The Diary of a Young Girl

V I N T A G E B O O K S E D I T I O N , M A R C H 1 9 9 6

Copyright © 1991, 2001 by The Anne Frank–Fonds, Basel, Switzerland

Introduction copyright © 2022 by The Anne Frank- Fonds, Basel, Switzerland and Nadia Murad

Foreword and afterword copyright © 2020 by The Anne Frank–Fonds, Basel, Switzerland

English translation copyright © by Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House LLC

Photographs copyright © The Anne Frank–Fonds, Basel, Switzerland

Anne Frank Stichting

The diary entry that appears on the endpapers is copyright

© The Anne Frank–Fonds, Basel, Switzerland

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto. The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition was originally published in hardcover in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, in 1995. Originally published in trade paperback by Anchor Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, in 1996.

Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

The translator is grateful to Stacy Knecht for her editorial assistance and to Nancy Forrest-Flier for her translation of the poems on this page, this page, this page.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Doubleday edition as follows:

Name: Frank, Anne, 1929–1945.

Title: The diary of a young girl / Anne Frank; edited by Mirjam Pressler; translated by Susan Massotty.

Other titles: Achterhuis. English

Description: First edition. | New York : Alfred A. Knopf, c2010.

Identifiers: LCCN 2010013836

Subjects: LCSH: Frank, Anne, 1929–1945—Diaries. | Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)—Netherlands—Amsterdam—Personal narratives. | Jews—Persecutions—Netherlands—Amsterdam. | Jews—Netherlands—Amsterdam—Diaries. | Amsterdam (Netherlands)—Ethnic relations.

Classification: LCC DS135.N6 F73313 2010 | DDC 940.53/18092 B—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2010013836

ISBN 9780385480338

Ebook ISBN 9780307776204

Cover design by Linda Huang

Cover photographs © Frans Dupont/Anne Frank Fonds - Basel via Getty Images

vintagebooks.com

CIP_prh_5.4_148350781_c0_r4

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Foreword

Introduction (2022)

