Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl Read online

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1942

  Dear Kitty,

  I'm terribly busy. Yesterday I began by translating a chapter from La Belle Nivemaise and writing down vocabulary words. Then I worked on an awful math problem and translated three pages of French grammar besides. Today, French grammar and history. I simply refuse to do that wretched math every day. Daddy thinks it's awful too.

  I'm almost better at it than he is, though in fact neither of us is any good, so we always have to call on Margot's help. I'm also working away at my shorthand, which I enjoy. Of the three of us, I've made the most progress. I've read The Storm Family. It's quite good, but doesn't compare to Joop ter Heul. Anyway, the same words can be found in both books, which makes sense because they're written by the same author. Cissy van Marxveldt is a terrific writer. I'm definitely going to let my own children read her books too. Moreover, I've read a lot of Korner plays. I like the way he writes. For example, Hedwig, The Cousin from Bremen, The Governess, The Green Domino, etc. Mother, Margot and I are once again the best of buddies. It's actually a lot nicer that way. Last night Margot and I were lying side by side in my bed. It was incredibly cramped, but that's what made it fun. She asked if she could read my diary once in a while.

  "Parts of it," I said, and asked about hers. She gave me permission to read her diary as well.

  The conversation turned to the future, and I asked what she wanted to be when she was older. But she wouldn't say and was quite mysterious about it. I gathered it had something to do with teaching; of course, I'm not absolutely sure, but I suspect it's something along those lines. I really shouldn't be so nosy.

  This morning I'lay on Peter's bed, after first having chased him off it. He was furious, but I didn't care. He might consider being a little more friendly to me from time to time. After all, I did give him an apple last night. I once asked Margot if she thought I was ugly. She said that I was cute and had nice eyes. A little vague, don't you think?

  Well, until next time!

  Anne Frank

  PS. This morning we all took turns on the scale. Margot now weighs 132 pounds, Mother 136, Father 155, Anne 96, Peter 14g, Mrs. van Daan 117, Mr. van Daan 165. In the three months since I've been here, I've gained 19 pounds. A lot, huh?

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1942

  Dearest Kitty,

  My hand's still shaking, though it's been two hours since we had the scare. I should explain that there are five fire extinguishers in the building. The office staff stupidly forgot to warn us that the carpenter, or whatever he's called, was coming to fill the extinguishers. As a result, we didn't bother to be quiet until I heard the sound of hammering on the landing (across from the bookcase). I immediately assumed it was the carpenter and went to warn Bep, who was eating lunch, that she couldn't go back downstairs. Father and I stationed ourselves at the door so we could hear when the man had left. After working for about fifteen minutes, he laid his hammer and some other tools on our bookcase (or so we thought!) and banged on our door. We turned white with fear. Had he heard something after all and now wanted to check out this mysterious-looking bookcase? It seemed so, since he kept knocking, pulling, pushing and jerking on it.

  I was so scared I nearly fainted at the thought of this total stranger managing to discover our wonderful hiding place. Just when I thought my days were numbered, we heard Mr. Kleiman's voice saying, "Open up, it's me." We opened the door at once. What had happened?

  The hook fastening the bookcase had gotten stuck, which is why no one had been able to warn us about the carpenter. After the man had left, Mr. Kleiman came to get Bep, but couldn't open the bookcase. I can't tell you how relieved I was. In my imagination, the man I thought was trying to get inside the Secret Annex had kept growing and growing until he'd become not only a giant but also the cruelest Fascist in the world. Whew. Fortunately, everything worked out all right, at least this time.

  We had lots of fun on Monday. Miep and Jan spent the night with us. Margot and I slept in Father and Mother's room for the night so the Gieses could have our beds. The menu was drawn up in their honor, and the meal was delicious. The festivities were briefly interrupted when Father's lamp caused a short circuit and we were suddenly plunged into darkness. What were we to do? We did have fuses, but the fuse box was at the rear of the dark warehouse, which made this a particularly unpleasant job at night. Still, the men ventured forth, and ten minutes later we were able to put away the candles.

  I was up early this morning. Jan was already dressed. Since he had to leave at eight-thirty, he was upstairs eating breakfast by eight. Miep was busy getting dressed, and I found her in her undershirt when I came in. She wears the same kind of long underwear I do when she bicycles. Margot and I threw on our clothes as well and were upstairs earlier than usual. After a pleasant breakfast, Miep headed downstairs. It was pouring outside and she was glad she didn't have to bicycle to work. Daddy and I made the beds, and afterward I learned five irregular French verbs. Quite industrious, don't you think? Margot and Peter were reading in our room, with Mouschi curled up beside Margot on the divan. After my irregular French verbs, I joined them and read The Woods Are Singingfor All Eternity. It's quite a beautiful book, but very unusual. I'm almost finished.

  Next week it's Bep's turn to spend the night.

