When i was reading this book it didnt actually feel like a true story until i got to the end and i felt like i was missing the last 20 pages - then it sunk in what had happened. I sobbed while reading the Afterword. A must read.

Grande, lo spirito dell'uomo
e meschine le sue azioni!

Oh! Carissima Anne,
quello che qui ci hai lasciato, con questo tuo diario, è qualcosa di indescrivibile. La tua intelligenza, la tua capacità di raccontare i cambiamenti esteriori, ma soprattutto quelli interiori di una ragazza nel momento più complesso e allo stesso tempo più emozionante della vita, mi ha commosso e fatto riflettere molto. Son qui che scrivo questo banale commento ed ancora ci penso, così sarà per molto tempo. Perchè queste testimonianze sono preziose!

Partiamo per ordine: Anne Frank ragazzina di appena tredici anni, nel pieno della Seconda Guerra Mondiale, si ritrova, lei e la sua famiglia ebrea (come tutte le famiglie ebree), con molte privazioni, nella sfera sociale, individuale, di pensiero, insomma l'antisemitismo nazista è in pieno fermento. Così nella Amsterdam del 1942 decidono che sia meglio nascondersi e si trasferiscono nell'Alloggio Segreto, dove passeranno, con tutte le conseguenze date da una vita nascosta, per circa due anni, poi...

Non è facile parlare di un libro così, questa ragazzina che pure nelle situazioni più disperate, predicava: felicità, gioia e di un futuro dopo la guerra. Si sentiva fortunata di essere riuscita a nascondersi e si dannava l'anima per quelle povere anime che venivano perseguitate da gente senza scrupoli. Nell'Alloggio Segreto Anne e gli altri ascoltano una radio inglese per tenersi informati, Anne è sempre convinta che ci sarà un dopo.
Ma ci sono anche e soprattutto dei cambiamenti all'interno di Anne, sente di non aver qualcuno/a con cui confidarsi, così nel Giugno del 1942 per il suo compleanno le regalano un diario, dove Anne incomincerà questa splendida testimonianza. Non avendo un'amica a cui scrivere, Anne se ne crea una fittizia, Kitty e qui...

Non pensavo di trovare un libro così emozionante, così istruttivo, così profondo, così eccezionalmente pieno di spunti di riflessione, sia sulla guerra, che sulla crescita interiore, sull'amicizia, sui sentimenti segreti, nascosti, che ognuno di noi ha, ma non che si riesce o non si vuole esporre, sull'amore, sulle relazioni sociali. Un capolavoro!

La ricchezza, la bellezza, tutto si può perdere, ma la gioia che hai nel cuore può essere soltanto offuscata: per tutta la vita tornerà a renderti felice.
Prova, una volta che ti senti solo e infelice o di cattivo umore, a guardare fuori quando il tempo è così bello. Non le case e i tetti, ma il cielo. Finchè potrai guardare il cielo senza timori, saprai di essere puro dentro e che tornerai a essere felice.

A cosa serve mai la guerra, perchè la gente non può vivere insieme tranquilla, perchè tutto deve essere devastato?
E' una domanda comprensibile, ma finora nessuno è riuscito a trovare una risposta soddisfacente. Perchè in Inghilterra continuano a produrre aerei sempre più grandi, bombe sempre più pesanti, e al contempo case prefabbricate per la ricostruzione? Perchè ogni giorno si spendono milioni per la guerra e non c'è un centesimo per l'assistenza medica, gli artisti e la povera gente? Perchè la gente deve soffrire la fame quando in altre zone della terra c'è cibo in sovrappiù che va a male? Oh, perchè gli uomini sono così folli?
Non credo che la guerra sia causata solo dagli uomini grandi, dai governanti e dai capitalisti. No, il piccolo uomo la fa altrettanto volentieri, altrimenti i popoli si sarebbero ribellati già da molto tempo! Nell'uomo c'è proprio l'impulso di distruggere, di uccidere, di assassinare e infierire, e finchè tutta l'umanità, senza eccezioni, non avrà subito una grande metamorfosi, la guerra continuerà a infuriare, e tutto quello che è stato costruito, coltivato e cresciuto, sarà di nuovo distrutto e disintegrato, per poi cominciare da capo!

Heart breaking

This book left me utterly devastated. It's a testament to the power of storytelling, capable of eliciting profound emotional responses.

