This book was awful! I hated it and thats all i have to say about it.

4.5****

Beauty remains, even in misfortune.

The Diary of a Young Girl as told by Anne Frank is haunting, poignant and beautiful, with a keen sense of hope throughout. Anne documented her family's plight of having to go into hiding in 1942 due to the German invasion in the Netherlands as part of WW2. The Franks were hidden in a secret annexe, behind a bookcase covering a hidden entrance. Not only were the Franks living there, but also another four people. During this time all members of the hidden annexe were not allowed to go outside and had strict rules to follow (can't light candles at all times, can't use the toilet at certain times, etc.). With eight people living consistently in this secret annexe, it is inevitable that tensions arise both within the Frank family and with the other members living under the same roof.

Anne highlights through out her diary how lucky she was with the people that helped her and her family go into hiding (for example, Miep and Bep). The members of the annex played a secret radio that told them of the news and advancements in the war, and were able to hear from those who helped, what was happening to other Jewish people in their community (the disappearances, the killings). Anne weaves her diary going in between typical teenage experiences (hormones, puberty, crushes, family tensions) and the horror of having to be hidden (black market ration books, low money, not being able to go outside). However, even though Anne had to live in constant fear of being found by the Gestapo and constant gun fire surrounding the building, her diary always holds an essence of hope and beauty. She writes about the future, what will happen after the war, when she can attend school again, and her dreams of being a writer.

I want to go on living even after my death!

Anne’s diary will (hopefully) forever be read by many, documenting the years spent in secret of an unbelievably smart and brave young woman.

“I'm seething with rage, yet I can't show it. l'd like to scream, stamp my foot, give Mother a good shaking, try and I don't know what else because of the nasty words, mocking looks and accusations that she hurls at me day after day, piercing me like arrows from a tightly strung bow, which are nearly impossible to pull from my body. I'd like to scream at Mother, Margot, the van Daans, Dussel and Father too: ‘Leave me alone, let me have at least one night when I don't cry myself to sleep with my eyes burning and my head pounding. Let me get away, away from everything, away from this world!’ But I can't do that. I can't let them see my doubts, or the wounds they've inflicted on me. I couldn't bear their sympathy or their good-humored derision. It would only make me want to scream even more.
Everyone thinks I'm showing off when I talk, ridiculous when I'm silent, insolent when I answer, cunning when I have a good idea, lazy when I'm tired, selfish when I eat one bite more than I should, stupid, cowardly, calculating, etc., etc. All day long I hear nothing but what an exasperating child I am, and although I laugh it off and pretend not to mind, I do mind. I wish I could ask God to give me another personality, one that doesn't antagonize everyone.
But that's impossible. I'm stuck with the character I was born with, and yet I'm sure I'm not a bad person.”

MY ANNE ☹️☹️☹️
-
pre read: how have i not read this yet? anyway, it’s due soon along with 2 other books so i need to start

The diary Of Anne Frank


Could fulfillment ever be felt as deeply as loss?*

Before you start reading Anne Frank’s diary, you must make yourself aware of the fate the people in Anne’s life met. If it wasn't for that, one could have dismissed some parts of the diary as ramblings of a fifteen years old, but once we remember that these kids never grew up to live the life they deserve, we feel more for them.

At every step, you are reminded of fact that Anne is soon going to die, and all those ramblings and day dreams she is writing about are going to end with that. She wished to be a writer, a lady that mattered but none of that is ever going to come good.

It is this loss which is felt by the reader despite the fact that Anne herself remains innocent of her fate. It is at times like these, the very word ‘life’ seems to be too inadequate to represent what it stands for.

These are the people that those who advocate the war never met – if it wasn't for works like Anne, they would had been lost as mere numbers.

Yes, there are a lot of complaints and most of Anne’s ‘Dear Kitty’ moments are ones felt by everyone in teenage but she is able to draw a picture of the atmosphere they are confined to. People who are forced to live in a closed space and have to deal with each other continuously will always develop complaints against each other.

By the end, though she seems to be finding a rare clarity of thought – it is as if those jumbled thoughts which she rambles at the beginning are now arranging themselves into poetry.