JUNE 12, 1942

SUNDAY, JUNE 14, 1942

MONDAY, JUNE 15, 1942

SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 1942

SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 1942

SUNDAY, JUNE 21, 1942

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 1942

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 1942

SUNDAY, JULY 5, 1942

WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 1942

THURSDAY, JULY 9, 1942

FRIDAY, JULY 10, 1942

SATURDAY, JULY 11, 1942

SUNDAY, JULY 12, 1942

FRIDAY, AUGUST 14, 1942

FRIDAY, AUGUST 21, 1942

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1942

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1942

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1942

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1942

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1942

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1942

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1942

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1942

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1942

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1942

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1942

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1942

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1942

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1942

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1942

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1942

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1942

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1942

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1942

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1942

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1942

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1942

MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1942

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1942

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1942

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1942

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1943

SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 1943

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1943

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1943

THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1943

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 1943

FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 1943

THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1943

FRIDAY, MARCH 19, 1943

THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 1943

SATURDAY, MARCH 27, 1943

THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 1943

FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 1943

TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 1943

SATURDAY, MAY 1, 1943

SUNDAY, MAY 2, 1943

SUNDAY, MAY 2, 1943

TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1943

SUNDAY, JUNE 13, 1943

TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 1943

SUNDAY, JULY 11, 1943

TUESDAY, JULY 13, 1943

FRIDAY, JULY 16, 1943

MONDAY, JULY 19, 1943

FRIDAY, JULY 23, 1943

MONDAY, JULY 26, 1943

THURSDAY, JULY 29, 1943

TUESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1943

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 4, 1943

THURSDAY, AUGUST 5, 1943

SATURDAY, AUGUST 7, 1943

MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 1943

TUESDAY, AUGUST 10, 1943

MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 1943

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1943

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1943

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1943

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1943

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1943

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1943

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1943

MONDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 8, 1943

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1943

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1943

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1943

MONDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1943

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1943

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1943

MONDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1943

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1943

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1943

SUNDAY, JANUARY 2, 1944

THURSDAY, JANUARY 6, 1944

THURSDAY, JANUARY 6, 1944

FRIDAY, JANUARY 7, 1944

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12, 1944

SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 1944

WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 19, 1944

SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 1944

MONDAY, JANUARY 24, 1944

FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 1944

FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 1944

SUNDAY, JANUARY 30, 1944

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1944

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1944

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1944

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1944

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1944

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1944

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1944

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1944

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1944

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1944

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1944

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1944

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1944

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1, 1944

THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 1944

FRIDAY, MARCH 3, 1944

SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1944

MONDAY, MARCH 6, 1944

TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 1944

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 1944

FRIDAY, MARCH 10, 1944

SATURDAY, MARCH 11, 1944

SUNDAY, MARCH 12, 1944

TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 1944

THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 1944

THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 1944

FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 1944

SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 1944

SUNDAY, MARCH 19, 1944

MONDAY, MARCH 20, 1944

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22, 1944

THURSDAY, MARCH 23, 1944

FRIDAY, MARCH 24, 1944

SATURDAY, MARCH 25, 1944

MONDAY, MARCH 27, 1944

TUESDAY, MARCH 28, 1944

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 1944

FRIDAY, MARCH 31, 1944

SATURDAY, APRIL 1, 1944

MONDAY, APRIL 3, 1944

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 1944

THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 1944

TUESDAY, APRIL 11, 1944

FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1944

SATURDAY, APRIL 15, 1944

SUNDAY, APRIL 16, 1944

MONDAY, APRIL 17, 1944

TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 1944

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 1944

FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 1944

TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 1944

THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 1944

FRIDAY, APRIL 28, 1944

TUESDAY, MAY 2, 1944

WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 1944

FRIDAY, MAY 5, 1944

SATURDAY, MAY 6, 1944

SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 7, 1944

MONDAY, MAY 8, 1944

TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1944

WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 1944

THURSDAY, MAY 11, 1944

THURSDAY, MAY 11, 1944

SATURDAY, MAY 13, 1944

TUESDAY, MAY 16, 1944

FRIDAY, MAY 19, 1944

SATURDAY, MAY 20, 1944

MONDAY, MAY 22, 1944

THURSDAY, MAY 25, 1944

FRIDAY, MAY 26, 1944

WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 1944

FRIDAY, JUNE 2, 1944

MONDAY, JUNE 5, 1944

TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 1944

FRIDAY, JUNE 9, 1944

TUESDAY, JUNE 13, 1944

FRIDAY, JUNE 16, 1944

FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 1944

TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 1944

FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 1944

THURSDAY, JULY 6, 1944

SATURDAY, JULY 8, 1944

SATURDAY, JULY 15, 1944

FRIDAY, JULY 21, 1944

TUESDAY, AUGUST 1, 1944

Afterword

Editorial History

The Inhabitants of the Secret Annex and Their Real Names

The Helpers

The Secret Annex

Anne Frank Fonds

Illustrations

_148350781_

FOREWORD

ANNE AND THE FRANK FAMILY

Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt am Main on June 12, 1929, the second daughter of Edith and Otto Frank. Her sister, Margot, was three years older. Otto came from an upper middle-class German-Jewish family from Frankfurt am Main, while Edith (née Holländer), also Jewish, was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist from Aachen.

Given the rise of National Socialism (the Nazi Party) in Germany, difficult economic times with rampant inflation, and the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor of the Reich on January 30, 1933, the family no longer saw a future in Germany. In the summer of 1933, Otto Frank was the first member of the family to move to Amsterdam, followed a few months later by his wife Edith and then by Margot in late 1933. Finally Anne, who had been living with her grandmother in Aachen for a few weeks, joined the rest of her family.

In their first years in Amsterdam, the Franks lived in the middle-class, Jewish neighborhood of Merwedeplein, and Anne enjoyed a completely ordinary childhood, soon making new friends. She attended the Montessori kindergarten and school until she was compelled to enroll in the Jewish Lyceum.

AMSTERDAM UNDER NAZI OCCUPATION

The Germans occupied the Netherlands in May 1940, and life changed dramatically for the Frank family. On June 20, 1942, Anne wrote:

Jews were required to wear a yellow star; Jews were required to turn in their bicycles; Jews were forbidden to use streetcars; Jews were forbidden to ride in cars, even their own; Jews were required to do their shopping between 3 and 5 P.M.; Jews were required to frequent only Jewish-owned barbershops and beauty parlors; Jews were forbidden to be out on the streets between 8 P.M. and 6 A.M.; Jews were forbidden to go to theaters, movies or any other forms of entertainment; Jews were forbidden to use swimming pools, tennis courts, hockey fields or any other athletic fields; Jews were forbidden to go rowing; Jews were forbidden to take part in any athletic activity in public; Jews were forbidden to sit in their gardens or those of their friends after 8 P.M.; Jews were forbidden to visit Christians in their homes; Jews were required to attend Jewish schools, etc.