  Yours, Anne

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1942

  My dearest Kitty,

  I'm very worried. Father's sick. He's covered with spots and has a high temperature. It looks like measles. Just think, we can't even call a doctor! Mother is making him perspire in hopes of sweating out the fever. This morning Miep told us that the furniture has been removed from the van Daans' apartment on Zuider-Amstellaan. We haven't told Mrs. van D. yet. She's been so "nervenmassig"* [*nervous] lately, and we don't feel like hearing her moan and groan again about all the beautiful china and lovely chairs she had to leave behind. We had to abandon most of our nice things too. What's the good of grumbling about it now?

  Father wants me to start reading books by Hebbel and other well-known German writers. I can read German fairly well by now, except that I usually mumble the words instead of reading them silently to myself. But that'll pass. Father has taken the plays of Goethe and Schiller down from the big bookcase and is planning to read to me every evening. We've started off with Don Carlos. Encouraged by Father's good example, Mother pressed her prayer book into my hands. I read a few prayers in German, just to be polite. They certainly sound beautiful, but they mean very little to me. Why is she making me act so religious and devout?

  Tomorrow we're going to light the stove for the first time. The chimney hasn't been swept in ages, so the room is bound to fill with smoke. Let's hope the thing draws!

  Yours, Anne

  MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1942

  Dear Kitty,

  Bep stayed with us Friday evening. It was fun, but she didn't sleep very well because she'd drunk some wine. For the rest, there's nothing special to report. I had an awful headache yesterday and went to bed early. Margot's being exasperating again.

  This morning I began sorting out an index card file from the office, because it'd fallen over and gotten all mixed up. Before long I was going nuts. I asked Margot and Peter to help, but they were too lazy, so I put it away. I'm not crazy enough to do it all by myself!

  Anne Frank

  PS. I forgot to mention the important news that I'm probably going to get my period soon. I can tell because I keep finding a whitish smear in my panties, and Mother predicted it would start soon. I can hardly wait. It's such a momentous event. Too bad I can't use sanitary napkins, but you can't get them anymore, and Mama's tampons can be used only by women who've had a baby. i COMMENT ADDED BY ANNE ON JANUARY 22, 1944: I wouldn't be able to write that kind of thing anymore.

  Now that I'm rereading my diary after a year and a half, I'm surprised at my childish innocence. Deep down I know I could never be that innocent again, however much I'd like to be. I can understand the mood chanaes and the comments about Margot,
Mother and Father as if I'd written them only yesterday, but I can't imagine writina so openly about other matters. It embarrasses me areatly to read the panes dealina with subjects that I remembered as beina nicer than they actually were. My descriptions are so indelicate. But enouah of that. I can also understand my homesickness and yearning for Moortje. The whole time I've been here I've longed unconsciously and at times consciously for trust, love and physical affection. This longing may change in intensity, but it's always there.

  THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1942

  Dear Kitty,

  The British have finally scored a few successes in Africa and Stalingrad hasn't fallen yet, so the men are happy and we had coffee and tea this morning. For the rest, nothing special to report.

  This week I've been reading a lot and doing little work. That's the way things ought to be. That's surely the road to success.

  Mother and I are getting along better lately, but we're never close. Father's not very open about his feelings, but he's the same sweetheart he's always been. We lit the stove a few days ago and the entire room is still filled with smoke. I prefer central heating, and I'm probably not the only one. Margot's a stinker (there's no other word for it), a constant source of irritation, morning, noon and night.

  Anne Frank

  SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1942

  Dearest Kitty,

  Mother's nerves are very much on edge, and that doesn't bode well for me. Is it just a coincidence that Father and Mother never scold Margot and always blame me for everything? Last night, for example, Margot was reading a book with beautiful illustrations; she got up and put the book aside for later. I wasn't doing anything, so I picked it up and began looking at the pictures. Margot carne back, saw' "her" book in my hands, knitted her brow and angrily demanded the book back. I wanted to look through it some more. Margot got madder by the minute, and Mother butted in: "Margot was reading that book; give it back to her."

  Father came in, and without even knowing what was going on, saw that Margot was being wronged and lashed out at me: "I'd like to see what you'd do if Margot was looking at one of your books!"

  I promptly gave in, put the book down and, according to them, left the room' 'in a huff." I was neither huffy nor cross, but merely sad.

  It wasn't right of Father to pass judgment without knowing what the issue was. I would have given the book to Margot myself, and a lot sooner, if Father and Mother hadn't intervened and rushed to take Margot's part, as if she were suffering some great injustice.

  Of course, Mother took Margot's side; they always take each other's sides. I'm so used to it that I've become completely indifferent to Mother's rebukes and Margot's moodiness. I love them, but only because they're Mother and Margot. I don't give a darn about them as people. As far as I'm concerned, they can go jump in a lake. It's different with Father. When I see him being partial to Margot, approving Margot's every action, praising her, hugging her, I feel a gnawing ache inside, because I'm crazy about him. I model myself after Father, and there's no one in the world I love more. He doesn't realize that he treats Margot differently than he does me: Margot just happens to be the smartest, the kindest, the prettiest and the best. But I have a right to be taken seriously too. I've always been the clown and mischief maker of the family; I've always had to pay double for my sins: once with scoldings and then again with my own sense of despair. I'm no longer satisfied with the meaningless affection or the supposedly serious talks. I long for something from Father that he's incapable of giving. I'm not jealous of Margot; I never have been. I'm not envious of her brains or her beauty. It's just that I'd like to feel that Father really loves me, not because I'm his child, but because I'm me, Anne.

