The Diary of a Young Girl review

I first read The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank when I was about 10 years old. As you might expect, I found it extremely disturbing, and was only able to read bits and pieces before stopping. When I turned 31, I had finally read the entire book. And decades later, I read it again. Both times, I still found Anne’s story to be extremely unsettling. This is The Diary of a Young Girl review and book banter.

Anne Frank was born in Germany in 1929. She had an older sister named Margot, who Anne initially resented when she was younger. Margot, from Anne’s perspective, did well in school, was obedient, and more reserved. In a way, Anne was jealous of Margot’s more mature personality and her intelligence. And, Anne thought her parents liked Margot better.

Anne’s Jewish father and mother both came from upper middle-class families, but as a family, they lived a more middle-class life. Education was an important priority, so both Anne and Margot were encouraged to do well in school.

In 1933, as the Nazis gained power in Germany, Anne and her family fled, one-by-one, to the Netherlands. There, they lived in a middle-class Jewish neighborhood in Amsterdam. Happily, Anne and her sister enjoyed a normal childhood. They attended school and Anne formed new friendships.

During the second half of the 1930’s, the Nazis invaded, annexed, and then occupied other European countries. In 1940, they took over and occupied the Netherlands.

On Anne Frank’s 13th birthday in 1942, she received a diary as a gift from her parents. She addressed her diary entries to ‘Kitty’, Anne’s imaginary friend. Shortly afterwards, she wrote this foreboding description of how life had changed in Amsterdam:

Jews were required to wear a yellow star; Jews were required to turn in their bicycles; Jews were forbidden to use streetcars; Jews were forbidden to ride in cars, even their own; …”

(page viii, Foreward, The Diary of a Young Girl)

Anne continued listing all the things that Jewish people, including her own family, were forbidden to do. At that point, they were living as though they were not a normal part of society—former friends shunned them and avoided eye contact.

They endured horribly confining restrictions, especially for a young teenager—and those strictures must have been very painful for Anne and her Jewish friends to experience.

In July 1942, shortly after Anne started writing entries to ‘dearest Kitty’ in her diary, her sister Margot received a summons to report to a labor camp where she would be required to work. At the point, Anne’s parents already knew they would have to go into hiding—they had already been preparing for that unfortunate option.

Anne’s parents had already taken clothes, kitchen items, along with other essentials, to their future hiding place in an old office building. So, Anne and her sister packed what they could carry, and moved into their secret annex on July 6, 1942.

The facade of their new but hidden address was in a group of large, three-story row homes built along a canal. Those properties were always in high demand, so the lot was narrow in the front, but stretched very long in the back. To accommodate more people on that narrow but long lot, an annex had been built in back of the house.

Anne Frank and her family lived on the second and third floor of that annex, which they shared with four other people. In addition, they used the large attic space above the third floor for storage. The front house and the annex were connected—a business used the entire ground floor as a warehouse.

The only entrance to their secret annex was a staircase hidden behind a revolving bookcase.

During the entire time in the annex, there were other people working in the business in the front of the property and the warehouse, which extended along the bottom of the entire house and annex. So, to avoid detection, it was vitally important that the inhabitants of the annex remained quiet and stayed out of sight.

Anne Frank and her family, along with the four other inhabitants, would remain hidden in their secret annex from July 6, 1942, until they were arrested on August 4, 1944. During that entire time, Anne would communicate with her imaginary friend, ‘Kitty’, by making entries in her cherished diary.

While in hiding, Anne mostly wrote about her interactions with her father, mother, and Margot, her sister. In addition, she discussed how she got along with the other four inhabitants.

She also confided to ‘Kitty’ how her troubled relationship with her sister evolved. Anne wrote that she and her sister eventually learned to get along and help each other survive during those difficult days and nights.

Anne slept in the same cramped room as an older, single man who was a dentist. In general, Anne’s personality clashed with her older male roommate because they had to share the small space.

In addition, she wrote about how he did some things that seemed inappropriate to her—things that a boyfriend might do with his girlfriend. Oddly, I wasn’t sure if her father had known about those instances.

However, because the dentist was also Jewish, he had to be extremely careful not to get in trouble and to remain quiet. So, I suspect, at least based on Anne’s diary entries, that he was mostly careful with his behavior towards her.

Either way, his behavior sounded very inappropriate to me, at least based on what Anne had written. And, as a young teenager, she probably didn’t know how to handle that awkward situation with an adult.