From October 1940 onward, Otto Frank, as a Jew, was no longer allowed to own a company. Anne and Margot were no longer allowed to attend school with gentiles and were forced to transfer to the Jewish Lyceum in the autumn of 1941. From May 1942, the whole family had to wear a Jewish star visibly on their clothing, as did all Jews in the Netherlands.

During this period, Otto Frank made intensive and repeated efforts to arrange for his family to emigrate from the Netherlands, but unfortunately his attempts to secure a visa were not successful, as none of the countries whose consulates he applied to were prepared to accept a family that were, in effect, stateless.

ESCAPE TO THE SECRET ANNEX

When Margot received a summons in early July 1942 to report for work in a labor camp, both girls learned for the first time that their parents had been preparing for some time a secret hiding place in an annex to Otto Frank’s factory in Prinsengracht. Otto Frank had been discreetly taking clothes, crockery, medicines, and the like, there over several months. Thus, on the evening of July 5, Anne and Margot packed a few belongings into their rucksacks to take with them the following morning. Anne had to say good-bye to Moortje, her beloved cat.

On July 6, Anne arrived in the secret annex, which her family would share with four other people. She would not leave it until her arrest on August 4, 1944.

THE DIARY

Anne Frank had been given a diary by her parents for her thirteenth birthday on June 12, 1942. From this day onward, she wrote letters in it to Kitty, her imaginary friend.

Having begun writing in her diary in her parents’ apartment in Merwedeplein, she continued her entries while hiding in the secret annex. At first, she wrote strictly for herself, but in spring 1944 as she was listening illegally to a London radio broadcast with her family, she heard a Dutch minister in exile announce that he hoped to publish after the war a collection of diaries and letters written during the German occupation. Inspired by this, Anne resolved to publish a novel entitled Het Achterhuis (The Secret Annex) based on her diary. At this point Anne started to edit and revise her writing, creating pseudonyms for most of the people mentioned.

The last entry of the diary is August 1, 1944. Three days later, on August 4, together with all the other people living in the secret annex, she was discovered and arrested and then eventually deported and killed. Otto Frank was the only inhabitant of the secret annex to survive the war and return from the concentration camps. Until his death, he dedicated himself to the publication of Anne’s diary.

INTRODUCTION (2022)

Growing up in rural Iraq, I didn’t know about Anne Frank’s remarkable life and diary. When we studied World War II in school, we read only about heads of state and military commanders, all of them men. If you’d asked me then what role a young girl like me could have in teaching people about history or war, I wouldn’t have known what to say. It was impossible for me to imagine myself living during those decades or in Europe, even though, for as long as I could remember, there was war in my country, and my community had been threatened because of our religion, just like Anne and her family.

I first read Anne’s diary years after leaving Iraq and, despite the obvious differences in our stories—and our countries, language, and religion, and the fact that I survived a war while she did not—I felt an instant connection to Anne. She wrote about the hatred she felt being in a Jewish family, first in Germany and then in the Netherlands. She described how that hatred starts small and grows slowly. After Jews were banned from public transport, Anne was angry about having to walk on a hot day. Although she was young, she recognized injustice, and she knew that discrimination could seem mundane before it became violent. It was the same for my community, decades later in Iraq. I felt the same anger during our war, and when I read Anne’s diary, I felt it for her, too.

At first, I was sad, reading her diary and being reminded that history repeats itself. But I also felt joy, and that is the miracle of Anne’s writing. I felt connected to her for the same reasons that have made her diary so beloved and so important to our understanding of World War II throughout the decades. Anne, lonely and isolated in the annex, wrote about her friends and family, her strained relationship with her mother and her love for her father. She wrote about crushes on boys and her obsession with movie stars. She wrote about politics and war; feminism and girlhood; moldy bread and the night sky; Russians marching into Romania and the rising cost of coffee. She complained when it was cold and described how to drown out the sound of gunfire by purposefully stumbling up the stairs.

She was undeterred and unafraid to write honestly about everything inside herself, even though the world dismissively derides young women’s thoughts. One of my most prized possessions from my childhood was a collection of photographs of girls in my village wearing dramatic makeup. When we had to flee our homes, I locked it in a closet to keep it safe. For years, I was embarrassed to admit that. I thought that in order to do the serious work of helping my people, I had to hide my girlishness. But Anne plastered her wall with photos of celebrities. When her family fled to the annex, she packed old letters and hair curlers, the craziest things, she wrote, but I’m not sorry. Like me, she worried she wouldn’t be taken seriously, but she was defiant about who she was. And later, when she writes about Allied strategies or feminism, she’s sitting next to those photos of movie stars.

