Product Description

Anne Frank kept a diary from 12 June 1942 to 1 August 1944. Initially, she wrote it strictly for herself, but one day in 1944, Gerrit Bolkestein, a member of the Dutch government in exile, announced in a radio broadcast from London that after the war he hoped to collect eyewitness accounts of the suffering of the Dutch people under the German occupation, which could be made available to the public. As an example, he specifically mentioned letters and diaries. Anne Frank decided that when the war was over she would publish a book based on her diary.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #236740 in Books
• Published on: 1997-03-27
• Original language: Dutch
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Customer Reviews

Sad, but rewarding.
Reading this book is both rewarding and sad, so prepare yourself your both. I'm less than half way through this book and I feel nothing but sadness that such a life was taken at such a young time in life. I wish I could express my feeling about this book in the same way Anne could express herself in her diary, but I don't possess such a talent, even though I'm twenty years her senior. Like most people, I know what Anne's destiny is, and I find some aspects of this diary very difficult to read, knowing what I do.

I don't think I'm the only person alive that believes that the world is a poorer place without the talents of such gifted people like Anne, but we cant change the course of history, so lets hope we can learn the lesson of our past.

I'm not the type for travelling, but this diary has inspired me to visit Anne's 'secret Annex' to see first hand the place where she lived in isolation for so long. I've read many books in my time, but none have touched my heart as this one has.

A truly compelling, moving, book
This Novel, published posthomously by Ann's father, brings a human side to a horror so great it is hard to envisage. In a modern time of freedom and plenty, it is hard for us to image going into hiding, unable to go out and in constant danger of discovery, let alone imagine the horrible food shortages. Anns diary is written as if to a friend, and as the reader you become that friend, sharing in her whole, eventful life. It takes you to that un-imaginable time and place, and you get the opportunity to understand what it was like. One of the most moving books I have ever read, and re-read.

Heartbreaking
With an engaging combination of lively humour, teenage high spirits, adolescent angst and heart-wrenching despair at the terror that dominated her nights and days in a rickety Amsterdam warehouse, Anne Frank's diary is a living testimony to the senseless slaughter that took place in the Nazi concentration camps. Although she was an exceptionally gifted writer, in most respects she was just an ordinary teenage girl who was denied the chance of an ordinary teenage life. For me, this knowledge injected even the most humorous diary entries with a sense of sick irony - Anne is innocently hopeful throughout most of the book, but in the end she lost out. Her anguished cry, "Let the end come, even if it is hard!" came true, and sixty years later this harrowing quote speaks volumes, telling readers of the diary exactly how difficult conditions in the Secret Annexe were.

But in spite of this, Anne does not allow you to pity her. She is too lively, too quick-minded, too full of beans to tolerate that. Her personality and those of the seven people she shared a cramped attich with shine forth from the diary's pages.

The diary has special meaning for me as I am close to one of Anne and Margot's old friends, who unlike them returned alive. I am now the age Anne was when she died. Strangely, I too want to become a writer. Anyone who dares to dream about what they would like to do tomorrow should read this book.