Article on the excerpt from the diary of a young girl
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The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank details approximately two years of the life a Jewish teenager during World War II. During much of the time period covered by her journal, Anne and her family are in hiding in an attempt to escape Hitler’s anti-Jewish laws and genocidal desires. Anne’s diary ends abruptly in August 1944. On that day, she and her family are taken into custody by the Germans and transported to concentration camps.
Shortly after Anne gets her diary as a gift on her thirteenth birthday, her sister Margot gets call-up orders by the German army. These call up orders force her Jewish family into hiding from Hitler and his men. Anne and her family are joined in the “Secret Annex” — a portion of Otto Frank’s office building — by the three members of the van Daan family and a dentist named Albert Dussel.
Anne’s diary entries are written to a fictitious girl named “Kitty” whom Anne treats as her best friend. She initially writes mostly her thoughts, interactions, and occurrences that she believes might entertain her friend. In her March 29, 1944 entry Anne’s emphasis changes as she hears that Mr. Bolkestein, the cabinet minister, speaks of his desire to put together a collection of diaries and letters about the war. Anne starts detailing the news she gets about the war and the way the war is affecting them. She tells what they eat and what they talk about during their days in hiding.
Anne spends most of her life in a terrible time when Jews were persecuted; yet, her belief in the goodness of people is amazing. She states several times in her journal, even when the family is in hiding from those who want to kill them, that she still believes that people are inherently good. Perhaps, it is the resiliency of Anne’s positive nature that is the most memorable theme in her writing. In addition to news of the war and everyday occurrences, Anne gives details about her relationship with her mother. She also journals about love and her desire to be a better person.
Anne brings out the angst of not having a land of their own in her diaries. Nazi regime had brought radical and daunting social economic and communal change to the German Jewish community. Nazi legislation had marginalized and disfranchised Germany’s Jewish Citizens. They were expelled from the profession and from commercial life. Thousands of Jews were forced to leave their houses and flee to other countries. Helpless people were dragged out of their homes at any time of night and day. Children came from school only to find that their parents had disappeared. Most of the time, Anne realizes that she and her family are very fortunate to have the Annex as a place to hide. She values the kindness and generosity of her father’s non-Jewish colleagues who are risking their lives to provide them with food and supplies.
However, Anne often complaints about the physical and emotional conditions of the Annexe the confinement bothers her. Anne as a Jew is considered by the Nazi regime to belong to a race that doesn’t deserve to exist. In Nazi-Germany anti-Jewish decrees ruled the day. Jews were supposed to wear a yellow star, they were banned from trams and forbidden to dive. They had to be indoors by eight O’clock and were barred from theatres, cinemas and other places of entertainment. They could shop only in Jewish shops and could study only in Jewish schools. They were banned from trams and were forbidden to drive. The Jews were stereotyped by the German Society as if all the Jews behaved in the same manner. The Jews belonged to a different race, a different religion and spoke different languages. The Germans showed an anti- Semitic attitude.
The Christians blamed the Jews for giving secrets to the Germans for betraying their help and for the fact that, through the Jews, a great many others before them, and suffered terrible punishment and a dreadful fate. No one can always be silent, this is practically impossible. Jews had to suffer a lot during those periods of time. It was always said that the Jews fight together for freedom, truth and right. Anne couldn’t understand why the Dutch always judged Jews like that. What one Christian does is his own responsibility and what one Jew does is considered as done by all Jews. The Jews were the most oppressed, the unhappiest, perhaps the most pitiful of all peoples of the whole world.