I first read this about a year ago and it probably affected me more than any other book I read. I didn't find the actual diary too upsetting but what happened to her after certainly was. I recommend Roses From The Earth by Carol Ann Lee if anyone wants a full biography on her. I have also read an essay that Anne wrote whilst in hiding, called Give. It showed that Anne was a very idealistic person and maybe a bit naive but also very loving and generous. So what are your thoughts on the book? Do you think Anne had the talent to realise her dream and make it as a writer if she had lived? (although I suppose she did make it as a writer anyway!) If you want to watch a film then 'Anne Frank - The Whole Story' and the BBC's 'Diary of Anne Frank' are both on youtube and are both brilliant. I've recently written something based on Anne which I may post on this forum in the near future.
In truth, and this of course says nothing about her considerable courage or the horror of her predicament, I find the diaries quite difficult to read. I can't say I warm to her. She (as a youngster) is a little too earnest for me. (An earnestness which is not a product of her situation).
Like art I struggle a little with Anne's personality it is a wonderful story, I often wonder if it is the translation, I personally find books translated from German into English difficult to warm to - but Connie Ten Boom, Mother Maria and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were characters who's stories brought the Holocaust alive for me. The Bishop of Singapore Leonard Wilson was also an amazing man. He was a Japanese POW. By all accounts when asked by his captors under torture why his God did not rescue him. He said my God does rescue not by removing me from the situation but by giving me the strength to bear all. There was an Anne Frank diary type girl during the Yugoslavian conflict her name began with a Z and her diary I really warmed to and loved.
Anne Frank's diary is a good read. It provides a unique viewpoint on the Holocaust, and I would recommend it to those who haven't read it. However, I do wonder if the diary reflects how she really wrote. I remember reading that the editor wanted to make the diary more dramatic. He changed a few things, and in the process I'm guessing that things like sentence structure and word choice were changed as well. So I can't help but wonder what her writing was really like, especially since she was 13 or 14 when she wrote in her diary.
First, I tried to read the diary when I was much too young, and it didn't really work. I finished it when I was 9 years old and thought it was really boring. But when I turned 13, our class read the play and I decided to give it another shot. I was much more moved the second time. I think part of it was just being her age when the diary starts. Something about Anne's personality clicked with me. I think had I lived then and there, we would have been friends. The earnestness is especially upsetting to me. Anne should have been out in the world living her life to its fullest like any other 13-year-old girl, but the horrible circumstances didn't permit it. I think I might have seen one of the films you talked about, by the way. It went through Anne's entire life, including what happened afterward. When I saw it at the age of 13 (we watched it after reading the diary), I remember being so disturbed by the ending that I could not sleep. It was the first time the info about the holocaust I had vaguely learned in middle school was given any kind of life at all.