*

The most beautiful aspect of the diary is her sheer honesty. She starts her diary with following words:

“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.”

I almost feel guilty in reading it – the guilt of intruding someone’s persona life, despite the fact that she is long dead and her father had chosen to publish it. She becomes real to you across time and space and it is this guilt which sits heavily on your heart while reading it- let alone reviewing it.

Her honesty has enabled her to draw a picture of her life – you could feel the writer growing in pages, her psychological developments and passions. This is something that fiction will probably never achieve – surly not in that complete manner.

(*Title of review is quoting Kiran Desai (The Inheritance of Loss))

Αρνούμαι να βάλω "βαθμολογία" σε αυτό το βιβλίο, γιατί δεν είναι ένα λογοτεχνικό έργο, άρα δεν μπορεί να "κριθεί" με γνώμονα τη γραφή, το συντακτικό, το περιεχόμενο, ή ότι άλλο ψάχνει κάποιος σε ένα λογοτεχνικό βιβλίο.
Εδώ έχουμε να κάνουμε με ένα ημερολόγιο που αποτυπώνει τις σκέψεις ενός δεκατετράχρονου κοριτσιού, οπότε να είστε προετοιμασμένοι να διαβάσετε για οτιδήποτε. Από μικρούς έρωτες και το φαγητό, μέχρι την "κακιά" μαμά και τα συναισθήματα της Άννας. Η Άννα ήταν ένα ατίθασο, θα έλεγε κανείς, κορίτσι η οποία έβλεπε με μία ιδιαίτερη αισιοδοξία τα βάσανα που υπέμειναν εκείνη την περίοδο. Επιθυμούσε να γίνει δημοσιογράφος και συγγραφέας ώστε να μη "ξεχαστεί" όπως θα ξεχνιόταν αργά ή γρήγορα η μητέρα της ή άλλες γυναίκες. Ήθελε να "κάνει" κάτι σημαντικό και είχε πολλά όνειρα για το μέλλον. Κάποιοι της απαγόρευσαν να τα πραγματοποιήσει, αλλά η Άννα κατάφερε (άθελά της) αυτό που επιθυμούσε. Έγινε η πιο γνωστή Εβραιοπούλα και το όνομα της θα μείνει για πάντα στην ιστορία. Η μητέρα της ξεχάστηκε, αυτή όχι...

Ένα βιβλίο που μας υπενθυμίζει γιατί δεν πρέπει να στερούμε από παιδιά το δικαίωμά τους στη ζωή και την ευκαιρία να πραγματοποιήσουν τα όνειρά τους.

Diary of a 13 year old girl who went into hiding along with her family during Hilter’s Rule in the “Secret Annex” which was a closed chamber in her father’s office building. Altogether 8 people lived in a small cramped up space. The only crime committed by them was that they were Jews, who were either persecuted or sent to jails by Nazi forces because of their faith.

She started writing this dairy because she felt that paper was far more patient than people. While living in a closed space she kept fighting with her mom who always taunted and made fun of her, which sometimes infuriated Anne but mostly she maintained her cool. Her dad always supported her but at times he even gave up on her when she misbehaved with her mother.

The Daans were also living with them, she started liking their son Peter and finally confessed her love to him. She always wanted friends, not admirers. She wanted people to like her character and deeds, not just her flattering smile. Anne wanted to be a journalist or a writer in order to leave her mark in the world.

For almost 2.5 years they lived in the Secret Annex; their living conditions got to the worse because of rampant poverty and lack of basic necessities - they were running out of money which they had saved.

However, their hiding came to an end as they were arrested and sent to prisons. Only her father survived the concentration camps and started sharing the message of his daughter’s dairy with people around the world.

This dairy is filled with horror, humor, everyday life and how Anne and others in those dreadful conditions tried to live in hiding until someone came for their rescue. Anne would always be cherished for her valor, silliness and authenticity which she kept despite living in such horrible conditions.

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Why do we write reviews?
You have a lot of reasons I guess.

But for this review there is only one. I am writing this for my conscience.
Ever since I have rated this book, I always end up asking myself that, have I rated it with something it deserved or was it just out of sympathy (some call it pity vote)?

