The Diary of Anne Frank: A Tragedy Revealed (1957 PDF)

# **The Diary of Anne Frank** ## **Published as: A Tragedy Revealed: A Heroine's Last Days** * **Author:** Ernst Schnabel * **Published:** 1957 * **Structure:** Chronological account ## **Chapter 1** The author found an old reel of movie film from 1941 of Anne Frank appearing for only 10 secon...

# **The Diary of Anne Frank** ## **Published as: A Tragedy Revealed: A Heroine's Last Days** * **Author:** Ernst Schnabel * **Published:** 1957 * **Structure:** Chronological account ## **Chapter 1** The author found an old reel of movie film from 1941 of Anne Frank appearing for only 10 seconds in a wedding film- she was an accident appearing in the film. The film was taken the year *before* Anne Frank and seven others went into hiding. The film was taken at a wedding and included nervous smiles, hurried waves of the departing bride and groom. Then, the camera briefly focused on Anne Frank standing alone by a window, looking out into space. She noticed the camera and flashed a smile, laughing with a mix of sudden merriment, surprise, and embarrassment. The author asked the projectionist to pause the film so they could examine her face more closely. When walking closer to the screen, the face disappeared as the canvas screen was granular and the beam of light split into a multitude of tiny shadows. Anne Frank, of course, is gone, but her spirit still stirs the conscience of the world. Her remarkable diary has been read in almost every language. The author was inspired by a letter from a teenage girl in Japan who said she thinks of Anne's Secret Annex as her second home. The diary has been a great success as a play. German audiences, who have invariably greeted the final curtain in stricken silence, have jammed the theaters in a nationwide act of penance. The author embarked on following the fading trail of this girl who has become a legend. The trail led from Holland to Poland, then to Germany where the author visited the moss-grown site of the old Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and saw the common graves shared by Anne Frank and 32,000 others. He interviewed 42 people who knew Anne or who survived the ordeal that killed her. Some had known her intimately in those last tragic months. But even the fragments of recollections from others fulfilled a promise. They make explicit a truth implied in the diary. They prove that Anne Frank, even in the most frightful extremity, was indomitable. ## **Chapter 2** The author recounts the story of Anne Frank, the Van Daans, and others going into hiding during the Nazi occupation of Holland in 1942. They hid in a tiny apartment, the Secret Annex, in the back of an Amsterdam office building, for 25 months. They were only protected by a swinging bookcase which masked the entrance to their hiding place and by the heroism of a few Christians who knew they were there. Anne Frank's diary recounts the daily pressures of their cramped existence: * hushed silences when strangers were in the building * diminishing food supply * the fear of fire from the incessant Allied air raids * the hopes for an early invasion * the dread of capture by the pitiless men who were hunting Jews from house to house and sending them to concentration camps The diary also describes the bickering, wounded pride, and tearful reconciliations of the eight human beings in the Secret Annex, and Anne's wish for her father's understanding. The diary also reveals Anne's tremulous and growing love for young Peter Van Daan. The actual diary contains entries up to August 1, 1944, where Anne Frank addresses her imaginary friend Kitty, talking about how she is impatient with her own unpredictable personality. The stage version continues the story, reconstructing what happened on August 4, 1944, the day when the Secret Annex was violated and its occupants were taken into captivity- only one returned. The author writes about the raid on the Secret Annex, stating that what happened on that August day was far less dramatic than what is now portrayed on the stage. There were no howling sirens or screaming brakes in front of the house. No one heard a sound. It was midmorning on a bright summer day and the eight people were relaxed and comfortable. The author describes what happened during the raid: * The police entered the building. They were looking for people hiding. * They drew their revolvers and forced Mr. Kraler to open the secret door behind the bookcase. * They entered the room. Mrs. Frank was standing there. Otto Frank stood beside his wife and children. * They demanded valuables and found Anne Frank's leather briefcase where she kept her diary and papers. * The police rifled through the papers and then loaded the prisoners into a truck, taking them away to a camp. Otto Frank, now 68 and remarried, lives in Switzerland. He regularly answers correspondence from all over the world about his daughter. He now knows that the Gestapo did not come running up the stairs, as portrayed in the play. The author describes the raid from the perspective of the other people in the building: * Miep was posting entries in the receipts book when a car drove up in front of the house. She heard footsteps on the stairs and then a door creaked open. * A man peered into Mr. Kraler's office. He said, “Quiet. Stay in your seats.” * Mr. Koophuis, the other man in the building, had not heard anything because of the noise from the warehouse. * Mr. Kraler was ordered by the police to push aside the bookcase and open the door behind it. * The police were then taken up the steps into the Secret Annex. The author writes about the events of August 4, 1944, from the perspective of Otto Frank: * Otto Frank, Margot, Anne, Mr. and Mrs. Van Daan, and Albert Dussel were standing there with their hands raised. * The police aimed a pistol at Otto Frank's chest. * They demanded valuables. The police rifled through Anne Frank's leather briefcase, dumping her papers onto the floor before taking the briefcase. * They were taken to the police headquarters. The author also interviews the other people who were in the building during the raid, who survived the war. These interviewees provided some clues about who may have betrayed the occupants of the Secret Annex. There is no certainty, but suspicion centers on a warehouse clerk who had been working in the building. This person was never told of their presence, so the clues that led to his suspicion could have been circumstantial. He seemed to have gathered many signs, such as: * The dial on the office radio was often left at BBC, indicating the presence of nocturnal listeners * He saw slight rearrangements in the office furniture * He heard inexplicable sounds from the back of the building. The author also interviewed the German police sergeant who arrested the occupants of the Secret Annex. He did not ask the sergeant anything because he believes that the sergeant would not have revealed anything. The author