasse, and other vestiges of my family's existence there.
Moreover I still have relatives in Germany, those who came from lines where people had converted. Anyway, my father whose father did not leave Germany and was event I'm the daughter of German Jews. Anyway, my father whose father did not leave Germany and was eventually deported and killed became an academic specialist in German politics and I spent several years of my childhood in Germany. One year was 7th grade. Before we left my father's mother gave me Anne Frank's diary and a diary.
Later, upon visiting the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and seeing her original diary, I realized that mine was just like hers. I mean, just like. Clearly my grandmother had given me one she had bought in Frankfurt and Anne's must have also been from Frankfurt, bought around the same time.
They are identical other than a difference in coloring But the diary was what woke me up to the Holocaust as well as to what it was to be a teenager. Anne's voice still echoes in my mind these many years later. View all 14 comments. I thought I knew the story of Anne Frank. I knew the story of how she went into hiding with her family for a few years and wrote everything down in a journal.
I knew of the fact that she was captured right at the end of the war, when hope was high and peace was nigh, only to die of typhus a mere few weeks before her concentration camp would be liberated.
Anne was and sounded very young at the beginning of her diary, but over time she grows so intelligent and self-evaluating and she was so very wise way beyond her years at the mere age of fifteen.
I marvelled at how snarky she was; I loved that she wanted to be a writer as well; I related far too strongly with her at times. That's the way things ought to be. On top of that, I was living in this tiny dorm in Antwerp, and oftentimes I thought I would go mad; felt like I could run up the walls.
I could feel her fear seeping through the pages, could feel the monotony addling her brain, found my own thoughts echoed in her words. I definitely needed to take breaks while reading, because sometimes it became far too real. Jun 30, David rated it did not like it. While her story is sad, the naked Emperor cult around this book is unmerited. The key quotation about people being basically good at heart is absurd in the light of the story, and from a theological perspective, just plain wrong.
View all 85 comments. I'm really surprised by the number of people who thought this book was boring. I could understand how an adult man might find the musings of a young girl rather dull, but how can people in general not find this journal utterly fascinating? Here is a teenage girl who up until the end wrote with the same emotional consistency as when she began. Whoever thinks this books is boring is because they simply fail to realize, or even imagine the conditions in which this diary was written under.
To think I'm really surprised by the number of people who thought this book was boring. To think how this young girls personal life continued beyond the details of the war is rather remarkable.
What would anyone else have written about in their diary as young boy or girl in the same predicament as the Franks? Anne is surprisingly strong and mature for her age, impressively intelligent, and although there was a World War going on, her own particular world never abated.
Her personal life was just as important, if not necessary in order for her to survive the day to day living conditions at the Annex. Yes, there were brief moments of panic, but she had to live life, even if her living space was limited.
She carried on as if being in hiding was a mere temporary inconvenience. She wasn't going to let that rob of her of her right to claim her passage into womanhood..
Here I thought I was about to read the semi-interesting scribbles of a blooming young lady, with ambiguous references to the war. But there is nothing cryptic about her diary. She shoots straight from the hip in this incredibly and shockingly honest account of what life was like for her and her family living in hiding during the WW.
It's not what I expected at all. I expected something rather tame, but it's far from it. This young girl was very interesting and quite special. You can't read this journal and think it's just an ordinary diary of a young girl, because it's not. Anne's diary is a representation of how other Jewish families lived and coped during the Nazi war. That's a pretty powerful thing. Many people don't realize how fortunate we are thanks to Anne Frank, her Father Otto Frank and Miep Gies to have some insight on how it must have been for the Jews to coexist this way.
Because of Anne, we have an idea of how it was like to live under floorboards, in between walls, and behind bookshelves. This diary humanizes and brings back to life the Jewish people who mysteriously disappeared but who had not yet died. I love this diary and I'm so grateful to have read it.
It must have been extremely difficult for her father Otto Frank to read his daughters diary after her death. View all 7 comments.
Jun 12, Dr. Appu Sasidharan rated it it was amazing. Reread Review I never knew that a book could make me so emotional until I read this memoir for the first time during my high school days. Every time I was quarantined during this pandemic, I thought about Anne Frank and her family.
When I found it difficult to stay indoors for just 14 days during each quarantine, the Frank family had to hide in the Secret Annex for two long years. That too at the backdrop of the world war and the holocaust. This young lady had to go through many horrible c Reread Review I never knew that a book could make me so emotional until I read this memoir for the first time during my high school days.