The narrative, chronicling Ann's life, is a harrowing journey, and the ending delivered a shock that still resonates. The abrupt shift from Ann the writer, sharing her experiences, to the stark reality of Ann the deceased child was a gut-wrenching moment.
Tears were inevitable.

Witnessing Ann's struggles, her difficult relationship with her mother, and her constant battle against oppressive circumstances was profoundly moving. No child should endure such hardship. The injustice of her situation, the denial of her potential to become the writer she yearned to be, is a heartbreaking tragedy.

This book has secured a permanent, poignant place in my heart.

Ann's story, though tragic, is a powerful reminder of resilience, the importance of empathy, and the enduring impact of a life, however brief.

Prima lettura: Ho sempre pensato che la magia di questo testo risieda nella delicatezza con cui la voce narrante di Anna testimonia lo stoico perdurare dei sentimenti anche in momenti storici assolutamente tragici. Quasi quanto un petalo trascinato lieve dal vento tra le nubi di un cielo minaccioso...

Seconda lettura: c'è poco da dire su questo libro che non sia già stato detto e, in sostanza, nulla da dire su libri che riportino simili testimonianze. Possiamo solo restare in silenzio e, magari, predisporsi ad ascoltare la loro voce...

Anne Frank- The diary of a young girl! (SPOILERS)

Amazing! This was one of the few times I felt so close to a book hero.. There's definitey a spot in my top-50 for this one!

I always get sentimental when I read about all these sinister things Nazis did to inmates at concentration camps, but this was something completely different. There are no scenes describing the tortures those people suffered. In this book we a get a taste of the life of those who were the fortunate ones and they were clever enough to go into hiding and continue their lives, seemingly safe until the end of the war. Yet, page after page, entry after entry we become aware of the fear, the terror those people experienced even when they managed to evade the enemy. I could almost hear my hear pounding every time I read about the bangs and noises they heard thinking they had eventually been caught. I clenched my teeth whenever Anne described the nightmarish hours they spent silent in the dark listening to bombs destroying the last drops of hope they had left.

So this book doesn't describe the Nazi atrocities. What you actually gain is a deep insight into a young girl's psyche through the pages of a poorly-written (albeit fascinating) diary, which was kept while Anne and her family remained hidden in a house for 2 years, in their effort to escape Nazis. After reading the first 20 entries the reader immediately begins to realize that Anne has an extraordinary personality. During her first year in the annex, we see her struggling with the adults, as she is constantly being criticized for her insolent behavior. She experiences extreme loneliness and a desperate need for love and affection. I was pleased to find that she remained remarkably forthright throughout the whole narrative. As her story unfolds we see a child growing, gradually becoming a woman, which was another pleasant surprise. Towards the end of the book her entries become more lucid, more introspective and full of self-criticism which shows that Anne has changed, she is more mature and far more self-aware. Unfortunately, this is where you begin to realize the end is close.

Addressing fellow readers: I understand and agree with most of your comments. Yes, Anne was too young, too frivolous, her writing was deeply flawed, but please remember that this is a child we are talking about. A child who spent the most fruitful stage of her life confined to the walls of a house in order to survive. A child who had to relinquish her dreams of freedom, of feeling the sun on her skin, of completing her studies, of becoming a journalist...in order to stay ALIVE. This was not a novel written for recreational reasons. It was a person's diary...Their private thoughts. Enjoy it because sadly we were not given the chance to read any more of her stories. I just wish she had been given the chances we are given. She would have become an excellent writer.

Her optimism taught me a life lesson and I think this is the main reason why this book will stay forever in my heart. An excellent read!

How can you not give this classic diary the coveted: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Note: this book is listed as one of the most popular books to be banned, over the past decade, from both schools and private libraries. Support freedom of expression by reading and buying banned books! ❤️

A diary often reveals a great deal – about its author, and about their time – and such is certainly the case with the World War II diary of Anne Frank. The daily diary entries in which she set forth the attempt by her family and three acquaintances to survive the Nazi occupation of Holland are just as powerful and wrenching each time one takes up the book that was first published in Dutch as Het Achterhuis (The Secret Annex), and was later published in English as The Diary of a Young Girl.

The background story of how the Frank family came to spend almost two years in their secret annex is a familiar one, and is no less heartbreaking for its familiarity. Otto Frank was a successful Frankfurt businessman at the time of Anne’s birth in 1929; the Franks – father Otto, mother Edith, and daughters Margot and Anne – were liberal, well-educated German Jews, proud of the cultural heritage of Judaism but not necessarily observant of all the tenets of the Jewish faith.

With Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, the Franks made their way to Amsterdam, and started their lives over again in a new country; but after the Nazi invasion and occupation of the Netherlands in 1940, the Franks’ situation once again became untenable. For two years, the Franks dealt as best they could with the increasingly harsh anti-Jewish laws imposed by the Nazi regime; the earliest entries in Anne’s diary deal with those times, as she started writing down her diary entries in the blank-page autograph book that she had received for her thirteenth birthday.

She begins her diary on June 12, 1942, by writing the following:
.
I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support.

Soon, Anne gets into the habit of starting each diary entry by writing, “Dearest Kitty,” and concluding with “Yours, Anne,” and I find that wonderfully endearing. It speaks to that idea that, even with a diary – a genre for which the theoretical audience is oneself, even if oneself at a later time – one is always imagining an audience.

For the first month or so, the diary entries deal with many of the ordinary rituals of and events from the life of a young girl – school graduation, visits with friends – though all of it takes place with the brutal reality of Nazi occupation just below the surface.

But on July 8, 1942, a call-up of a Frank family member for a work-camp detail forced the Franks to hurry forward their plans for taking shelter in a three-story annex hidden behind the fruit-extract company where Otto Frank worked. The Dutch term for such a structure is Achterhuis (“after-house”): there, the Franks took shelter; there, they hoped to wait out the war in some degree of safety; and there, Anne Frank continued with her diary entries.

Over time, the Achterhuis gained additional refugee inhabitants: a couple referred to in the diary as the “van Daans” (actually Hermann and Auguste van Pels), the van Daans’ son Peter (his first name is given correctly), and a single man called “Mr. Düssel” in the diary (his true name was Fritz Pfeffer).

Over time, as Anne Frank records, the increasingly crowded secret annex makes for sometimes tense relations. The reserved and scholarly manner of the Franks contrasts with the earthier and less refined ways of the van Daans; Mr. Düssel meanwhile seems thoroughly exasperated with Anne’s teenage ways, and Anne finds Mr. Düssel pedantic and well-nigh unbearable. With Peter, on the other hand, she forges an increasingly close bond.

Anne Frank was an extraordinarily talented young writer, and The Diary of a Young Girl is rich in carefully observed detail that draws a vivid picture for the reader. In her diary entry for Tuesday, August 10, 1943, for example, Anne notes sadly that “We’ve all been a little confused this week because our dearly beloved Westertoren bells have been carted off to be melted down for the war, so we have no exact idea of the time, either night or day” (p. 126).

Having walked in the heart of Amsterdam, and having heard the comforting sound of the city’s church bells, I try to imagine how it must have been for those eight people to lose that small source of comfort and stability of hearing the bells of the Westertoren, the bell tower for Amsterdam’s historic Westerkerk church.

Over the course of The Diary of a Young Girl, the reader watches Anne Frank working on developing a philosophy of life. On Tuesday, March 7, 1944, she writes, “My advice is: ‘Go outside, to the country, enjoy the sun and all nature has to offer. Go outside and try to recapture the happiness within yourself; think of all the beauty in yourself and in everything around you and be happy.’” She adds that “A person who’s happy will make others happy; a person who has courage and faith will never die in misery!” (p. 211) Of course, the first of many levels of tragic irony underlying this statement is that Anne Frank cannot go outside, except in her imagination.

The occupants of the Achterhuis follow the war news closely, hoping that the Allies will liberate Holland before the Nazis find the secret annex. After months of waiting and hoping, Anne begins her diary entry for Tuesday, June 6, 1944 on a note of excitement: “‘This is D-Day,’ the BBC announced at twelve. ‘This is the day.’ The invasion has begun!” (p. 311)

In her D-Day diary entry, Anne Frank goes on to describe “A huge commotion in the Annex! Is this really the beginning of the long-awaited liberation? The liberation we’ve all talked so much about, which still seems too good, too much of a fairy tale ever to come true? Will this year, 1944, bring us victory? We don’t know yet. But where there’s hope, there’s life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again” (pp. 311-12).

One of the most famous passages from The Diary of a Young Girl is this one, written by Anne Frank on Saturday, July 15, 1944: “It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart” (pp. 332-33).