  I cling to Father because my contempt of Mother is growing daily and it's only through him that I'm able to retain the last ounce of family feeling I have left. He doesn't understand that I sometimes need to vent my feelings for Mother. He doesn't want to talk about it, and he avoids any discussion involving Mother's failings. And yet Mother, with all her shortcomings, is tougher for me to deal with. I don't know how I should act. I can't very well confront her with her carelessness, her sarcasm and her hard-heartedness, yet I can't continue to take the blame for everything.

  I'm the opposite of Mother, so of course we clash. I don't mean to judge her; I don't have that right. I'm simply looking at her as a mother. She's not a mother to me-I have to mother myself. I've cut myself adrift from them. I'm charting my own course, and we'll see where it leads me. I have no choice, because I can picture what a mother and a wife should be and can't seem to find anything of the sort in the woman I'm supposed to call "Mother." I tell myself time and again to overlook Mother's bad example. I only want to see her good points, and to look inside myself for what's lacking in her. But it doesn't work, and the worst part is that Father and Mother don't realize their own inadequacies and how much I blame them for letting me down. Are there any parents who can make their children completely happy?

  Sometimes I think God is trying to test me, both now and in the future. I'll have to become a good person on my own, without anyone to serve as a model or advise me, but it'll make me stronger in the end.

  Who else but me is ever going to read these letters? Who else but me can I turn to for comfort? I'm frequently in need of consolation, I often feel weak, and more often than not, I fail to meet expectations. I know this, and every day I resolve to do better.

  They aren't consistent in their treatment of me. One day they say that Anne's a sensible girl and entitled to know everything, and the next that Anne's a silly goose who doesn't know a thing and yet imagines she's learned all she needs to know from books! I'm no longer the baby and spoiled little darling whose every deed can be laughed at. I have my own ideas, plans and ideals, but am unable to articulate them yet.

  Oh well. So much comes into my head at night when I'm alone, or during the day when I'm obliged to put up with people I can't abide or who invariably misinterpret my intentions. That's why I always wind up coming back to my diary-I start there and end there because Kitty's always patient. I promise her that, despite everything, I'll keep going, that I'll find my own way and choke back my tears. I only wish I could see some results or, just once, receive encouragement from someone who loves me.

  Don't condemn me, but think of me as a person who sometimes reaches the bursting point!

  Yours, Anne

  MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9,1942

  Dearest Kitty,

  Yesterday was Peter's birthday, his sixteenth. I was upstairs by eight, and Peter and I looked at his presents. He received a game of Monopoly, a razor and a cigarette lighter. Not that he smokes so much, not at all; it just looks so distinguished.

  The biggest surprise came from Mr. van Daan, who reported at one that the English had landed in Tunis, Algiers, Casablanca and Oran.

  "This is the beginning of the end," everyone was saying, but Churchill, the British Prime Minister, who must have heard the same thing being repeated in England, declared, "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." Do you see the difference? However, there's reason for optimism. Stalingrad, the Russian city that has been under attack for three months, still hasn't fallen into

  German hands.

  In the true spirit of the Annex, I should talk to you about food. (I should explain that they're real gluttons up on the top floor.)

  Bread is delivered daily by a very nice baker, a friend of Mr. Kleiman's. Of course, we don't have as much as we did at home, but it's enough. We also purchase ration books on the black market. The price keeps going up; it's already risen from 27 to 33 guilders. And that for mere sheets of printed paper!

  To provide ourselves with a source of nutrition that will keep, aside from the hundred cans of food we've stored here, we bought three hundred pounds of beans. Not just for us, but for the office staff as well. We'd hung the sacks of beans on hooks in the hallway, just inside our secret entrance, but a few seams split under th
e weight. So we decided to move them to the attic, and Peter was entrusted with the heavy lifting. He managed to get five of the six sacks upstairs intact and was busy with the last one when the sack broke and a flood, or rather a hailstorm, of brown beans went flying through the air and down the stairs. Since there were about fifty pounds of beans in that sack, it made enough noise to raise the dead. Downstairs they were sure the house was falling down around their heads. Peter was stunned, but then burst into peals of laughter when he saw me standing at the bottom of the stairs, like an island in a sea of brown, with waves of beans lapping at my ankles. We promptly began picking them up, but beans are so small and slippery that they roll into every conceivable corner and hole. Now each time we go upstairs, we bend over and hunt around so we can present Mrs. van Daan with a handful of beans. I almost forgot to mention that Father has recovered from his illness. Yours, Anne

  P.S. The radio has just announced that Algiers has fallen. Morocco, Casablanca and Oran have been in English hands for several days. We're now waiting for Tunis.