Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl

This is an autobiography based on Anne Frank's diary. Even today after 73 years this book is widely famous among us.

What makes this book so special? Well, this book was never written to get published, or even that someone will ever read it for that matter. If you write a diary entry you must be familiar with the unfiltered, raw, and original emotion behind writing it.

As this was not a planned book, so there is no unexpected twist but this book is worth a read. Please don't presume it to be a sad story, Anne Frank was a very jolly person which you can see in her little stories that she shared every day with her diary "Kitty". I was so amazed to notice how a teenager's writing can be so strong and thoughts can be so clear. It inspires me that even after so much chaos and fear around how positive and hopeful she was.

n  You might like to check out more similar books here.n

Written with a ball-point pen 'during Nazi occupation' but ballpoint pens first went on sale in 1945. A big maudlin waste-of-time from the people who brought you Schindler's List.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballpoin...

Hice lo impensable, una atrocidad, una perversión, yo, un hombre en sus veintes, he leído el diario privado de una niña de 13 años, sin su permiso



espero la sociedad encuentre la forma de perdonarme, y no tener que enfrentarme a una turba enardecida.

El diario de Ana Frank es uno de los libros más leídos alrededor del mundo, uno de los que posee más fama, siempre se escucha mencionarlo cuando se habla de clásicos, o cuando se habla de la segunda guerra mundial, sin embargo, a mi parecer es más lo que se habla de él, que lo que hay en su interior, o dicho de otra forma mis expectativas, como suele sucederme, eran mucho mas altas para esta historia.

La historia es sumamente monótona, son ocho personas encerradas, ocultas, debido a su religión judía y a todo el conflicto Nazi. Ana nos ira relatando su vida en lo que ella llama “la casa de atrás” la relación que tiene con cada uno de los integrantes de la casa, las discusiones repetitivas, los temores de ser encontrados, lo agradecidos que están por tener gente que los ayude en estos momentos, los libros que lee, y la esperanza del futuro sin guerra, así una y otra vez, una y otra vez, una y otra vez, solo se percibe el cambio de que, poco a poco Ana va madurando.

Nunca sabré hasta qué punto su diario fue modificado por las editoriales o incluso por el padre de Ana, aun así, definitivamente Ana fue una persona con pensamientos muy profundos para su edad, muy autocritica, a veces realista, a veces optimista, y claro con momentos de suma inocencia, se nota que es una persona real quien nos está relatando todo lo que acontece; ahora ¿debería ser leído? ¿Debería ser tan trascendental? A mi parecer… No, o por lo menos, no le encuentro sentido a que sea de lectura obligatoria en varios países, creo que hay historias más impresionantes y crudas de la guerra.

Creo que solo lo recomendaría, y espero no sonar machista (oh ahora si me van a matar) a chicas en edades escolares (mmm quizás por eso sea de lectura obligatoria en algunos países) porque como literatura juvenil de tiempos de guerra no está mal, y digo chicas porque pueden conectar más con Ana.

¡Ahora a huir de la turba enardecida!

The book is so beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time.
I enjoyed reading it completely.

Anne Frank’s diary is a personal coming-of-age account that takes places in the midst of one of the most dangerous times in our history.

I started reading Anne Frank's Diary, after nearly twenty-five years of procrastination, and also in the later years due to the feeling of it being overhyped.
I was wrong …, way too wrong .

n  "You only really get to know a person after a row. Only then can you judge their true character."

"Mums had a hard time combing her hair because the family comb has only ten teeth left."n

What mesmerized me most during its reading, is the metamorphosis of a thirteen year young girl into a fifteen year young woman. The contents of the diary start off with almost mundane topics of day-to-day life in the Secret Annexe. And in twenty-six months of her writing, the transformation that is observed in the way she expresses her thoughts, provides the feeling of what she truly was.
She was a person capable of deep thought at the age of 15.

n  "We were talking about the picture of a film star I'd once given him, which has been hanging in his room for at least a year and a half. He liked it so much that I offered to give him a few more.
'No,' he replied, 'I'd rather keep the one I've got. I look at it everyday, and the people in it have become my friends.'"

