I have started to re-read an old favourite 'Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl' for the past few days. Why?
First, for the sheer pleasure of it.
Second, I had last read this book as a teenager, in fact read it 3-4 times throughout my teens, and wanted to revisit it. I had been deeply affected by it. 25 years back there weren't many books available to me that dealt with the topic of teenage angst as also with a topic that interested me very much- the Holocaust.
Third, I came across this wonderful Penguin Edition in a comfortable, kid-friendly font, and I just had to pick it up for my daughter, although I am not sure she will be truly able to appreciate all of it yet. Maybe in 2-3 years' time. In the meantime, there was no harm in me reading it for old times' sake. My old copy was no longer with me, as I had left it behind with much else when I moved away from my hometown.
ANNE FRANK
The Diary of a Young Girl
Edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler
Translated by Susan Massotty
Ages 12+
Anne Frank was an ordinary thirteen year old, who kept this diary from her thirteenth birthday for the next two years. She penned all everyday happenings, her feelings about everything and everyone around her. We have her account of her growing-up pains and joys, a lowdown on her relationships, all the yo-yo-ing typical of adolescence, her darkest, deepest secrets and her hopes for the future.
So how is this any different from something that anyone else might have written? Just this, that Anne was a Dutch Jew in hiding from Nazi persecution with her family and four other people. Other than the turmoil normal for her age, there was the fugitive existence, living life on the edge, in constant fear of discovery, and the chaos of having to live in close quarters with family and strangers, with no end to their troubles in sight.
Even in this situation, the diary is so full of life, and of hope, that the reader sometines forgets that this immensely talented girl died before her 16th birthday, and the world lost someone who could probably have been a prolific writer, and an original thinker who believed in the goodness of humans. The future that Anne herself had envisioned for herself.
Some lines of note from her diary-
5th April 1944 : "I don't want to have lived in vain like most people ... I want to go on living even after my death! And that's why I'm so grateful to God for having given me this gift (a talent for writing), which I can use to develop myself and to express all that's inside me."
11th April 1944 :"One day this terrible war will be over. The time will come when we'll be people again and not just Jews!"
11th May 1944 : "...my greatest wish is to be a journalist, and later on, a famous writer."
6th July 1944 : "We have many reasons to hope for great happiness, but ... we have to earn it. And that's something that you can't achieve by taking the easy way out."
15th July 1944 : "It's twice as hard for us young people to hold on to our opinions at a time when ideals are being shattered and destroyed, when the worst side of human nature predominates, when everyone has come to doubt truth, justice and God...Yet I cling to (my ideals) because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart."
After around two years in hiding, on 4th August, 1944, their hiding place- The Secret Annexe- was discovered, and they were arrested by the Gestapo and deported. The afterword gives details of the eight members' fate. They were first taken to Westerbork, a transit camp, and then on to Auschwitz. There, the group was separated, and in late October, the two Frank girls were sent to Bergen-Belsen. Anne and her sister were together till their end, dying of typhus in early March 1945, at Bergen-Belsen, a few weeks before the surrender of Germany and the end of WW2 in April 1945. Otto Frank, the girls' father, was the only survivor, and he was handed Anne's diary along with other papers by Miep Gies, one of the non-Jews who helped them while they were in hiding.
Otto Frank decided to publish the diary in deference to the wish Anne expresses in it to be a famous writer, and to go on living after her death. He also hoped that it could be instrumental in holding up a mirror to the horrors that can be perpetrated due to prejudice about the 'other', so that these things may happen "never again!" An optimistic and foolish hope!
A first edition of the diary was published in 1947, after Otto Frank had edited out what he thought were the more 'private' matters- Anne's thoughts on her relationships with the members of her family, and her growing sexuality, something that he was not comfortable with revealing to the world. This latest, definitive edition has the complete text of the diary, and we get a comprehensive picture of society and of Anne's life before and after going into hiding.
Recommended. I will certainly hand this to A as soon as I think she can handle it. In fact, she read a few entries before I realised it, and was enchanted. We have to take topics like the Holocaust slowly, though, and we are working on it.
Edited to add: I am entering this book for the 2011 Global Reading Challenge under Europe.
Re-edited to add: Also entering under the Reading the world challenge 2011 under Holland and non-fiction.
Crossposted at Bookreviews.
First, for the sheer pleasure of it.
Second, I had last read this book as a teenager, in fact read it 3-4 times throughout my teens, and wanted to revisit it. I had been deeply affected by it. 25 years back there weren't many books available to me that dealt with the topic of teenage angst as also with a topic that interested me very much- the Holocaust.
 |
| Pic courtesy Penguinbooksindia |
ANNE FRANK
The Diary of a Young Girl
Edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler
Translated by Susan Massotty
Ages 12+
Anne Frank was an ordinary thirteen year old, who kept this diary from her thirteenth birthday for the next two years. She penned all everyday happenings, her feelings about everything and everyone around her. We have her account of her growing-up pains and joys, a lowdown on her relationships, all the yo-yo-ing typical of adolescence, her darkest, deepest secrets and her hopes for the future.
So how is this any different from something that anyone else might have written? Just this, that Anne was a Dutch Jew in hiding from Nazi persecution with her family and four other people. Other than the turmoil normal for her age, there was the fugitive existence, living life on the edge, in constant fear of discovery, and the chaos of having to live in close quarters with family and strangers, with no end to their troubles in sight.
Even in this situation, the diary is so full of life, and of hope, that the reader sometines forgets that this immensely talented girl died before her 16th birthday, and the world lost someone who could probably have been a prolific writer, and an original thinker who believed in the goodness of humans. The future that Anne herself had envisioned for herself.