I wish I had been able to read this book when I was as young as Anne, still living in rural Iraq and aware of all the tension and violence that surrounded us, but unsure of what I could do to change things. I would have realized sooner what I know now. Although the voices of young women are too often drowned out by history, our stories are transformative.

Nadia Murad

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.

JUNE 12, 1942

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.

COMMENT ADDED BY ANNE ON SEPTEMBER 28, 1942:

So far you truly have been a great source of comfort to me, and so has Kitty, whom I now write to regularly. This way of keeping a diary is much nicer, and now I can hardly wait for those moments when I’m able to write in you.

Oh, I’m so glad I brought you along!

SUNDAY, JUNE 14, 1942

I’ll begin from the moment I got you, the moment I saw you lying on the table among my other birthday presents. (I went along when you were bought, but that doesn’t count.)

On Friday, June 12, I was awake at six o’clock, which isn’t surprising, since it was my birthday. But I’m not allowed to get up at that hour, so I had to control my curiosity until quarter to seven. When I couldn’t wait any longer, I went to the dining room, where Moortje (the cat) welcomed me by rubbing against my legs.

A little after seven I went to Daddy and Mama and then to the living room to open my presents, and you were the first thing I saw, maybe one of my nicest presents. Then a bouquet of roses, some peonies and a potted plant. From Daddy and Mama I got a blue blouse, a game, a bottle of grape juice, which to my mind tastes a bit like wine (after all, wine is made from grapes), a puzzle, a jar of cold cream, 2.50 guilders and a gift certificate for two books. I got another book as well, Camera Obscura (but Margot already has it, so I exchanged mine for something else), a platter of homemade cookies (which I made myself, of course, since I’ve become quite an expert at baking cookies), lots of candy and a strawberry tart from Mother. And a letter from Grammy, right on time, but of course that was just a coincidence.

Then Hanneli came to pick me up, and we went to school. During recess I passed out cookies to my teachers and my class, and then it was time to get back to work. I didn’t arrive home until five, since I went to gym with the rest of the class. (I’m not allowed to take part because my shoulders and hips tend to get dislocated.) As it was my birthday, I got to decide which game my classmates would play, and I chose volleyball. Afterward they all danced around me in a circle and sang Happy Birthday. When I got home, Sanne Ledermann was already there. Ilse Wagner, Hanneli Goslar and Jacqueline van Maarsen came home with me after gym, since we’re in the same class. Hanneli and Sanne used to be my two best friends. People who saw us together used to say, There goes Anne, Hanne and Sanne. I only met Jacqueline van Maarsen when I started at the Jewish Lyceum, and now she’s my best friend. Ilse is Hanneli’s best friend, and Sanne goes to another school and has friends there.

They gave me a beautiful book, Dutch Sagas and Legends, but they gave me Volume II by mistake, so I exchanged two other books for Volume I. Aunt Helene brought me a puzzle, Aunt Stephanie a darling brooch and Aunt Leny a terrific book: Daisy Goes to the Mountains.

This morning I lay in the bathtub thinking how wonderful it would be if I had a dog like Rin Tin Tin. I’d call him Rin Tin Tin too, and I’d take him to school with me, where he could stay in the janitor’s room or by the bicycle racks when the weather was good.

MONDAY, JUNE 15, 1942

I had my birthday party on Sunday afternoon. The Rin Tin Tin movie was a big hit with my classmates. I got two brooches, a bookmark and two books.

I’ll start by saying a few things about my school and my class, beginning with the students.

Betty Bloemendaal looks kind of poor, and I think she probably is. She lives on some obscure street in West Amsterdam, and none of us know where it is. She does very well at school, but that’s because she works so hard, not because she’s so smart. She’s pretty quiet.

Jacqueline van Maarsen is supposedly my best friend, but I’ve never had a real friend. At first I thought Jacque would be one, but I was badly mistaken.

D.Q.* is a very nervous girl who’s always forgetting things, so the teachers keep assigning her extra homework as punishment. She’s very kind, especially to G.Z.

E.S. talks so much it isn’t funny. She’s always touching your hair or fiddling with your buttons when she asks you something. They say she can’t stand me, but I don’t care, since I don’t like her much either.