"As long as this exists, this sunshine and this cloudless sky, and as long as I can enjoy it, how can I be sad?"n

Usually when I read prose, I live within the book; 'it' becomes my world, or rather I become a part of 'it'; in other words, the book and my self become one. As a result, this time (although this was a diary) I was living with the Franks, the van Daans, Mr. Dussel, and the others who worked at 263 Prinsengracht, Amsterdam, through the eyes and the thoughts of Anne Frank.

n  "Oh, when will we overcome all these difficulties? And yet it's good that we have to surmount them, since it makes the end that much more beautiful."

"…, things are only as bad as you make them."n

Having lived for two years and two months in her thoughts, and only within the confines of the building, was depressive, but which gave way to insights which are hard to come by considering a person of her age. Anne was an aspiring writer (and she definitely was good at it), the way she writes her diary was certainly good, and at times very much unique (although of course this one was translated into English). Being inside Anne's own self, also made me look within my own self, which was to me of one of the highest importance of reading the contents of her writings to Kitty.

n  "It's hard enough standing on your own two feet, but when you also have to remain true to your character and soul, it's harder still."n

When I started reading the book, I could think of giving it a 3-stars … it was good no doubt, but by the end it had to become what it is!

n  "I'm left with one consolation, small though it may be; my fountain pen was cremated, just as I would like to be some day."n

Her topics range from her school friends, family, and her diary Kitty, to all the ways in which they lived and survived within the two years of hiding. She writes an Ode to her lost Fountain Pen; on Suffering and Beauty; on Puberty and Adolescence; on Longing for anything new; on Talking, and Solace; about how "The grown-ups are such idiots!"; on Writing and Doing things; about the Jews; on Wars; Anti-Semitism in Holland (at the time); about Nature; on Injustice towards Women; Racism, Discrimination, and Human Rights; Living a Happy life; on Work; her own Self-awareness; Contradictions; etc.

n  "I don't believe the war is simply the work of politicians and capitalists. Oh no, the common man is every bit as guilty; otherwise, people and nations would have rebelled long ago! There's a destructive urge in people, the urge to rage, murder and kill. And until all of humanity, without exception, undergoes metamorphosis, wars will continue to be waged, and everything that has been carefully built up, cultivated and grown will be cut down and destroyed, only to start all over again!"

"What I condemn are our system of values and the men who don't acknowledge how great, difficult, but ultimately beautiful women's share in society is."n

The copy I read was the Definitive Edition, which had additional 30% of previously unreleased material (only in editions after 1995).Along with a Foreword and an Afterword, included was a 10-page essay on "The Legacy of Anne Frank" by Clare Garner. The essay describes how Otto Frank (Anne's father) got the book to be published, how he felt when he got his daughter's diary in his hands and started to read it bit-by-bit (after having survived the holocaust and returning to Amsterdam), and about the use of films and Broadway plays to keep Anne's legacy moving. Otto Frank later also helped in saving the Secret Annexe (which was supposed to be demolished), and which is now the Anne Frank House (it also includes a few objects that remain from the 'times') hosting international conferences and training workshops to highlight all forms of persecution, apart from being a museum. Visitors here also learn of human rights, discrimination, and racism, apart from the holocaust, while promoting Anne as a symbol of tolerance.

n  "There's only one rule you need to remember: laugh at everything and forget everybody else! It sounds egotistical, but it's actually the only cure for those suffering from self-pity."n

So what did I feel personally after the completion of the book? :)
Well, for one, let me confess, this was the first book that brought me tears (literally). No other book ever, has actually made me cry! This did not happen to me during the actual reading of the diary, but while reading one of Otto Frank's quoted feelings in his response to not attending the Broadway play based on the diary which opened at New York's Cort Theatre in October 1955. What he felt, was a quick reflection of the contents of Anne's Diary, and for me.
I also felt, if Anne had not died, she could have played one of those major roles of being the world-changers in her future. What a waste, … her and many others who were just washed off the face of the earth. RIP to them all.

While her story is sad, the naked Emperor cult around this book is unmerited.

The key quotation about people being basically good at heart is absurd in the light of the story, and from a theological perspective, just plain wrong.

I hated having to read parts of this in school. It's maybe the most boring, least interesting book I've ever heard anyone rave about. Hell, I think that my OWN journal is boring, let alone some stranger's diary.