"The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank

Above: Cover, "The Diary of a Young Girl." Anne Franck. 18 May 2016

Anne Frank's diary entries show remarkable depth of insight into human character, particularly coming from an early teen.

I completed this book today... complementing my visit, yesterday, to the Anne Frank Museum, Prinsengracht 263-267, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Most of my reading time was on the airplane as I returned from Amsterdam to Salt Lake City.

Anne Frank was aged thirteen to fifteen when she wrote her diary... 1st entry, 12 June 1942 and final entry, 01 August 1944. Anne Frank died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945 shortly before the war's end.

Takeaways...

Anne Frank's diary entries show remarkable depth of insight into human character, particularly coming from an early teen. One of many examples: She describes fellow hider Dussel's selfish acts. But, she doesn't leave it there. She also draws philosophical conclusions about Dussel: "Anyone who is so petty and pedantic at the age of fifty-four was born that way and is never going to change." Such "philosophical insights" on the character of her fellow hiders pervade the book.

In her writing, Anne Frank showed a highly developed self awareness and ability to describe same.

The Anne Frank who enjoyed that heavenly existence (referring to her idyllic pre hiding life as a "tween) was completely different from the one who has grown wise within these walls....

... you're probably wondering how I could have charmed all those people. Peter says it's because I'm "attractive', but that isn't it entirely. The teachers were amused and entertained by my clever answers, my witty remarks, my smiling face and my critical mind. That's all I was: a terrible flirt, coquettish and amusing. I had a few plus points, which kept me in everybody's good graces: I was hardworking, honest and generous. I would never have refused anyone who wanted to peek at my answers. I was magnanimous with my sweets and I wasn't stuck up.

Would all that admiration eventually have made me over-confident? It's a good thing that, at the height of my glory, I was suddenly plunged into reality. It took me more than a year to get used to doing without admiration.

I wondered as I read if Anne's diary, if her discipline to write every day enhanced her ability to draw insights usually only expected from well educated adults. Did being forced to stay, surreptitiously, in a very small space, accelerate her intellectual development and capacity for deep reflection?

In contrast to the insight and depth shown in the diary was also teen immaturity and coquettishness. In her writing she was very cruel to her mother. Her relationship with Peter van Damm, the son of a couple also hiding with the Frank's morphed from contempt to infatuation. Her lack of reluctance to hold back her infatuation with Peter was very much the stuff of a teen girl's diary.

The hiders have a radio... they are aware of the progress of the war. Non-Jewish employees of Frank's firm help them acquire food and supplies. Hearing of the progress of the war... or not.. causes Anne's writing tone to move between hope and despair as the war unfolds. Anne's up one day... down the next. Anne's emotional swings force the reader to better appreciate the pressures and tensions of hiding from the Nazis.

Two years is a long time for eight people to hide in a small annex of an Amsterdam walk-up. Well into the hiding period, the parties were fixing their own food and not talking to one another during meals. That the ruse lasted as long as it did - 2 years - before the hiders were betrayed seems remarkable.

It was good to read the book immediately after having walked through the annex, now converted to a museum. Walking through the annex and reading Anne Frank's diary almost contiguously created for me a poignant awareness of evil and its ongoing threat to human liberty. Such "poignant awareness" needs to be refreshed from time to time.... lest we forget.