Reading other reviews (although most people just rate it and proceed) posed me with many other questions and also gave me idea of what people generally think about her and her diary.

So I’m going to start with-
DO WE DESERVE to review or even rate this book diary?
Yes it is a diary not a book. And aren’t diary meant to be something personal? Yes they are, but it was Anne's wish to get her diary published and she even went on to fictionalize the diary by changing names.

When I started this book I knew how it would end and who doesn’t! I had the least of the expectation, knowing that she was 13 years old but she just surprised me by the outlook she carried of life. She thought and wrote over few such things that didn’t occur to my mind until I read it but have applied throughout my life.
She at times made me laugh, at times made me feel sad. If she felt something, her writing definitely made me experience it and thus she overcame my expectation by large margin.

I have read in lot of review that her thoughts were way ahead of her age.
Of course they were, difficult conditions make you mature and responsible, but there were also other people living under the same roof and in same condition, the suffering had even effect on them. I remember the letter exchange between two sisters, at that point after reading Margot’s letter, for the first time I realised Anne was still child among them.

Some say she could visualize herself and her thoughts and actions from different perspective and thus realise her fault.
The thing with diary is that it is a lopsided view of the events. She would write her thoughts and what she wrote of others were her interpretation of them.....I have it in my mind but can’t put it in words and why should I! Does it matter what kind of girl was she? 'NO’ from me.

Last thing that occur to me is that many people found it uninteresting and tiresome.
I liked it, it couldn’t get any better. I mean they were in hiding for their life in a same house for two years without even opening the window; they were not solving murder mystery. I remember that when I was halfway through the book, I would every now and then turn to the last diary entry and count the days that remained. I felt very sad and depressed and it would have been the last thing to occur to me that it was uninteresting; I was just taken by her wish to see the outside world again, feel the fresh wind and to go to school, but...

This is not a book to enjoy much; we read it to gain the insight of hardships that people had to go through during this holocaust. Through this book she give us best view of the worst of the world. No one has ever benefitted from war; all it gives is pain and misery.
All this being said there is nothing to review the book, but accept it as written account of the vices of the war.

The worst question that seemed to have been slapped across my face was: Would this book have meant the same if Anne had survived the holocaust and lived to become old? Would it have been famous as it is now?
Well she didn’t survived and with her ended answer to this question and no one can bring her back.

Every single image that I had formed in my mind I remember as freshly as when I had read it years back. Countless times I felt claustrophobic and out-of-breath mentally living inside the hidden backside rooms where Anne and her family stayed. Even when I recall it now, I feel I'm running out of breath---no windows! The one high-up window that is referred to in one of her letters to her Diary afforded barely enough light for an exchange of air, or natural scenes.

When I had first read it, I had felt like the whole story was a talk between myself and another girl of around my age, both with very different lives---mine open and free with free food, varied delicacies and fresh air and hers blocked from sunlight, kept hidden lest they be puffed into gas chambers. But the conversation was happening, because the story was an epistolary---I became the listener and she the speaker.

Her description of discovering her femininity and the first sparks of amour collided with mine, hence I genuinely regard this story as a one-sided conversation with a friend whose life was tragically cut short.

I read what happened to her once the Nazis stormed into their hidden room and stripped them off to the death camps---Anne was severed from her parents and left to die in Bergen-Belsen due to Typhus and starvation.

What really does one do when they are listening to a friend who is slowly being paraded into a life flattened off colour to be finally snuffed into lonely, unjust death?!

It's so unfair what happened to these holocaust victims! Like literally, it is beyond words of compare!

This book was given to me by my Rabbi as a gift on my confirmation.

My edition is so old, you can't even find it. It is a Modern Library Book edition with an introduction by Eleanor Roosevelt. It doesn't mean that I am that old (although I am old-ish), but, the copyright is 1952 (I will say I wasn't born then).

I still have this book.

So this book is very personal to me. For a past I experienced growing up in a very prejudiced neighborhood. The anti-semitic past and hatred I endured living in Southern California. So a lot of times, I had to hide that I was Jewish. To protect myself.

And it is especially hard to see the hatred in today's world.