notes the irony that the occupants had grown optimistic in the last weeks of their self-imposed confinement. They had largely come to terms with the terrors of those first nights. They had also begun to feel hopeful as they watched the war winding down. German army communiqués made it clear that the war was approaching an end. The Russians were well into Poland and the Americans had broken through at Avranches. Holland must be liberated soon. Anne Frank wrote that she thought she might be back in school by fall. The author notes what happened on August 4th. The group was not taken away in a dramatic, chaotic scene that is often depicted in theatrical renditions. The police did not approach with howling sirens or stop with screaming brakes in front of the house. No one screamed or yelled. It was all relatively quiet. The author explains it was midmorning on a bright summer day, and the eight people were relaxed and comfortable. Otto Frank was giving Peter Van Daan an English lesson. It was seemingly an ordinary day. When the police arrived, Anne Frank was writing in her diary and did not have time to grab her notebooks, which were left on the floor. The author details what happened when the police took the prisoners to the Gestapo headquarters. They were interrogated only briefly. The author emphasizes that the authorities would not have believed that Otto Frank would actually know the whereabouts of any other Jews who were hiding in Amsterdam after they had been in hiding for 25 months. The Franks, the Van Daans, and Dussel were kept at police headquarters for several days. The prisoners were relatively comfortable and the food was better than what they had been eating in the Secret Annex. Then the group was moved to Westerbork, a concentration camp for Jews in Holland. The author writes about how the prisoners were transferred to the camp, noting that: * The train journey was relatively comfortable. * They were cheerful because they had been given a little food for the journey. * They had been given a bolted door, but they were together and had been given a little food for the journey. * They anticipated the possibility that they would be taken to an additional camp. * They knew what was happening to Jews in Auschwitz, but they had heard that the Russians were well into Poland, so they thought they might be spared. Anne Frank would not move from the window during the trip. She was staring out at the meadows, stubble fields and villages that sped by. She was hopeful and felt a sense of freedom. It seemed like freedom to her after two arduous years of being locked up. The author goes into detail about the camp, detailing how Anne Frank spent her last weeks. They were not taken to Auschwitz immediately, but were kept for a few weeks at a camp called Westerbork. The author describes the events and Anne Frank's experiences at the camp in detail: * Mrs. de Wiek, a woman who had also been hiding in the Secret Annex with her family, described seeing Anne Frank and Peter Van Daan every day at Westerbork. * She thought Anne Frank was so radiant that her beauty had been transferred to Peter Van Daan. * She thought Anne, although pale, was attractive because of her grace and expressive face. * Anne Frank seemed very happy at Westerbork in spite of the tough conditions, while everyone else was worried. * She explained that Anne could laugh and talk to new people, unlike them, who thought only: Will they send us to the camps in Poland? Will we survive? * Anne’s mother Edith, seemed numbed by the experience. * Anne’s sister Margot spoke little. * Anne’s father Otto Frank was very quiet. * He was in the men’s barracks but came over to Anne’s bedside every night when she was ill, and he would stand beside her bed for hours, telling her stories. * When a boy named David fell ill, Anne stood by his bedside and talked to him, often praying. They both were very religious. Anne Frank was at Westerbork only three weeks. Then, a thousand “convict Jews” were taken from Westerbork and put on a train. Mrs. de Wiek rode on that train, along with Anne Frank and the others to Auschwitz. The author interviewed Mrs. de Wiek, who described what happened on the train and during the trip to Auschwitz: * They were sent to Auschwitz. * They were packed 75 people to each freight car. * The train stopped often because of air raids. * At Auschwitz, the SS officers were shouting orders. * The prisoners were told to separate: Women to the left, men to the right. * Mrs. de Wiek saw her family, but did not see her husband again. * They were then told to march to the women’s camp. * The sick and children were told to wait for trucks that had red crosses painted on them. * The prisoners rushed to the trucks, but not one person who got on the trucks ever arrived at the women’s camp. * The prisoners who did not get on the trucks all went to the gas chambers. Mrs. de Wiek and her daughter, Mrs. Van Daan, Mrs. Frank, Margot, and Anne survived the brutal journey to Auschwitz. The author then details what it was like to live at Auschwitz: * Their heads were shaved. * They were made to dig sods of grass, which were then placed in great piles for hours every day. * They watched each day as thousands of people were gassed and the smokes from the crematoriums blackened the sky. The author notes that Anne Frank seemed even more beautiful there, despite her long hair being gone. She had always been a slim, athletic girl but she lost weight while she had been in hiding. The beauty in Anne’s eyes seemed to grow bigger as she grew thinner. Anne’s gaiety had vanished, but she seemed to be alert, sweet, and charming. She could still charm people. She used her charm to beg for things that the rest of them had given up hope of obtaining, such as a spare sack to wear during the colder months. She often gave out the bread to everyone in the barracks. The author continues, describing how the Frank family’s story ended: * Anne and Margot Frank contracted typhus and became very ill. * Margot Frank fell into a coma and somehow rolled out of bed and died. * Mrs. Van Daan also died of typhus. * Anne’s death was nearly unnoticed. * Anne died peacefully. The author points out that the SS fled Auschwitz, but they took Peter Van Daan with them. He was never heard from again. Anne Frank and her mother Edith were sent to Bergen-Belsen. The author went to Belsen and walked over the heath, where the old camp is located. He describes the site noting that thousands were buried there. The author writes about Anne Frank’s friend, Lies Goosens, who was in Bergen-Belsen. Lies described Anne as a beautiful and radiant girl. The author describes how Anne and Lies met at Bergen-Belsen after they had been separated by the barbed wire and how Anne was freezing and starving when they met. They were both alone, but Lies’s family still had enough food and extra clothing. Anne was sick, and had no food or clothing. They both cried when they met. ==End of OCR for page 9==