Some lines of note from her diary-
5th April 1944 : "I don't want to have lived in vain like most people ... I want to go on living even after my death! And that's why I'm so grateful to God for having given me this gift (a talent for writing), which I can use to develop myself and to express all that's inside me."
11th April 1944 :"One day this terrible war will be over. The time will come when we'll be people again and not just Jews!"
11th May 1944 : "...my greatest wish is to be a journalist, and later on, a famous writer."
6th July 1944 : "We have many reasons to hope for great happiness, but ... we have to earn it. And that's something that you can't achieve by taking the easy way out."
15th July 1944 : "It's twice as hard for us young people to hold on to our opinions at a time when ideals are being shattered and destroyed, when the worst side of human nature predominates, when everyone has come to doubt truth, justice and God...Yet I cling to (my ideals) because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart."
After around two years in hiding, on 4th August, 1944, their hiding place- The Secret Annexe- was discovered, and they were arrested by the Gestapo and deported. The afterword gives details of the eight members' fate. They were first taken to Westerbork, a transit camp, and then on to Auschwitz. There, the group was separated, and in late October, the two Frank girls were sent to Bergen-Belsen. Anne and her sister were together till their end, dying of typhus in early March 1945, at Bergen-Belsen, a few weeks before the surrender of Germany and the end of WW2 in April 1945. Otto Frank, the girls' father, was the only survivor, and he was handed Anne's diary along with other papers by Miep Gies, one of the non-Jews who helped them while they were in hiding.
Otto Frank decided to publish the diary in deference to the wish Anne expresses in it to be a famous writer, and to go on living after her death. He also hoped that it could be instrumental in holding up a mirror to the horrors that can be perpetrated due to prejudice about the 'other', so that these things may happen "never again!" An optimistic and foolish hope!
A first edition of the diary was published in 1947, after Otto Frank had edited out what he thought were the more 'private' matters- Anne's thoughts on her relationships with the members of her family, and her growing sexuality, something that he was not comfortable with revealing to the world. This latest, definitive edition has the complete text of the diary, and we get a comprehensive picture of society and of Anne's life before and after going into hiding.
Recommended. I will certainly hand this to A as soon as I think she can handle it. In fact, she read a few entries before I realised it, and was enchanted. We have to take topics like the Holocaust slowly, though, and we are working on it.
Edited to add: I am entering this book for the 2011 Global Reading Challenge under Europe.
Re-edited to add: Also entering under the Reading the world challenge 2011 under Holland and non-fiction.
Crossposted at Bookreviews.
11 comments:
That's been on my list of books to read for a long time. Saw some excerpts at the Holocaust Museum at DC and it (along with everything else there) just chill. A little girl whose dreams were so cruelly crushed. My book shelf list is getting bigger!
It is a great read. One more reason to read it- a bit difficult to admit it to myself- is that so many years after leaving adolescence behind, the memories of all that we go through tend to become hazy- sometimes making me intolerant of what, after all, is age appropriate tween behaviour for A. This book served as a reminder!:)
Have been slightly hesitant getting this for the child - though she has been reading about the Holocaust since 4-5 years now, and in explicit detail too.. time to rethink maybe.
What do you say?
The first book that I read on WWII and which disturbed me immensely but a great book and equally lovely review Sandhya.
@Choxbox: The book itself does not have anything graphic about the holocaust- there cannot be- as it is a diary kept by Anne in hiding, and the Jews then did not really know what had befallen those who had already been deported. Since they do have a wireless (radio) they are in touch with the news, but even that was, at the time, greatly censored. There is, however, the context, which is discussed in the foreword and the afterword.
There is also Anne's budding sexuality, and at 15yrs, some weeks before they are discovered, there is some account of her tentative explorations with Peter van Pels, the boy from the other family in hiding. There is nothing explicit, though. And knowing your kid's level of reading, I would say, go ahead and give it to her. A needs a year or so, though, before she can appreciate the book.
@Vibha: Thanks. It is a wonderful book, one that I have been really touched by. It was my first book on the holocaust, too, and has led me to the great interest I have in studying the period.
I haven't read it for a number of years and I realise I really must get it out again.
Hey, Sandhya!
Saw Boy with a Suitcase today with the kids - a kids' play about the issues of a refugee. Thought of Anne Frank. Would it be too soon for me to read it out to the kids, you think? Maybe a junior classics version? The moment is ripe, so thought I might but had to ask my reading gurus.
@Marjorie: Yes, worth a re-read!
@Sangi: Maybe you could try the abridged Usborne edition of the Diary. I also have a National Geographic publication on Anne Frank that would be a better first book to read. I would also recommend 'When Hitler stole Pink Rabbit' by Judith Kerr, 'Hitler's Canary' by Sandy Toksvig, or 'Number the Stars' by Lois Lowry as easier stories that are not so sad - Maybe then you could read aloud Anne Frank's Diary to them. The best age, IMO, to hand this book to children to read by themselves is 13-14 yrs.
When Hitler stole Pink Rabbit
http://www.flipkart.com/hitler-stole-pink-rabbit-0007274777/p/itmczym9fgzmhbvw?pid=9780007274772&_l=F01VPHdXINJ1GYNX_yCKrw--&_r=+LWCHfSzNmnX5C6SLTa5qw--&ref=d19c126b-3e10-4e00-8eaa-a091e95d806c
Hitler's Canary
http://www.flipkart.com/hitler-s-canary-0440866626/p/itmczz4jw786hjdj?pid=9780440866626&_l=gWxQa0snNjHUHKJhnj_y0w--&_r=qZuvDVWzddp0%208fHhHR_UQ--&ref=572c207a-8ccb-4be8-b783-cc351578ff55
http://arightowrite.blogspot.in/2010/05/number-stars.html
Thanks, Sandhya. Shall do.
Post a Comment