Anne Frank
Anne Frank
Annelies Marie Frankwas a German-born diarist and writer. She is one of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Her diary, The Diary of a Young Girl, which documents her life in hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II, is one of the world's most widely known books and has been the basis for several plays and films...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth12 June 1929
CityFrankfurt, Germany
CountryGermany
Our opening ceremony this year is really exciting.
it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl.
Once again St. Nicholas Day Has even come to our hideaway; It won't be quite as fun, I fear, As the happy day we had last year. Then we were hopeful, no reason to doubt That optimism would win the bout, And by the time this year came round, We'd all be free, and safe and sound. Still, let's not forget it's St. Nicholas Day, Though we've nothing left to give away. We'll have to find something else to do: So everyone please look in their shoe!
Why should some people have such a hard time during their few years on this earth?
Riches, power and fame last only for a few years! Why do people cling so desperately to these transitory things? Why can't people who have more than they need for themselves give that surplus to their fellow citizens? Why should some people have such a hard time during their few years on this earth?
I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are still truly good at heart,
Who would ever think that so much can go on in the soul of a young girl?
I do my best to please everybody, far more than they'd ever guess. I try to laugh it all off, because I don't want to let them see my trouble.
Outside, you don't hear a single bird, and a deathly, oppressive silence hangs over the house and clings to me as if it were going to drag me into the deepest regions of the underworld.... I wander from room to room, climb up and down the stairs and feel like a songbird whose wings have been ripped off and who keeps hurling itself against the bars of its dark cage.
Sometimes I think God is trying to test me, both now and in the future. I'll have to become a good person on my own, without anyone to serve as a model or advise me, but it'll make me stronger in the end.
Sometimes I'm so deeply buried under self-reproaches that I long for a word of comfort to help me dig myself out again.
I love you, with a love so great that it simply couldn't keep growing inside my heart, but had to leap out and reveal itself in all its magnitude.
I want to go on living even after death!
I hid myself within myself ... and quietly wrote down all my joys, sorrows and contempt in my diary.