These are, heaven knows, powerful and resonant words. But what follows shows how deeply Anne Frank had thought about the fragility of human life, and about the human capacity for both good and evil:

It’s utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering, and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us, too. I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too will end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I’m able to realize them! (p. 333)

This entry, with its mix of hope and realism, is one of the last in The Diary of a Young Girl. Three weeks later, on August 4, 1944 – the 761st day of refuge in the Achterhuis – all of the occupants of the secret annex were arrested by the Gestapo, and eventually all were deported to death camps.

Edith Frank and Hermann van Pels both died at Auschwitz. Auguste Van Pels is said to have died while being transported between the Buchenwald and Theresienstadt concentration camps. Fritz Pfeffer died at the Neuengamme concentration camp. Peter van Pels died at the Mauthausen concentration camp, five days after it was liberated by the United States Army.

And Anne and Margot Frank both died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in north-central Germany, some time before the British Army liberated the camp in April of 1945.

Only Otto Frank, imprisoned at Auschwitz, survived the death camps of the Holocaust.

The story of the finding of Anne Frank’s diary, and of its eventual publication, is an epic of its own; for the full story, readers are referred to the informative and helpful website of the Anne Frank House at http://www.annefrank.org.

Even if you have read earlier versions of The Diary of a Young Girl, you may want to make your way back to this most recent published version. When Het Achterhuis was first published in 1947, some of the passages in which Anne addressed her awakening sexuality were left out; so were some of the specifics of tensions among the Frank family. All of that is now included, making even more clear the courageous, truth-telling quality of Anne Frank’s writing.

I visited the Anne Frank House for the first time when my wife and I were on our first trip to Amsterdam. To see her room, with photos of movie stars on the walls – the same way teenage girls in other eras might put up posters of the Osmonds, or the New Kids on the Block, or the Backstreet Boys – and to think of how Anne Frank and almost all the members of her family died before their time was heartbreaking.

Later in the same trip, we detoured out of our way so that we could visit the Bergen-Belsen site and pay our respects to Anne and Margot Frank and the millions of other innocents who were murdered. The camp site is filled with mass graves, earthen mounds that each bear a stone inscription reading Hier Ruhen 5000 Tote – April 1945 (“Here lie 5000 dead – April 1945”), with only the number changing from one mass grave to the next.

And then there is a simple, gravestone-shaped monument to Margot Frank, 1926-1945, and Anne Frank, 1929-1945, with a Star of David and, in Hebrew, the Bible verse Proverbs 20:27 (“The human spirit is the candle of the Lord”). Always there are stones atop the monument, in accordance with Jewish traditions for honoring the righteous dead, along with photos of Anne Frank, letters and notes from visitors, flowers left in tribute. It is one of the most moving sights that I have ever seen.

The memorial, and all of those tributes left at the memorial, reminds us that Anne Frank lives on. All the murderous cruelty and malice of the Nazis could not still her voice. Her diary remains. She speaks to us still, in one of the most important books ever written.

Addendum, 20 August 2022:

A graphic-novel edition of The Diary of a Young Girl was removed from school library bookshelves by the independent school district of Keller, Texas, a suburban community just outside Fort Worth. The removal of this edition of The Diary of a Young Girl followed conservative activists' rewriting the guidelines for parental book challenges in a manner that required the removal of books that had been previously challenged but retained. The challenge, which evidently proceeded from a single parent's complaints, is thought to relate to passages in which Anne Frank talks about her awakening sexuality.

As Snopes points out, this incident does not constitute an absolute "ban" against The Diary of a Young Girl; copies of the original text remain on the Keller district's school library shelves. Yet the effort at censorship remains something very real. For one parent, evidently, a young girl writing in the privacy of her diary about her feelings about sex is so "unacceptable" that the book must be removed. Those ideas must be kept away from students who are themselves going through the difficult time of adolescence. The students must not be granted the choice of whether to access the ideas of The Diary of a Young Girl themselves.

And the lessons that The Diary of a Young Girl teaches us regarding the Nazi Holocaust and the murder of six million innocent men, women, and children are evidently, for that parent, not as important as the parent's attempts to impose their conservative sexual mores upon an entire community.