Henny Mets is a nice girl with a cheerful disposition, except that she talks in a loud voice and is really childish when we’re playing outdoors. Unfortunately, Henny has a girlfriend named Beppy who’s a bad influence on her because she’s dirty and vulgar.

J.R.—I could write a whole book about her. J. is a detestable, sneaky, stuck-up, two-faced gossip who thinks she’s so grown-up. She’s really got Jacque under her spell, and that’s a shame. J. is easily offended, bursts into tears at the slightest thing and, to top it all off, is a terrible show-off. Miss J. always has to be right. She’s very rich, and has a closet full of the most adorable dresses that are way too old for her. She thinks she’s gorgeous, but she’s not. J. and I can’t stand each other.

Ilse Wagner is a nice girl with a cheerful disposition, but she’s extremely finicky and can spend hours moaning and groaning about something. Ilse likes me a lot. She’s very smart, but lazy.

Hanneli Goslar, or Lies as she’s called at school, is a bit on the strange side. She’s usually shy—outspoken at home, but reserved around other people. She blabs whatever you tell her to her mother. But she says what she thinks, and lately I’ve come to appreciate her a great deal.

Nannie van Praag-Sigaar is small, funny and sensible. I think she’s nice. She’s pretty smart. There isn’t much else you can say about Nannie.

Eefje de Jong is, in my opinion, terrific. Though she’s only twelve, she’s quite the lady. She acts as if I were a baby. She’s also very helpful, and I like her.

G.Z. is the prettiest girl in our class. She has a nice face, but is kind of dumb. I think they’re going to hold her back a year, but of course I haven’t told her that.

COMMENT ADDED BY ANNE AT A LATER DATE:

To my great surprise, G.Z. wasn’t held back a year after all.

And sitting next to G.Z. is the last of us twelve girls, me.

There’s a lot to be said about the boys, or maybe not so much after all.

Maurice Coster is one of my many admirers, but pretty much of a pest.

Sallie Springer has a filthy mind, and rumor has it that he’s gone all the way. Still, I think he’s terrific, because he’s very funny.

Emiel Bonewit is G.Z.’s admirer, but she doesn’t care. He’s pretty boring.

Rob Cohen used to be in love with me too, but I can’t stand him anymore. He’s an obnoxious, two-faced, lying, sniveling little goof who has an awfully high opinion of himself.

Max van de Velde is a farm boy from Medemblik, but a decent sort, as Margot would say.

Herman Koopman also has a filthy mind, just like Jopie de Beer, who’s a terrible flirt and absolutely girl-crazy.

Leo Blom is Jopie de Beer’s best friend, but has been ruined by his dirty mind.

Albert de Mesquita came from the Montessori School and skipped a grade. He’s really smart.

Leo Slager came from the same school, but isn’t as smart.

Ru Stoppelmon is a short, goofy boy from Almelo who transferred to this school in the middle of the year.

C.N. does whatever he’s not supposed to.

Jacques Kocernoot sits behind us, next to C., and we (G. and I) laugh ourselves silly.

Harry Schaap is the most decent boy in our class. He’s nice.

Werner Joseph is nice too, but all the changes taking place lately have made him too quiet, so he seems boring.

Sam Salomon is one of those tough guys from across the tracks. A real brat. (Admirer!)

Appie Riem is pretty Orthodox, but a brat too.

*Initials have been assigned at random to those persons who prefer to remain anonymous.

SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 1942

Writing in a diary is a really strange experience for someone like me. Not only because I’ve never written anything before, but also because it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. Oh well, it doesn’t matter. I feel like writing, and I have an even greater need to get all kinds of things off my chest.

Paper has more patience than people. I thought of this saying on one of those days when I was feeling a little depressed and was sitting at home with my chin in my hands, bored and listless, wondering whether to stay in or go out. I finally stayed where I was, brooding. Yes, paper does have more patience, and since I’m not planning to let anyone else read this stiff-backed notebook grandly referred to as a diary, unless I should ever find a real friend, it probably won’t make a bit of difference.

Now I’m back to the point that prompted me to keep a diary in the first place: I don’t have a friend.

