Stephanie’s Work

Anne Frank- The Beginning

If you have read The Diary of Anne Frank, then you must know that it journeys back into the early nineteenth century when Nazi forces occupied Germany during World War II. During this time the lives of those living in this territory were spent in constant fear and anxiety. The Diary of Anne Frank leads readers through the harsh times of a family trying to hide from imprisonment in concentration camps by Nazi soldiers, accurately records the way Anne grows up and matures, and gives insights into the life of a German-Jewish child living in Germany during the Nazi occupation.

Anne Frank was a German-Jewish teenager who was born on June 12, 1929 (AFH 1). She was forced to go into hiding during the Holocaust along with her family and four others. Little did they know they would spend twenty-five months, during World War II, in an annex of rooms above her father's office in the Netherlands (Who2 3). Anne refers the two years that are spent in hiding as "a time when the ideals are being shattered and destroyed, when the worst side of human nature predominates, when every one has come to doubt truth, justice and God” (Frank 327). Everything during this time became scarce. Even ordinary household goods like soap and fuel and such luxuries as alcohol and tobacco were rare(BL 1) Life was difficult for the people in hiding because they had to be very careful not to be seen or heard during the day and they could not go out. They had stopped existing to the outside world.

Anne kept a diary that was given to her by her father, Otto Frank, on her birthday. Between June 1942 and August 1944, from Anne's thirteenth birthday until shortly after her fifteenth birthday, Anne recorded her feelings and her thoughts, as well as the events that happened to her. Anne tried hard to keep herself busy. She read mainly, because she loved books and studying. Keeping her diary became a great past-time, and she even apologized to it when she missed a few days.

Anne’s Diary is an accurate record of the way she grew up and matured in the unfortunate situation she found herself in. Even under the circumstances in which the diary was written, Anne gave a very vivid description of her surroundings and the feelings she encountered throughout her ordeal, from the power and paper shortages, to her medication for depression.(BL 2). The story provides insight to her anger, her sorrow, her love for Peter, and her ideals. The emotions of the situation were captured, and that gives validity to the pain and frustration encountered. Anne gives readers a sense of truth and honesty about her situation that allows the reader to experience her life as a stubborn, touchingly vulnerable teenager who one minute is in love with the world and the next, is detached.(Who2 1) Anne was a very gifted writer and a person of great sensitivity.

Despite the amusing side of the diary full of stories of living in the “secret annex”, as Anne liked to call it, the story documents the process of her adolescence and provides a terrifying description of what it was like to be Jewish and hiding during the time the Nazis sought to kill all