Anne Frank. The Diary of a Young Girl
Just arriving from Amsterdam (reason why I did not write on the blog this week) I would have liked to visit the house where Anne and her family were hidden. Eventually I could not go as it was a very short stay and I should have bought tickets in advance!. I will have to come back.
Summary
On 12 June 1942 Anne is given a diary as a gift in her 13th birthday. In the diary she writes about all important things in her life: school, friends, boys, etc.Suddenly, her life dramatically changes when her older sister, 16 years old, is called to appear before the authorities. Normally this means she is going to be sent to a concentration camp. Her parents decided to go into hiding in the office where the father was working. Another german family was living with them and later on another person joined them. Anne wrote in his diary everything she lived under those circumstances until 1 August 1944, when all of them were arrested.
Opinion
This is a book complicated to define because it deals both with the world of an adolescent and at the same time with the outside world, that world she cannot enjoy always present in the diary. Like other diaries, it ends in a sharp way. One knows the end is near because the pages in the book are finishing but at the same time, Anne has a whole life to live and tell.The form of writing is epistolary. The letters are addressed to a friend called Kitty. It is outstanding the hability of Anne as a writer, especially because she is only 13 years old when she started the diary and 15 when she finished. She had a lot of books to read around and this relationship between reading and writing is often found in great writers, e.g. in The Brontës or Virginia Woolf.
In a way, the Diary remains me of the film by Roberto Benigni, The Life is Beautiful, because through the eyes of a girl, we are told about the situation lived by Jewish people in Holland during the Second War World.
You can find a lot of information and material to work with this book and the historical moment in The Anne Frank House, webpage of the House (now converted into Museum) where she lived her last years in Amsterdam. In resources section below, I have chosen some useful links to start with.
If you have not read it yet, it is really worthwhile.
Resources
- Anne Frank Timeline in English to study the history of 20th century through the story of Anne's family.