I don't practice Judaism today. But it is my history. It is a part of me. And my ancestors have endured a lot. So, yes, this book, Anne Frank's experience, it is personal.

Premise: the diary of a young girl beginning on her 13th birthday (6-12-42). {Interesting that I am posting this review on the date that would have been celebrating her birthday 81 years later.} The diary ends August 1, 1944.

Despite all that was going on around her, Anne was a happy and cheerful person. She was talkative and inquisitive. She was challenged as a teenager, and didn't always understand everyone or the situation, but she still had a great sunshine spirit.

I think this was another reason the Rabbi felt this was an important book to share with us young ones as we were entering our commitment to Judaism. He not only wanted us to understand what it meant to be a Jew, and the sacrifices of those before us, but the joy of a good positive attitude - despite the circumstances they endured.

I'm not sure that always worked for me. I questioned why the Jews didn't fight back. Why they allowed themselves to be shuttled into camps so easily once they knew that was what was happening. And as I questioned, I was reminded of the deepness of their religious beliefs of love and fellowship and the goodness and belief in humanity.

Thank you Anne.

We need to get back there again. Love. Fellowship. Goodness and belief in humanity. Yes?

اگر یه روزی معلوم بشه که "ساراماگو" ایده ی کتاب "کوری" رو از این کتاب گرفته من یکی اصلا تعجب نمیکنم. واقعا این دو کتاب شباهت های زیادی به هم داشتن.از قرنطینه شدن عده ای در یک مکان در بسته(حالا یا به بهانه ی نژادشون یا به خاطر ابتلا به بیماری کوری) تا شروع دعوا و کشمکش برای بدست اوردن غذا و فضای بیشتر و تغییر رفتاری شخصیت های داستان تحت شرایط سخت و طاقت فرسا و غیره و غیره
-------------
سال 1942 و با شروع جنگ جهانی دوم، "آن فرانک" دختر چهارده ساله ی یهودی که به همراه خانواده اش از ترس نازی ها در مخفیگاهی پنهان شده ، شروع به نوشتن خاطراتش می کند. "آن" در آغاز این خاطرات را فقط برای خود می نویسد اما در سال 1944 به پیشنهاد یکی از اعضای تبیعدی هلند که در یک برنامه رادیویی، ابراز امیدواری میکند که بتوان در پایان جنگ نوشته های شاهدان عینی درباره درد و رنجی که یهودیان زیر یوغ ارتش هیتلری متحمل شده اند گرداوری و منتشر شود، تصمیم می گیرد تا در پایان جنگ خاطراتش را به صورت یک کتاب منتشر کند
دفترچه ی پاره شده ی خاطرات "آن فرانک" بعدها توسط یکی از دوستان خانوادگیشان پیدا و به پدر "آن" که تنها عضو باقی مانده از خانواده ی چهار نفره ی آنهاست داده می شود
----
تا حالا براتون پیش اومده؟
که وقتی شروع به خوندن کتابی می کنید که می دونید قراره در پایان، چه سرنوشت غم انگیزی در انتظار شخصیت های داستان باشه، بازم از صمیم قلب دعا می کنید و آرزو می کنید که معجزه ای اتفاق بیوفته و داستان به شکل دیگه ای تموم بشه
:((

شخصیت "آن" رو با تمام آرزوها و دردهاش، با تمام غم ها و شادی هاش و با تمام روح بلند پرواز و جسورش دوست داشتم. دغدغه های "آن"، به عنوان یک نوجوان 14 ساله و باور به اینکه هیچکس اونو جوری که باید درک نمیکنه و نمی فهمه برام یاد اور خاطرات دوری بود که در همین سن و سال گریبانم رو گرفته بود و منو وادار به رفتارها و برخوردهای عجیبی می کرد که برای هیچ کس حتی خودم قابل درک نبود^^. دلایل زیادی برای محبوبیت و اهمیت این کتاب ذکر شده و قطعا یکی از اونها صداقت و معصومیتی هست که در تمام طول کتاب موج می زنه و خواننده رو مجذوب خودش میکنه
----
داشتم فکر می کردم که واقعا چی میشه که بعضی از "آدم ها" به این نتیجه می رسن که خودشون بیشتر از سایر "آدم ها" حق زندگی کردن دارن!؟ اینکه بعضی ها به این نتیجه می رسن که "تویی که از نظر ما حق زندگی کردن نداری، پس لطفا یا خودت بمیر یا به دست ما کشته شو!!" واقعا چه نوع باور و تفکری، به انسانها چنین ایده ی ترسناک و وحشتناکی میده!؟