If Anne’s father had known or did suspect something, he also had to be very careful how to handle that situation. However, if I had been Anne’s father, I wouldn’t have left her alone with that man—that’s for sure!

Also sharing the space with the Frank family was a young boy, who was just a little older than Anne. In fact, he was Margot’s age. They spent a lot of time talking together in the annex’s attic space.

Anne’s father wisely advised her teenaged daughter to not fall in love, and to not let the relationship progress beyond friendship. He counselled her that any romantic misunderstandings could make life very difficult for her, especially in their confined living space.

Anne agreed with her father, and while she liked talking with a boy closer to her own age, she didn’t really have romantic feelings for him.

And, to make matters worse, Margot also had some feelings for that boy. And, who can blame them—they were both young, and both wanted romance in their lives! But, they couldn’t, and that’s just another thing that makes this story so heartbreaking.

Anne described the simple things they had to do just to stay alive. She described how they obtained their rationed food (they had trusted friends), and then how they prepared their scarce food.

In addition, they had to store the food, and keep animal pests away. If they were lucky, the food didn’t get eaten by rats. But then, they had to store the food and keep it from spoiling.

Anne described that they could not risk putting anything into garbage cans. Here’s what she wrote:

Although it’s undeniably hot, we have to light a fire every other day to burn our vegetable peelings and garbage. We can’t throw anything into the trash cans, because the warehouse employees might see it. One small act of carelessness and we’re done for!”

(page 111, The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank)

Thanks to their wise parents, both Anne and Margot continued their academic studies. Despite sharing a desk with her adult roommate, Anne always found time to study. As a diligent student, Anne wrote how she struggled to memorize the tenses of all the French verbs—the French language was a challenging subject for the bright young writer.

In a way, I believe studying her demanding schoolwork gave Anne hope for the future.

Throughout the entire diary, I believe Anne had hope that her future life would be better. For instance, after she and her family had illegally listened to a broadcast from London, she heard that a Dutch minister in exile wanted to publish a collection of diaries and other letters written during the Nazi occupation.

This gave Anne hope that, as an aspiring writer, she could eventually publish a novel she would call The Secret Annex. It would be based on her diary entries, which she had already started to edit and rewrite.

Anne often wrote to ‘Kitty’ about her philosophical thoughts and beliefs. She wrote:

…yet religion itself, any religion, keeps a person on the right path. Not the fear of God, but upholding your own sense of honor and obeying your own conscience…”

(page 350, The Diary of a Young Girl)

Anne and her family were especially happy to hear of the great successes as the US and allied forces fought against fascism in Europe. She hoped they would soon set the Netherlands and even Germany free from Nazi control.

However, the allies and the US forces didn’t make it in time to save Anne and her family. On August 4, 1944, the Nazi Gestapo arrested Anne, along with her family and the other four inhabitants of their secret annex.

They were all separated and sent to concentration camps. Can you imagine being a young teenage girl, separated from your family, and then sent to a horrible concentration camp where you knew you would probably die? It was just appalling, and I hate to even think about it, but we must all think about it and remember.

Unfortunately, Anne died alone in a concentration camp. She died in early 1945 while suffering from typhus. Heartbreakingly for Anne, only months later, the allied forces would liberate the camp.

After the being liberated from his concentration camp, Otto Frank, attracted the attention of a publishing house in Amsterdam. In 1947, they published Anne Frank’s diary in the Dutch language.

Later, other translations quickly followed, and now Anne’s diary is available in over 75 languages.

TAKEAWAYS

For me, Anne Frank’s diary was very difficult to read—the images Anne painted with her words made me heartsick. As a young boy, I could only read bits and pieces—it made me so sad, and the content also made me doubt my beliefs in a benevolent god. How could a loving god allow those things to happen?

Despite the grim content, Anne Frank’s diary also contained hope for the future. Not only for Anne’s future, but the hope that humanity could rise to bigger and better things after Nazi fascism was defeated.

Because of Anne’s optimism, even while she endured such hopeless circumstances, I believe everyone should read her diary. If you haven’t read it yet, I hope you do read The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.

Thank you for reading The Diary of a Young Girl review. If you’ve already read Anne Frank’s heartbreaking, but inspiring diary, please share your comments below!

Content and photos by Doug Martin and Our Book Banter.