Let me put it more clearly, since no one will believe that a thirteen-year-old girl is completely alone in the world. And I’m not. I have loving parents and a sixteen-year-old sister, and there are about thirty people I can call friends. I have a throng of admirers who can’t keep their adoring eyes off me and who sometimes have to resort to using a broken pocket mirror to try and catch a glimpse of me in the classroom. I have a family, loving aunts and a good home. No, on the surface I seem to have everything, except my one true friend. All I think about when I’m with friends is having a good time. I can’t bring myself to talk about anything but ordinary everyday things. We don’t seem to be able to get any closer, and that’s the problem. Maybe it’s my fault that we don’t confide in each other. In any case, that’s just how things are, and unfortunately they’re not liable to change. This is why I’ve started the diary.

To enhance the image of this long-awaited friend in my imagination, I don’t want to jot down the facts in this diary the way most people would do, but I want the diary to be my friend, and I’m going to call this friend Kitty.

Since no one would understand a word of my stories to Kitty if I were to plunge right in, I’d better provide a brief sketch of my life, much as I dislike doing so.

My father, the most adorable father I’ve ever seen, didn’t marry my mother until he was thirty-six and she was twenty-five. My sister Margot was born in Frankfurt am Main in Germany in 1926. I was born on June 12, 1929. I lived in Frankfurt until I was four. Because we’re Jewish, my father immigrated to Holland in 1933, when he became the Managing Director of the Dutch Opekta Company, which manufactures products used in making jam. My mother, Edith Holländer Frank, went with him to Holland in September, while Margot and I were sent to Aachen to stay with our grandmother. Margot went to Holland in December, and I followed in February, when I was plunked down on the table as a birthday present for Margot.

I started right away at the Montessori nursery school. I stayed there until I was six, at which time I started first grade. In sixth grade my teacher was Mrs. Kuperus, the principal. At the end of the year we were both in tears as we said a heartbreaking farewell, because I’d been accepted at the Jewish Lyceum, where Margot also went to school.

Our lives were not without anxiety, since our relatives in Germany were suffering under Hitler’s anti-Jewish laws. After the pogroms in 1938 my two uncles (my mother’s brothers) fled Germany, finding safe refuge in North America. My elderly grandmother came to live with us. She was seventy-three years old at the time.

After May 1940 the good times were few and far between: first there was the war, then the capitulation and then the arrival of the Germans, which is when the trouble started for the Jews. Our freedom was severely restricted by a series of anti-Jewish decrees: Jews were required to wear a yellow star; Jews were required to turn in their bicycles; Jews were forbidden to use streetcars; Jews were forbidden to ride in cars, even their own; Jews were required to do their shopping between 3 and 5 P.M.; Jews were required to frequent only Jewish-owned barbershops and beauty parlors; Jews were forbidden to be out on the streets between 8 P.M. and 6 A.M.; Jews were forbidden to go to theaters, movies or any other forms of entertainment; Jews were forbidden to use swimming pools, tennis courts, hockey fields or any other athletic fields; Jews were forbidden to go rowing; Jews were forbidden to take part in any athletic activity in public; Jews were forbidden to sit in their gardens or those of their friends after 8 P.M.; Jews were forbidden to visit Christians in their homes; Jews were required to attend Jewish schools, etc. You couldn’t do this and you couldn’t do that, but life went on. Jacque always said to me, I don’t dare do anything anymore, ’cause I’m afraid it’s not allowed.

In the summer of 1941 Grandma got sick and had to have an operation, so my birthday passed with little celebration. In the summer of 1940 we didn’t do much for my birthday either, since the fighting had just ended in Holland. Grandma died in January 1942. No one knows how often I think of her and still love her. This birthday celebration in 1942 was intended to make up for the others, and Grandma’s candle was lit along with the rest.

The four of us are still doing well, and that brings me to the present date of June 20, 1942, and the solemn dedication of my diary.

SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 1942

Dearest Kitty!

Let me get started right away; it’s nice and quiet now. Father and Mother are out and Margot has gone to play Ping-Pong with some other young people at her friend Trees’s. I’ve been playing a lot of Ping-Pong myself lately. So much that five of us girls have formed a club. It’s called The Little Dipper Minus Two. A really silly name, but it’s based on a mistake. We wanted to give our club a special name; and because there were five of us, we came up with the idea of the Little Dipper. We thought it consisted of five stars, but we turned out to be wrong. It has seven, like the Big Dipper, which explains the Minus Two. Ilse Wagner has a Ping-Pong set, and the Wagners let us play in their big dining room whenever we want. Since we five Ping-Pong players like ice cream, especially in the summer, and since you get hot playing Ping-Pong, our games usually end with a visit to the nearest ice-cream parlor that allows Jews: either Oasis or Delphi. We’ve long since stopped hunting