Book
Review – Het Achterhuis by Anne Frank
by Rob Cottignies
by Rob Cottignies
Known as The
Diary Of A Young Girl to English-readers, Anne Frank’s “book” is like no
other. I put the word book in quotations because there are millions just like
it- diaries. I’ve written several as I’m sure many of you have.
What makes this one special?
For those unfamiliar with this stretch of history,
consider this your spoiler alert.
During World War 2, Anne Frank was given a blank diary
(which she named Kitty) for her 13th birthday. She wrote in it regularly for
over two years, during most of which she and seven other Jews were in a
confined “Secret Annexe” hiding from the Germans. Anne wrote about an array of
topics: school, friends, politics, boys, the beauty of nature, family life, her
up-and-down relationships with everyone who was hiding with her.
The basic concept of this book is odd and, especially
for me, unappealing. It’s the personal thoughts of a teenage girl. As a 38-year-old
man, that idea hardly sparks my interest. The story surrounding the book made
me read it, but I found Anne to be absolutely adorable. I found her prose
charming and her ideologies to be more worldly than many adults.
Like many people even to this day, Anne could not
understand why she had to be in hiding. She hardly expressed hatred for the people
responsible, but rather confusion and wonder. She praised Winston Churchill and
routinely prayed for the Allies to invade and end the war.
I got particularly interested when her June 6, 1944
entry came around. She described D-Day from what she heard on her illegal radio
and was quite excited that the invasion of France was finally underway. It was an
interesting perspective on the events without sadness but with joy and hope of
finally leaving her hiding spot, which happened less than two months, but at
the hands of the Gestapo.
…
Knowing that she wouldn’t survive the war was the most
heart-breaking part of reading this book. Anne often wrote about what she would
do and where she would go after the war, such as having a family and even
speculating what she’d be like when she turned eighty. As a reader, I felt
helpless. I wanted to jump into the book and tell her…… what, exactly? That she
wouldn’t live past fifteen? That she would eventually become a world-famous
writer, but certainly not in the way she had hoped?
Hope is what ultimately makes this book so sad. This
“silly little goat” (as Anne described herself) was so optimistic in such an
unimaginably dark time. Being a teenager is emotionally hectic enough, but
being forced to leave your home to share confined quarters with seven people
while never being allowed outside and with the constant threat of being found
and taken away to an almost certain death? There are no words.
Actually, there are words- Anne’s. She discusses this
in as positive a way as possible but at one point even wishes for death to
arrive so she could be free from confinement. Can you blame her?
Anne’s way with words was so touching though. She
complained about her parents and the lack of food and other things but almost
always had a little joke lined up. And I must admit that I cheered out loud
when Anne got her first kiss. She didn’t know what it meant, but who really
does?
At one point in the book, Anne went on for many pages
about relatively trivial issues. I found myself wishing for some kind of action
to happen; then I realized what that would mean and quickly wished for the
nothing to continue. With so many emotions surrounding the book, I forgot it
wasn’t fiction.
The edition of The
Diary Of A Young Girl I have is a paperback published by Bantam Books in
1993. It was translated from Dutch by B.M. Mooyaart and features a short
introduction by Eleanor Roosevelt. There are pictures toward the front of the
book of Anne, her actual writings, and notably of her father- the only one of
the eight to survive the war. He’s the person who had Anne’s writings published
under the original Dutch name, Het
Achterhuis, which is what she would have titled her first book had she been
able to.
Since there is no literary ending to her book,
Mooyaart adds an informative afterword in three parts. The first tells of
Hitler’s rise to power and how the situation in Amsterdam came to be; the
second, sadly, completes the story of Anne and her family; and the third
describes how the book came to be published and then so wide-spread throughout
the world.
Reading this book was a humbling experience for me.
The journal writings of a teenage girl from another continent decades ago have
taught me a very valuable lesson: No matter how dark things get, there is
always light to be found. Just look out the window…
“The
best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely, or unhappy is to go outside,
somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature, and God.”
–Anne Frank, 1944
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