Words from the Secret Annex
A review of The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
By Julia A. Keirns
Since I recently reviewed The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, I decided to go ahead and review this book based on the same time frame and same events. Reading these two classics together makes perfect sense. The first being a Dutch family who helped hide the Jews during the Nazi invasion of Holland, and the second being a family of Jews who went into hiding.
Thirteen-year-old Anne gets a diary for her birthday. She writes in it and begins a journey of writing that will help her through the toughest two years of her life. Just a week after receiving the diary and beginning to journal, she comments, “it seems to me that “no one” will be interested in the unbosomings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl…what does it matter, I want to write…I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart…paper is more patient than man.” (paraphrased). And she does a wonderful job of bringing out the emotions buried deep in her heart in the pages that follow.
Reading the days of the diary can be daunting, especially on the days when nothing much happens. But Anne had a way of finding something interesting to say even on those days. She addressed her diary as Dear Kitty, and if you read the words carefully you can feel the anxiety and the emotions of a scared young girl in a time of war. She finds the words to express her sorrow, anger and fear. All of the emotions one would expect at such a time. Can any of us even imagine living in a Secret Annex, having to be so quiet at all times of the day and night, no matter what was going on, so as not to be discovered. Anne was a great writer and had a wonderful vocabulary for her age. She did a tremendous job of documenting history.
At times the days were dreary and depressing she states, as well as the food. Anne struggled with teenage independence, becoming a young woman at such a time and in such a place, getting along with her sister and parents, getting along with the other family in hiding with them and just plain living in fear in an attic. She felt like she couldn’t be herself around everyone else, so she shared herself with her diary. She felt that she had a dual personality and told her diary that there was a better, deeper and purer side to herself that if brought forward everyone would think something was wrong with her. She wrote the words, “I keep on 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.”
The Diary of Anne Frank is a wonderful account of a young girl’s life in a time in history that should never be forgotten. Anne’s story does not end with the diary. Reading the afterword is a must to find out what happens to her and her family.