Post type: Book review, Date: 27-April-2020, Language: English

Author: Anne Frank

Although this book has been known to me since early adolescence, I never had thought of picking it up. Maybe, I was lucky to have read it at this time, when the lock-down due to the global pandemic puts me also in similar situation, albeit remotely analogous. Another advantage that worked in my favour is my fresh memory of the historical facts of World War 2, thanks to a docu-series “The Greatest events in World War 2 restored in color” streaming on Netflix.

The first thing I wanted to know after I finished the book was: “Who betrayed them?”. Not only because of the sympathies to all the Jews who were systematically hounded by the Nazis, but because of my feeling that Anne Frank would make a fine author in the post-war years. As she puts it, people who knew her would agree that her best characteristic trait was her self-knowledge. For a young teenage girl to be this observant and succint in her diary entries, it could mean nothing else but a budding talent waiting to blossom.

Her writing gives a direct glimpse of their life in hiding, inside the Secret Annexe, down to the minutest detail. The initial entries left me with an impression that these were just the insecurities, reproaches and rebellion within every young teenager. However, as one progresses through the diary, it can be seen that her entries were not mindless scribbling but well thought about and articulated. In one of her last entries (although she must have not known that it was), she gives a description of the contradictions in her personality. The way she describes her two faces, one jovial and flippant, and the other, tender and solemn, and how she juggles with them depending on the external circumstances was remarkable observation from a 14 year old. This was the most attractive aspect of the book and Anne herself, that left me greatly impressed.

Through her friend, Kitty (the diary), she finds a place to vent out her feelings, emotions, musings, longings, thoughts, happiness, hope, despair, and much more. She uses the best tool at her disposal: her self-knowledge to re-invent herself every moment, as people and circumstances around her are constantly changing. This can be seen in her letters to Margot and Pim, which she writes on serious matters. The strength of her character can also be read from the way she engages in self-criticism and admits to her mistakes.

Reading this diary was a revealing experience to me, since now I fear that my understanding about my own self is incomplete, after all. It has kept me thinking about my own contradictions, my subtle faces, which operate in adjustment with external surroundings involuntarily.

As I ended reading the afterword to the book, I so dearly wished that she lived to be an accomplished author and journalist, fulfilling her dream!