This young lady had to go through many horrible conditions in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Anne Frank shows us the horrors of one of the most brutal acts of cruelty in world history and the importance of freedom in a human being's life. This is a must-read book for everyone. View all 8 comments. Dec 05, Tanu rated it really liked it Shelves: autobiography , non-fiction , classic , reviewed.
This is an autobiography solely based on Anne Frank's diary. Even today after 73 years this book is widely famous among us. So what makes this book so special? Well, this book was never written to get published, or even that someone will ever read it for that matter. In nearly every published version of Anne Frank's diary, each diary entry begins with "Dear Kitty.
It is believed that Anne took these names from characters found in a series of popular Dutch books written by Cissy van Marxveldt, which featured a strong-willed heroine Joop ter Heul. Another character in these books, Kitty Francken, is believed to have been the inspiration for the "Dear Kitty" on most of Anne's diary entries. When Anne first received the red-and-white-checkered notebook which was an autograph album for her 13th birthday, she immediately wanted to use it as a diary.
As she wrote in her very first entry on June 12, : "I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support. From the beginning, Anne intended her diary to be written just for herself and hoped no one else was going to read it.
Bolkestein stated:. Inspired to have her diary published after the war, Anne began to rewrite all of it on loose sheets of paper. In doing so, she shortened some entries while lengthening others, clarified some situations, uniformly addressed all of the entries to Kitty, and created a list of pseudonyms.
Although she nearly finished this monumental task, Anne, unfortunately, didn't have time to rewrite the entire diary before her arrest on August 4, The last diary entry Anne rewrote was March 29, The red-and-white-checkered autograph album has in many ways become the symbol of Anne's diary. Perhaps because of this, many readers have the misconception that all of Anne's diary entries lay within this single notebook. Although Anne began writing in the red-and-white-checkered notebook on June 12, , she had filled it by the time she wrote her December 5, , diary entry.
Since Anne was a prolific writer, she had to use several notebooks to hold all of her diary entries. In addition to the red-and-white-checkered notebook, two other notebooks have been found. The first of these was an exercise book that contained Anne's diary entries from December 22, , to April 17, There is a missing volume in this sequence, which would have covered the time from 2 May to 22 December It runs uninterrupted from 20 June to March and so gives us the narrative that was lost through the missing volume of Version A.
It is more serious than its predecessor, with a careful chronology charting the progress of the war. This version cut the sexual material in the diary and also removed a lot of the criticism that Anne had made of her fellow hideaways.
Otto also made some aesthetic changes. He blended and reordered Versions A and B to give the book a more coherent and literary character. Anne did write the famous sentences that are now the opening, but they came further on in Version A and were excluded from Version B.
The collection, however, contains much more than just the diary. There are beautiful and moving illustrations, which include family photos; closeups of documents; facsimile pages; and a plan of the hidden annex. The Complete Works thus gives a greatly enriched picture, and, as one reads its pages, one cannot help thinking of what Anne might have become.
Perhaps that vision of the adult Anne is deceptive, however. Her diaries offer a picture of a young girl frozen in time. Who knows how she would have been affected by trauma, had she survived? Next year, Albert will celebrate his 90th birthday — the age Anne would have reached this coming June. As survivors, he and Lien de Jong who turned 85 last year have had a lifetime to look back on the horrors of the s.
Albert remembers not just Anne but all their classmates. Albert and Leo shared a school bench and always cycled to the Lyceum together at least until the Jewish possession of bicycles became an offence. One time, as they were pedalling side by side, Albert remembers that Leo suddenly braked and refused to go any further.
Although Kitty was to become Anne's most important imaginary friend, during the first half year in the Secret Annex, she addressed most of her letters to others.
In all, Anne wrote her letters to three types of characters: real people such as her school friend Jacqueline van Maarsen , characters from the books of Van Marxveldt Kitty, Pop, Phien, Conny, and Lou , and characters she had made up herself Marjan, Jettje, and Emmy. In October , Anne fantasised about skating and playing in a film with Kitty in neutral Switzerland. Out of all the characters from her club, Kitty was the one who slowly but surely emerged as Anne's best friend.
When exactly Anne decided to address her letters only to Kitty is unclear, because her diaries from have not survived. Only a rewritten version of that year is available.
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