The Best Friend We All Have...But Ignore

In the early morning on 12 June 1942, Anne Frank tiptoed into the living room, eagerly looking for what she had been thinking about the whole night: the presents. Today was her 12th birthday.?

Anne Frank was the younger daughter of Otto Frank (father) and Edith Hollander (mother), a Jewish family living in Holland. They had migrated from Germany in the early 1930s to escape Nazi rule. She also had an elder sister, Margot.?

Among the presents, the first thing she noticed was a diary, a gift from her father. Immediately falling in love with it, on the very same day, she wrote:

“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.”?

Her first words were so prophetic.?Reflecting on writing a diary, a few days later, on 20 June 1942, she wrote:

“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.”?

At the time, little did she know how an ordinary diary would become her closest friend and eventually turn into one of the most widely read books on the horrors of the holocaust and the invincibility of the human spirit??That small diary would eventually make her immortal.

Dear Kitty

Confessing, she had many friends and even admirers, but not a single true friend, she named the diary “Kitty.” From then onwards, all her entries began with “Dear Kitty” or “Dearest Kitty” and ended with “Yours, Anne.”

Treating the diary as her friend, she told Kitty (on 20 June 1942) the following about living in Holland in the early 1940s under the German occupation:?The freedom of Jews was severely curtailed with anti-Jewish decrees. For example, Jews were forbidden to ride streetcars and even their own cars. They were allowed to shop only between 3 pm and 5 pm. Jews were not allowed to sit in their gardens after 8 pm. No admission to theatre, movie halls or swimming pools. All Jews were required to wear a yellow star for quick identification.?

As she poured out her frustrations about living under the German occupation, she had little idea how even this restricted life would soon turn into a luxury compared to what was ahead.

Life turns upside down

Just a few weeks later, on 8 July 1942, she wrote: “It seems like years since last Sunday morning. So much has happened as if the whole world had suddenly turned upside down.”

Indeed, the world had changed for the Franks. Three days back, on Sunday afternoon (5 July 1942), the family had received a call up from the German security service SS, ordering Anne’s elder sister, Margot, to report. As the Jews were routinely rounded up, everyone knew what the call up meant: imprisonment in a concentration camp and worse.?

Luckily, her father had a plan.

The next morning, at 7:30 am, Anne’s family quietly left their home and headed, in the pouring rain, toward a secret hiding place, an annex on the third floor of the office building where his father used to work.?

A few days later, Frank family was joined by another Jewish family (van Pels: husband, wife and their son, Peter) and one more gentleman (Fritz Pfeffer). Together, the eight persons started living in hiding to escape the capture by SS.?

The rules of the hiding were stringent: Of course, no going out. Windows had to be covered with curtains all the time, restricted hours for the use of toilets to avoid noise, frequent blackouts and never to throw out rubbish to avoid suspicion.?

Their lives depended on six helpers who were mainly her father’s colleagues in business and worked in the office and warehouse in the same building downstairs. Heroically risking their own lives for helping Jews, the helpers supplied food, books to read, and even cakes on birthdays to the Secret Annex residents. After a few days, one of them built a bookcase (with hinges) that covered the door to a narrow staircase to the Secret Annex.?

On 11 July 1942, days after going into the hiding, the reality had started sinking as she wrote:

“Not being able to go outside upsets me more than I can say, and I'm terrified our hiding place will be discovered and that we'll be shot. That, of course, is a fairly dismal prospect.”

From July 1942, the time Anne went into hiding with her family, until Aug. 1944, for more than two years, she kept almost forensic account of her life, writing fearlessly about everything: fears, anxieties, hopes, war situation, conflicts with her mother, disagreements among the inhabitants of the Secret Annex, detailed portraits of people she lived with, her romance with fellow occupant Peter, memories of deceased grandma, her thoughts about life and God, and so on. In all, she wrote (in Dutch) over 500 entries in her diary.

Live war and fear of being caught

Sharing the grim reality of Holland at the time, on 19 Nov. 1942, she told Kitty:?

“In the evenings when it's dark, I often see long lines of good, innocent people, accompanied by crying children, walking on and on, ordered about by a handful of men who bully and beat them until they nearly drop. No one is spared. The sick, the elderly, children, babies and pregnant women -- all are marched to their death.”

On 26 July 1943, she shared how she felt during a bombing campaign nearby:

“The house shook and the bombs kept falling. I was clutching my 'escape bag,' more because I wanted to have something to hold on to than because I wanted to run away. I know we can't leave here, but if we had to, being seen on the streets would be just as dangerous as getting caught in an air raid.

I can assure you that when I went to bed at nine, my legs were still shaking. At the stroke of midnight I woke up again: more planes!?

I stayed in Father's bed until one, in my own bed until one-thirty, and was back in Father's bed at two. But the planes kept on coming. At last they stopped firing and I was able to go back "home" again. I finally fell asleep at half past two.”

She goes on to describe her ultimate nightmare in her entry on 8 Nov. 1943:?“At night in bed I see myself alone in a dungeon, without Father and Mother.”

After living in the hiding for almost two years and seeing no prospects of freedom, on 3 Feb. 1944, she wrote:?

“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.”

Unfortunately, the end was to come eventually, a brutal one.?

The last entry

Her last entry was on 1 Aug. 1944. Three days later, all the eight people hiding in the Secret Annex were found out in a surprise raid by the SS and deported to concentration camps.?

Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945 just short of her 16th birthday. Her mother and elder sister too died there.?

Her father, Otto Frank, however, survived the camps and was released in Jan. 1945. When he finally returned to Amsterdam in June 1945, Miep Gies, one of the helpers who had protected the family, gave Otto the biggest surprise of his life: Anne’s diary.?

After the arrest of the residents of the Secret Annex, Miep had found Anne’s diary strewn on the floor.?She kept it safe all along until Otto returned.

In candid conversations with Kitty, Anne Frank had expressed her interest to become a writer and publish her diary. Honoring her wishes, he published the book in 1946, first in Dutch, followed by the English edition in 1952. To date, The Diary of Young Girl remains one of the classics.?

Do you have a true friend?

Almost 80 years later, we too are living in isolation, fearful of getting ambushed by Covid-19. And along with the anxieties about our own as well as the health of family, friends and relatives, jobs, money and so on.

Do you have a true friend to whom you can say everything (yes, EVERYTHING)??

On 20 June 1942, Anne told Kitty: “Paper has more patience than people.”?

Writing on 24 Dec. 1943, she informed Kitty, “My writing has raised me somewhat from ‘the depths of despair.’”

Fortunately, we all have our own best friend any time we need her. But unfortunately, most of us don't know the therapeutic benefits of truthfully and fearlessly confiding in her. We keep her closed and remain closed.

=== The end===

Books related to the subject of writing a personal diary or a journal:

1. The New Diary by Tristine Rainer
2. Open Up by Writing it Down by James W. Pennebekar and Joshua M. Smyth
3. Writing Down Your Soul by Janet Conner