The Diary of Anne Frank

The Diary of Anne Frank (The Diary of a Young Girl) is one of the most shocking testimonies about anti-Semitism during the II. World War. A little girl Anne Frank received a diary on her 13. birthday and from the twelfth of June,  1942 until the first of August, 1944 she wrote down all of her experiences. After being published, her diary was used as a base for many plays and movies.

Anne Frank was a happy and chatty girl that celebrated her thirteenth birthday on June the twelfth, 1942. As a gift, she got a diary, and there begins the story that shocked the world. She decided to write down her thoughts and feeling in the diary because she did not have a real friend to share them with.

Genre: diary

Time: June 12th, 1942. - August 1st, 1944

Place: Netherlands

Book Summary

Even though she has a sister that is 3 years older than her, parents, and relatives, she sometimes feels lonely because nobody understands her, and also her mother behaves as if she were her and her sisters Margot's friend. Despite the fact that people constantly surrounded her, she never managed to make a deeper connection with anyone. In 1933 they moved to the Netherlands where her father got a job.

All of the relatives who left Germany behind felt the rage of anti-Semitism. After 1940 the war gets to the family Frank and all of the other Jews who were standing in Hitler's way. The Jews became second-class citizens by many laws that stripped them of their rights. They were allowed to shop in specific shops in a specific time, and they could not visit public places like cinemas and theaters. They were ordered to be home at 8, and they had to wear the Star of David on their clothes.

The ninth of July 1942 was the day when Anne's family had to hide to protect themselves from being taken to the camps were Jews ended up during World War II. The people who worked with her father helped them find shelter in a building where they worked and since that day on Anne named her new home "The secret shelter".

That same year on 13 August, the family van Daan joined the Franks because they also had no place to go and was in need of a shelter for a while. Their only son Peter came with them, and at the beginning, Anne did not have a particularly high opinion of him.

The arrival of the new family seemed like a good idea for a while. They spent time together and ate together like a big happy family. However, the life of many people in a small place led to conflicts and tension. Everything got worse with time and caused irritability among people who couldn't afford the luxury of getting away from each other for a moment. The tension grew between Anne and Mister van Daan, Anne and her mom, Miss Van Daan, and Anne's mom.

There was a lot of time and little space. Anne and Peter kept on educating themselves and spent time learning English and French. Mister Koophius who was an associate of her father, secretly brought them a book from the library. He did not only get them books for children, so Peter got into a fight with his father over an inappropriate book. Anne loved history and mythology, so her father started making a family tree with her and she enjoyed it thoroughly.

While the Franks and van Daans are hidden in the shelter, terrible things happen on the streets. Trucks come and take a significant amount of people to camps. The streets are dangerous for the Jews and camps are terrible places from where they might never come back.

The 17th of November brings the eight tenant. It was Mister Albert Dussel, and he was a dentist. He seemed like a nice, older gentleman and it was decided that he will be sleeping in Anne's room. As time passed by Anne started noticing that he wasn't as nice as he seemed and he was annoyed by Anne who always spoke her mind. They got into a fight over a desk in the room that Anne wanted to use two times a week for a few hours. In the end, she had to ask her father for help, and he took her side.

Space was limited, and there were many people, so they had to set up some rules before things get out of hand. Bedtime was at 10, and waking up was at 7:30 except during the holidays and on Sunday when they woke up at 10:30. The silence was crucial because any noise could expose them to the outer world, so they had to talk quietly.

The radio was available for listening only after 6 p.m. and they listened to everything except German radio stations. They didn't have a specified dinner time because it all depended on the news. Bathing was also restricted, and they only showered on Sunday morning. Life was hard and determined strictly by rules.

The situation got worse and worse, and people got restless, and disorders broke out. Robberies became a part of everyday life, and there was even an attempt of a break-in to the building where they were hiding. Everyone was terrified. If the police came into the building, there was a great chance that they'll discover them and take them to camps.

Anne stopped talking around the table because it was better for her but she still felt the need to have a real friend to share her secrets with. She found that person in Peter. The more time they spent together, the bigger her opinion about him got. She wrote down in her diary that she was afraid of boring him out that what was happening was the exact opposite. Peter loved her, and young love was born. Neither of them was sure of his emotions, but they were sure it wasn't friendship anymore.

Anne's diary ends with the first of August, 1944 when she sends a letter to Kitty. She writes about her contradictory nature and a happy, chatty and cheerful girl. She emphasizes that there is a different and better Anne that almost nobody knows and that is why everyone finds her way more unbearable than she is.

The fourth of August was the day the police arrested the inhabitants of the shelter, including some of her father's co-workers who helped, them and took them to concentration camps. Anne died in one of them of typhus in 1945.

Characters Analysis

Characters: Anne, Peter, Annes parents, Mister and Miss Van Daan, Albert Dussel

Anne Frank is a smart, curious and kind-hearted 3-year-old girl. She loved reading and writing and was interested in history as well as Roman and Greek mythology. She very much enjoyed working with her father and cared for her family. Her hobby was collecting pictures of famous movie stars. She enjoyed art and especially enjoyed studying painters and poets. She hated math, numbers, and geometry. She had no deep relationship with her mother and felt like a black sheep of the family. In general, she couldn’t establish deeper connections with people. Some days, she had the feeling that everyone liked her, but other days she was "little goat that knew nothing". Still, she had her own opinions, ideas, and plans. She felt that her mother was very unfair to her and that she constantly resented her something she couldn't understand, but, eventually, she became resistant to her mother's unkind words and reactions. All she needed were comfort and someone to understand her. She was not happy with herself.

Anne Frank Biography

Annelies Marie Frank was born on June 12, 1929, and she died of typhus in a concentration camp Bergen-Belsen in 1945.

She was born in Frankfurt, and she spent most of her life in Amsterdam or around Amsterdam. Even though she had German citizenship, she lost it in 1941. Her diary, which made her famous, contains the experience of a young girl that was forced to hide during the occupation of Germany

Her family moved from Germany to the Netherlands in 1933, and they were held captive there during 1940 when the German occupation began. The persecution of Jews got more brutal and rough with time, and the family was forced to hide inside the building where her father worked.

Anne's father was the only one left alive. He was the one who found Anne's diary that was published in 1947. After that, the diary was translated into English and all of the other languages so that everyone can live the horrors of war through the eyes of a young girl.