هر دفعه که با این حجم از وحشی گری انسان ها، در حق هم، رو به رو می شم، از خودم سوال می کنم که اون آدمهایی که حق پایمال شده ای دارن، واقعا چقدر اجازه دارن که حقشون رو با گرفتن "انتقام" بازپس بگیرن و همونطور که مورد قضاوت قرار گرفتن، دیگران رو قضاوت کنن!؟
گاهی اوقات فکر میکنم اینکه یهودی ها دراین زمانه این همه به ریختن خون دیگران تشنه هستن به این خاطره که چون خودشون در گذشته قربانی بودن و اینجوری سرشون اومده دلیلی نمی بینن که سر بقیه هم نیاد
به هر حال تنفر چیزی به جز تنفر به همراه نمی اره و این چرخه ی باطل و بیهوده تا روزی که انسانها ازش عبرت نگیره همچنان ادامه خواهد داشت
-----
حقیقتا یک باره مردن و آسوده خاطر شدن بهتر از زندگی در ترسی دائمی و انتظار کشیدن برای مرگ نیست!؟

خدا کند هر چه زودتر فرجی حاصل شود، حتی اگر قرار باشد بمب روی سرمان بریزند.هیچ چیز خردکننده تر از این تشویش و نگرانی دائمی نیست. خدا کند آخر این انتظار به سر برسد حتی اگر پایانی سخت در انتظارمان باشد. لااقل خواهیم فهمید که پیروز شده ایم یا شکست خورده ایم
آن م. فرانک
جمعه 26 مه 1944

I am basically a terrible person.

This isn't a review- I'm not going to go into my reasons for giving this book 2 stars. That would not do anybody any good. I will simply say that I feel extremely guilty rating the book this low, but I hope people understand that it doesn't reflect my view of the Holocaust as a whole, or my views of Anne Frank as a person. I have the utmost respect for both.

The girlfriend of my great-grandfather* lost her mother and her daughter in the Holocaust. Her daughter had a hairpin, a beautiful golden thing with topaz and pearls, and it was passed down to me. I never got to meet my great-grandfather nor Fanny (his girlfriend), but she put the pin in a box and gave it to my mother with these words written on it. (I was still a baby, and neither of them would live past my second birthday.)







That pin is a lot like this book. Whenever I look at it, nestled in my jewellery box, I feel the weight of generations of guilt pressing down on me. Its owner is long gone, and yet I feel the strangest thing- simultaneously connected and disconnected. I am in possession of something that unnamed girl loved, just as reading Anne's diary, and there's an eerie sense of abandonment in the object being left behind but their owners having perished long before their time.

Granted, I'm Jewish, but I can't help but feel that simply by being alive and knowing of the Holocaust and of genocides in general, I am doing them a disservice. In the wake of tragedies like this, there is nothing to say, there are no words, so I'm not going to waste this review talking about the merits and downfalls of this book. It is not mine to critique- this is the diary of a real girl who really did live, and so pointing out its flaws is a vain pursuit, in that it is so inextricable from its owner, just like that topaz hairpin.

There is a time and a place for criticising memoirs without criticising their authors, but now is not the time nor the place. Suffice it to say that I feel like an awful person for rating this so low, but I will not budge on it. One of my core principles is that I judge books in and of themselves, and how they stand on their own- it is impossible to do so here, with the text so linked to the history.

I don't know what to do with The Diary of Anne Frank or that hairpin. They remind me to never forget the tragedy, but how could I anyway? I don't own them, and I never can- they're relics, relics that do not and cannot ever belong to anybody but their original owners, and so I suppose I'll always feel like I'm keeping watch over the prized possessions of two girls who are never coming back to retrieve them.


*He was a baker who became an army dentist when the bakers' union went on strike in the Great Depression. Quite an interesting fellow.

Really good.

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