I ask two things of you:

1. Honour the memory of the six million men, women, and children who were murdered in the Holocaust.

2. Fight the censors. Read banned books.

آن فرانک عزیز

من دفترچه خاطرات تو رو نزدیک به یازده هزار کیلومتر دورتر از مخفیگاهت در هلند و ٧۵ سال بعد از اینکه نوشتیش خواندم. شگفت انگیزه، نه؟
بگذار این رو هم بهت بگم که سال ها عکس تو روی کتابت (آره، تو واقعا یک نویسنده شدی!) بهم زل زده بود و من اتفاقی سالی رو برای خوندنت انتخاب کردم که خودم دارم توی یک جور قرنطینه زندگی می کنم. برای همین شاید فقط کمی بهتر درکت کردم

با خودم می‌گفتم اگر تو تونستی توی یک خونه‌ی کوچک با پنجره‌های تیره شده، غذای کم، کنار هفت نفر آدم و با وجود ترس از مرگ و بمباران، ٧۶١ روز دوام بیاری و زندگی کنی، من حتی نباید گلایه کنم. چطور تونستی همه‌ی اون روزها امیدت رو حفظ کنی؟ چطور تونستی درس بخونی، عاشق بشی و زندگی کنی، وقتی خرابی و نابودی همه‌ی جهانت رو گرفته بود؟

آن عزیزم، جنگ جهانی تموم شد و ای کاش فقط چند هفته بیشتر زنده می‌موندی تا پایانش رو ببینی. آره اون جنگ تموم شد ولی درد تموم نشد. اصلاً مگه میشه تموم شدنی باشه؟ تو همیشه به ذات خوب انسان‌ها باور داشتی و منم مدت هاست که دارم سعی می‌کنم باورم رو حفظ کنم، ولی یک رازی رو بهت بگم؟ فکر می کنم مدتیه که دیگه اینطور فکر نمی‌کنم و فقط نمی‌خوام بپذیرم

راستش رو بخوای گاهی با خودم فکر می‌کردم که این نوشته‌ها شخصی بوده و شاید هرگز دوست نداشتی که همشون خونده بشن. ولی وقتی فهمیدم که نویسنده و ژورنالیست شدن بزرگترین آرزوی تو بوده، خوشحال شدم که حداقل بعد از رفتنت بهش رسیدی. تو نوشته‌هات رو برای دختر خیالی‌ای به نام کیتی می نوشتی، حالا میلیون‌ها کیتی حرف های تو گوش کردند و همدم تو شدند. شاید اون زمان که از افکار خاص و متفاوتت می‌نوشتی، فکر می‌کردی که هرگز کسی تو رو درک نمی کنه. ولی فقط لازم بود زمان بگذره تا کیتی‌هایی که تو رو می‌فهمند از راه برسند

ازت ممنونم که نوشتی. من همیشه اعتقاد داشتم که نوشتن بزرگترین جادوگری دنیاست و وقتی نوشته‌های تو رو توی دستام گرفته بودم و به صدات که بعد از این همه سال شنیده میشه گوش میدادم، بیشتر از همیشه بهش ایمان آوردم

مائده
تهران-٢٠٢١

کانال تلگرام ریویوها و دانلود کتاب‌ها و صوتیشون
Maede's Books

٩٩/۱۰/۲۲

I'm the daughter of German Jews. My mother's family came from Berlin and my father's from Frankfurt. Yes, the same Frankfurt as the Franks. They were a very old German family --- there is still an Edinger Institut at the University begun by my great grandfather, and Edinger Strasse, and other vestiges of my family's existence there. Moreover I still have relatives in Germany, those who came from lines where people had converted.

Anyway, my father (whose father did not leave Germany and was eventually deported and killed) became an academic specialist in German politics and I spent several years of my childhood in Germany. One year was 7th grade. Before we left my father's mother gave me Anne Frank's diary and a diary. Later, upon visiting the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and seeing her original diary, I realized that mine was just like hers. I mean, just like. Clearly my grandmother had given me one she had bought in Frankfurt and Anne's must have also been from Frankfurt, bought around the same time. They are identical other than a difference in coloring

But the diary was what woke me up to the Holocaust as well as to what it was to be a teenager. Anne's voice still echoes in my mind these many years later.

