A life less ordinary and a person par excellence is always remembered no matter how long he/she lives. Some people come and go without being noticed, no one remembers what they did and what they did not, because they are the crowd. While some people have an impact so great that they are remembered and talked about even when they have consigned to the pages of history. It is about such a life and person I am going to talk of.
The Time Magazine listed her in their 100 most influential people of the 20th century, her woks have been translated into 67 languages across the world, she has become a household name for her courage and heroism, along with everything else she came to represent and symbolize the power of a book. Let me introduce you to the solemn-eyed, cheerful, moody, funny, self-critical, other-critical teenager, Anne Frank.
Anne Frank born on June 12, 1929 led a normal carefree life like any other teenager, until increasing tensions and impending dangers to life, forced her to move to Amsterdam along with her family. She spent the next three years in Amsterdam at the secret annexe above her father?s office. She died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp months before she could celebrate her sixteenth birthday.
The Diary of a young girl, was first published in the year 1947 after it was found by Miep Gies, one of the helpers. Miep gave the manuscripts to Otto Frank who thought he should get it published to let the world see the times they live in through her diary, and in 1947 the first Dutch edition appeared. Since then the diary has been published in more then 55 languages.
It is a collection of letters that she wrote to her imaginative friend called kitty. In the first sentence she writes, I hope I will be able to confide everything to you and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support. Little did she realize how far and wide her support and comfort would extend and how it would touch upon the lives of millions of people and leave an indelible marks on their hearts with her innocent portrayal of the harrowing times she faced and how amidst all this adversities she managed to live the life of a teenager sometimes jovial, sometimes mischievous, and sometimes critical of things around her.
The diary starts from Sunday 14th June 1942 and the last entry is dated August 4th, 1944. She used to read a lot and her favorite was Cissy Van Marxveldt?s ?Joop Ter Heul?, which is written in the forms of letters, Anne follows the same style of writing addressing her letters to her imaginary friend kitty. She talks about her life as a teenager, her first flings of romance, her curiosity about sex, her anguish about not being able to attend schools, her sorrows at the deaths and destruction happening all around her. In her teenage innocence she pens down the difficulties they were facing in the cramped annexe, the shortage of ration and how they had a tough time in the wake of the Nazi Anti-Jewish policies. She praises her motherland, ’’Fine specimens of humanity, those Germans, and to think I’m actually one of them! No, that’s not true, Hitler took away our nationality long ago. And besides, there are no greater enemies on earth than the Germans and Jews.’’ - October 9, 1942
On the very same day in another entry in the diary she talks about the Nazis anti-Jewish policies ’’Our many Jewish friends and acquaintances are being taken away in droves. The Gestapo is treating them very roughly and transporting them in cattle cars to Westerbork, the big camp in Drenthe to which they’re sending all the Jews.... If it’s that bad in Holland, what must it be like in those faraway and uncivilized places where the Germans are sending them? We assume that most of them are being murdered. The English radio says they’re being gassed.’’ - October 9, 1942. She comes across as a very nature writer for her age, one wonders what an amazing writer she would have turned out to be, if only she had survived the holocaust.
What makes her writings so special is the innocent and purified account of the gory times she lived in. She comes across as a symbol of sinless childhood, someone people empathize with as they see the Europe of the times through her accounts and descriptions. She gives a first person account of what millions of Jews had to undergo under the Nazi barbarism. She also comes across as a teenager full of life, brimming with enthusiasm and optimism. Like any other kid of her age, she is critical about herself, caustic about her parents, envious of her sister and so very curious. She wants to live a normal life, see things and enjoy them. One becomes a part of her journey as she grows during the course of her writing, sometimes it feels as if, in her own words, she has been fitted with two contradictory souls one that is untouched by the times she lives in and the other so mature and conspicuous of what?s happening around her.
She talks about her despair and sadness ’’I’ve reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, and I can’t do anything to change events anyway. I’ll just let matters take their course and concentrate on studying and hope that everything will be all right in the end.’’ - February 3, 1944 as she is fed up with the cramped and painful life in the annexe where they have to hide like rats. She chides kitty as she says Hush. Be quiet. Whisper. Walk softly...take off your shoes. Who’s still in the bathroom? The water’s running. For God’s sake, don’t flush the toilet! After two years you should know better than to be so careless. Empty the chamber pots. Shove the beds back out of the way. The church bells are already ringing the half hour. When the workers arrive at 8:30, there has to be dead silence.
Anne has become the humane face of millions of holocaust victims and she symbolizes the optimism, hope and faith of the people who were at the receiving end of the Nazi atrocities. In her own words ’’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. She still believes that things might change for good, in probably her last entries before she was caught by the Gestapo she writes, 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 shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.’’ - July 15, 1944
In words, which were probably prophetic, one year before her death from typhus in the Bergen-Belsen camp, she wrote, ’’I want to be useful or give pleasure to people around me who yet don’t really know me. I want to go on living even after my death!’’. And live she does through her words and her innocent, honest and touching accounts of life under duress and of a life less ordinary.
P.S. It would be nice if people who have read the book also leave a comment saying when they read the book and what memories do they have of this diary?I read it when I was in school and read it again when I reache