If only every teenager would read and embrace this story, I wonder if it would change the instant-gratification, me-me-me society that has evolved over the last 50 years? Of course, this novel is a staple in any Holocaust lesson planning. In a world in which so few teenagers (or adults, for that matter) seem to stop and give thanks for what they have (instead chirping about what they want or complaining about what they don't have), Anne Frank faced the most unfair of cruelties with a certain strength and grace that crushes nearly any "problem" kids or adults face. Many Holocaust books or movies make you think, "Why?! Why did this happen?!" This story makes me think, "How? How did Anne Frank find the strength to keep her head and record her thoughts during such an unbelievably difficult time?" In a world desperate for heroes and tired (though indelibly enamored by) spoiled athletes, stories like this are once-in-a-lifetime. Hats off to Anne Frank. She had dreams of becoming famous and, although it was for reasons she never would have imagined, at least that part of her dream became true. I appreciate how this story makes my students of all learning levels and backgrounds rethink what they thought they knew about sacrifices and challenges, and even gets some students thinking about how they can use their lives to make a positive difference for others.

n  n    "Riches, prestige, everything can be lost. But the happiness in your own heart can only be dimmed; it will always be there, as long as you live, to make you happy again."n  n

I'm not sure if I can review this book properly. I started a few times before, but, it is just too difficult...I really wish I had skipped the Afterward section and read it sometime after. I don't recall being this sad after reading a book...

n  "Memories mean more to me than dresses."

"I once asked Margot if she thought I was ugly. She said that I was cute and had nice eyes. A little vague, don't you thing?"n

From the very start, I found the style of writing to be very captivating, which could be hugely attributed to the fact that everything is completely genuine. As this was never intended to be shared with others, Anne does not hold back when it comes to confiding all her feelings, experiences and expectations in her ever trustworthy journal - Kitty.

n  "I've been taking valerian every day to fight the anxiety and depression, but it doesn't stop me from being even more miserable the next day. A good hearty laugh would help better than ten valerian drops, but we've almost forgotten how to laugh."

"Despite all my theories and efforts, I miss - every day and every hour of the day - having a mother who understands me."n

In my opinion, one of the key ways this book can help all readers is by enhancing everyone's ability to empathize, not just with a teenager. Anne's experiences shine a special light on how much children suffer, due to them not being able to freely communicate or confide in others. One might say that it's just how it is with teenagers, and they'll grow out of it, but Anne's own statements contradict that - at least to an extent. When she revisits some of her earlier entries, though she regrets the fact that she feels much anger toward her mother, she never recovers completely, or finds it possible to completely forgive her. She still holds some contempt for not been able to make herself herd by her mother.

n  "I do my best to please everyone, more than they'd ever suspect in a million years."

"I soothe my conscience with the thought that it's better for unkind words to be down on paper than for Mother to have to carry them around in her heart."

"I continued to sit with the open book in my hand and wonder why I was filled with so much anger and hate that I had to confide it all to you."n

It's heartbreaking to see how she suffered, when she dreamt of her friends and grandmother, and the way she kept it all together in the midst of all other difficulties. Even an adult would have had a hard time under similar circumstances. But for a child... and thousands of others who went through similar devastations...

n  "I was very sad again last night. Grandma and Hanneli came to me once more. Grandma, oh my sweet Grandma. How lonely Grandma must have been, in spite of us. You can be lonely even when you're loved by many people,"
"And Hanneli? Is she still alive? What's she doing? Dear God, watch over her and bring her back to us. Hanneli, you're a reminder of what my fate might have been. I keep seeing myself in your place."n

If I didn't say something of some of the happy memories, it will be unfair to the book. Because, even when you take away the fact that everything in this book is genuine, the style of writing - especially for an 13 year old girl - is beyond amazing. The first half of the books is going to keep you laughing, for Anne relates the day-to-day events in such an amusing way. Most readers will find the series of events to be an emotional rollercoaster. It's amazing how well she manages to record everything, relating them to people, time of day, her own feelings and many more.

n  "Upstairs it sounds like thunder, but it's only Mrs. van D's bed being shoved against the window so that Her Majesty, arrayed in her pink bed jacket, can sniff the air through her delicate little nostrils."

"A few nights ago I was the topic of discussion, and we all decided I was an ignoramus."

"Dearest Kitty, Pim is expecting the invasion any day now. Churchill has had pneumonia, but is gradually getting better. Gandhi, the champion of Indian freedom, is on one of his umpteenth hunger strikes."

"Gandhi is eating again."n

n  "You've known for a long time that my greatest wish is to be a journalist, and later on, a famous writer."n
Yes, she would've been an amazing writer. In fact, she already has become one. How cruel it is that the hopes and dreams of millions get destroyed because of the thoughtless actions of a few.

n  n    "We still love life, we haven't yet forgotten the voice of nature, and we keep hoping, hoping for...everything."n  n

All I can hope is that she kept the hope kindled till the end and never gave up.

Really good.

If there's no toilet paper left in the house.